Yesterday, perhaps high off the attention that a front-page article in the New York Times brings, Sweden’s official national tweeter for the week went wild. The experimental project, which allows a random citizen control of the @Sweden account, is meant to spur an interest in tourism, but the musings of current author Sonja just served to reinforce how little we understand Scandinavia. Today, on a riff about Jews, the wackiness wore off.
Although Sonja previously tested the controversial waters, proclaiming Hitler a beautiful name before World War II, she really went for it this morning: “Whats the fuzz with jews. You can’t even see if a person is a jew, unless you see their penises, and even if you do, you can’t be sure!?” she wrote. Then she kept digging deeper: “In nazi German they even had to sew stars on their sleeves. If they didn’t, they could never now who was a jew and who was not a jew.” Etc.
Eventually Sonja gave up: “The question seems to be sensitive and complicated. And a little bit…..… infected. So…. yes. See you later, I have stuff to do!” Probably for the best!
But it got us wondering what a chosen tweeter would have to do to be removed by VisitSweden, the company in charge of the account. “We are laying a puzzle showing a multifaceted and genuine image of Sweden,” the company’s social media manager told Daily Intel. “One piece at a time — curator by curator, tweet by tweet. We focus on the big picture and not on any single tweet.”
But that doesn’t give them absolute rein, he assured us: “There are a few extreme cases in which the Curator of Sweden would be removed: Breaking the law or blatant self promotion.” The real sins of the Internet.
