Demand for ban on parties spreading political messages anonymously raised in parliamentary debate on fake accounts.
But the Justice Minister is against legislating.
One should be cautious with legislation in this area, said Gunnar Strömmer (The Moderate Party) in Monday's debate.
He warned that laws targeting specific methods of political opinion formation are "democratically precarious".
There are alternative routes. One can think of self-regulation and agreements between parties.
The debate was requested by The Centre Party after TV4's revelation about how the Sweden Democrats' communications department uses anonymous accounts on social media.
Strategic deceit has no place in a democracy, said Malin Björk (C).
Political circus
The Liberals' party secretary Jakob Olofsgård emphasized that voters need to know who is behind political messages in order to hold parties accountable for their policies.
Legislation is the only way to stop the political circus.
The Liberals want the parliamentary oversight committee, where all parliamentary parties are represented, to ensure that the ongoing constitutional inquiry addresses the issue of legislating a ban on political parties spreading political messages anonymously on social media.
The Green Party has also spoken out in favour of a ban.
Tighten the law
Other parties, such as the Centre Party and the Social Democrats, are willing to discuss legislation, even if they do not yet say yes to a ban in law.
We need to tighten legislation in this area, said Anders Ygeman (S).
The Sweden Democrats' party secretary and group leader Mattias Bäckström Johansson stated that the Sweden Democrats are open to an agreement on common rules between parties.
But he also wants to see legislation against tech companies that strengthens freedom of speech. Bäckström Johansson claimed that the Sweden Democrats had been forced to use anonymous accounts, since tech companies had previously shut down the party's social media accounts following pressure from the Sweden Democrats' political opponents.
