SVT should be banned from looking at social media

They say TikTok threatens democracy. Heard of X?

Aftonbladet’s editorial page is independent social democratic.

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It’s not every day you get scolded by DN’s legendary TV columnist Johan Croneman.

“I only feel contempt for SVT’s prejudiced Pucko TV” he wrote in a review of the program Veckans talkis.

I was there.

But it all requires a little background.

This week’s talk is an SVT program where two people talk about something that has become a topic of conversation online.

This week it was about Chang Frick, editor of the right-wing populist Nyheter idag, recording a film on X in which he brandished a weapon and was going to shoot at what he calls “Gucci caps”.

I criticized Chang Frick for this in the feature. I get that he’s trying to be funny, a talent he needs to work on. But the message is more dangerous than the humor.

I explained in SVT that it is about division and that it is the same type of joke that bullies use to then say “don’t you have a sense of humor”.

And I told you what I think should be done about gang crime. So that the police and harsh words are not enough. Without having to invest more in preventive work with investments in schools, social services and correctional services.

Johan Croneman is critical and writes that I “treat Frick as if he deserved to be treated seriously”.

He has a point in that.

Namely, I treat Chang Frick like everyone else. It’s not because I think his film was serious, but because I don’t think there is any other way to deal with right-wing populism.

The left won’t win any battles where you don’t show up.

The strategy of silencing right-wing populism, which some have argued for, can be said to have worked as it should, considering that the SD in practice rules the country.

And even if you can think that SVT is “pucko-tv”, it is currently the public service that we have in Sweden. There aren’t that many other campfires available.

On the other hand, Johan Croneman has a perhaps unintentional but important point in one thing he does not write outright: the short distance between the platform X, formerly Twitter, and SVT.

My five minutes in Vekkann’s talk ice was about a film that went viral on X. That was the news rating. And, I feel, nowadays that is almost always what is important.

SVT seems to have outsourced much of its creative process to Elon Musk’s platform. It’s a bit unfortunate because nowadays, apart from journalists, X is largely made up of political trolls, internet trolls and AI bots.

Going viral on X is a bit like winning a contest for cleverest toilet doodles. As a window to the Swedish people, it is useless.

TikTok is often discussed as a security threat. That’s for sure. But what is more important to protect than our democratic conversation?

I have a solution: SVT should completely scrap X and other social media as a source. Delete the X app and block the site from the TV house. Take power yourself again. Never mind what the trolls are mad about today.

How about instead discussing topics such as the F-kassan breakdown, child poverty or delayed trains?

I would love to come.