Fake News: Civil War Did NOT Erupt In Sweden; Irate Swedes Did NOT Burn Nine Muslim Refugee Centers to the Ground (Again...)

Fact Check

  • by: Maarten Schenk
Fake News: Civil War Did NOT Erupt In Sweden; Irate Swedes Did NOT Burn Nine Muslim Refugee Centers to the Ground (Again...)

Did civil war just erupt in Sweden (again) after irate Swedes burned down nine muslim refugee centers to the ground (again)? No, the same old fake story which has been circulating since 2015 has been going viral again after being posted on the newest website of a network of Macedonian fake news sites we reported on last week.

This time the story appeared in an article published on December 1, 2018 on 'coolinfo24.com' titled "Civil War Erupts In Sweden as Irate Swedes Burn Nine Muslim Refugee Centers to the Ground - coolinfo24.com" (archived here) which opened:

Refugee centers in Sweden are being burned to the ground in what appears to be a statement against the significant number of refugees the country has allowed in. The multiple arsons have all been at facilities which house or are slated to house immigrants.

One could say that someone in Sweden is mad as hell and bringing fire and brimstone to the facilities that are to be used for refugees. Seven arson fires have occurred, all of which seem to be connected with immigrant centers.

The story is false and has been debunked several times since 2015:

Fact Check: No, Sweden Is Not Erupting in Some 'Civil War'

One duty of the fact checker as it pertains to internet rumors is the continued push back against those stubborn canards that consistently resurface. (Analogies of whack-a-mole are brought to mind.) "Civil War Erupts In Sweden as Irate Swedes Burn Nine Muslim Refugee Centers to the Ground" is one such mole.

Fake news says civil war erupted in Sweden

The Swedes are fed up with the "Muslim invasion" in their country and have fought back with fire, according to a news account on Facebook. "Civil war erupts in Sweden as irate Swedes burn nine Muslim refugee centers to the ground," states the headline in Pipo News, which linked to a similar 2015 article in JewsNews, a fake news website.

Civil War in Sweden as Irate Swedes Burn Refugee Centers?

Claim: A photograph depicts one of nine anti-refugee arson attacks in Sweden due to a "civil war" there over refugees. WHAT'S TRUE: Instances of arson (and suspected arson) have targeted refugees in Sweden. WHAT'S FALSE: There is major unrest in Sweden over refugees, and the photograph shown above depicts refugee-related arson.

What is more interesting is the website that published it this time: coolinfo24.com was launched just a few days according to WHOIS data:

Domain: coolinfo24.com
Registrar: One.com A/S
Registered On: 2018-11-28
Expires On: 2019-11-28
Updated On: 2018-11-28
Status: ok
Name Servers:
ns01.one.com
ns02.one.com
Registrant Contact
Country: MK

According to data collected through our Trendolizer engine it shares advertising codes with several sites in a huge network of other sites all registered in Macedonia. We wrote about that network and its latest tactics last week after an investigation in collaboration with Nieuwscheckers:

Old Network of Anti-Islam Fake News Websites Turns To Twitter Trolling | Lead Stories

Tara, Jesica, Ana, Lora: since a few weeks dozens of trolls on Twitter are dangling bait in front of American Trump supporters. Their goal: bring in as many clicks as possible for two commercial, (potentially Serbian) anti-islam websites. And it is working: in twelve days they reached a potential audience on Facebook of 3.8 milion users.

Quite amazing they still manage to go viral with a three-year-old story.

Want to inform others about the accuracy of this story?

See who is sharing it (it might even be your friends...) and leave the link in the comments.:


  Maarten Schenk

Lead Stories co-founder Maarten Schenk is our resident expert on fake news and hoax websites. He likes to go beyond just debunking trending fake news stories and is endlessly fascinated by the dazzling variety of psychological and technical tricks used by the people and networks who intentionally spread made-up things on the internet.  He can often be found at conferences and events about fake news, disinformation and fact checking when he is not in his office in Belgium monitoring and tracking the latest fake article to go viral.

Read more about or contact Maarten Schenk

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