Mapping of foreign information influence

On behalf of the Ministry of Local Government and Regional Development, in collaboration with the Norwegian Defence Research Establishment (FFI) and Common Consultancy, we have begun mapping the extent to which foreign actors attempt to influence Norwegians on social media in connection with Norwegian elections in the period 2023-2025. This report is the first in the project and assesses the period before, during and immediately after the municipal and county council elections in 2023.

The study is based on data from Facebook, X/Twitter, Telegram and TikTok. Several analyses were carried out to look for signs of attempts to influence the outcome of the election, voter turnout, confidence in the conduct of the election, the political debate, the division of the population and the undermining of confidence in politicians, Norwegian authorities and Norwegian politicians.

The report consists of four analyses based on 5.7 million data points from the four platforms.

You can download the report here from FFI's website.