TABLE 1
Authoritarian opinions on the different topics (examples from the two forums)
| Components of authoritarianism | Disorder in school | Shootings & gang crime | Transgender & gender dysphoria |
|---|---|---|---|
| Conformism: the importance of conventions, natural relations, uniformity, and a related intolerance of difference. | “Use uniforms at all schools. Nicely dressed, no fuss!” (FB) “Parents must teach their children to fit in […] adapt to rules and norms”. (FB) | “Multiculturalism must go; there are no other solutions”. (FB) “Less subsidy immigrants, less crime, a better society!” (FB) | “The human body is not a laboratory where one can pretend to be one or the other, according to the mood of the day”. (FB) “It's pretty obvious that it's wrong and unnatural to want to change gender”. (FL) |
| Submission: the importance of obedience, discipline, and loyalty to authorities; intolerance of individual autonomy. | “The problems come when the student does not show respect for the teacher and as a brat refuses to stop arguing”. (FB) “In school you must respect the teacher, otherwise you will be locked out or beaten”. (FB) | “What if the fucking bitch [a mother] had taken some responsibility and raised them to be real people […]”. (FB) | “The thing about everyone's right to be who they are has gone too far”. (FL) |
| Aggression: the importance of harsh measures and punishment; intolerance of tolerance. | “Rough! Sometimes only tough love helps […] the time for educative talk is over”. (FL) “I am pissed off at the laxity in Sweden today […] Cuddling and petting the children is never successful”. (FL) | “What is needed is tougher punishment, skip the insane penalty discount”. (FL) “Criminal foreigners must leave and with them the whole clan”. (FB) | “Sterilise the parents at the same time; if they can’t even teach their children what reality looks like, they shouldn’t have any more children!” (FB) “Absolutely insane […] those responsible for this madness should be lynched”. (FB) |
[i] Comments: The studied forums are Flashback (FB) and Familjeliv (FL). The gathered data was published between 2020 and 2022.
TABLE 2
Authoritarian opinions in two forums on three topics (number of threads)
| Familjeliv | Flashback | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| disorder | shootings | transgender | disorder | shootings | transgender | ||
| Authoritarian opinions | Dominant | 2 | 0 | 0 | 16 | 9 | 11 |
| Mixed | 5 | 8 | 4 | 6 | 6 | 1 | |
| No | 1 | 0 | 5 | 0 | 5 | 0 | |
| Total number of threads | 8 | 8 | 9 | 22 | 20 | 12 | |
[i] Comments: I have separated between threads totally dominated by posts articulating authoritarian attitudes, threads with a mixture of authoritarian and non-authoritarian, and liberal attitudes and threads from which authoritarian attitudes are almost completely absent.
TABLE 3
News references and authoritarian opinions in the threads
| References to news items | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Yes | No | ||
| Authoritarian opinions | Dominant | 35 (66%) | 4 (15%) |
| Mixed | 13 (24%) | 16 (62%) | |
| No | 5 (9%) | 6 (23%) | |
| Total | 53 | 26 | |
[i] Comments: “References to news items” means that the thread starts in a post reproducing a news item or that several other posts contain links to news items. For “Authoritarian opinions”, I have separated between threads totally dominated by posts articulating authoritarian opinions, threads with posts articulating a mixture of authoritarian and more liberal opinions, and threads from which authoritarian opinions are almost completely absent.