The 'Holiday' network – an example of how AI is used for improper information influence

Report MPF/2026:402, announced on 1 September 2026, on a partly AI-driven bot network on X that the agency named Holiday, about 1,200 accounts in all. It began in spring 2025 as some 200 accounts, about 60 of them posing as Swedish users with AI-generated pictures, Swedish-sounding names and manipulated location data, and took opposing sides on proposals from the government and opposition; after a pause at the end of 2025 it returned larger, active around the clock, engaging real users and joining pile-ons against politicians, agencies, companies and media outlets. It made more than 50,000 posts, replies and shares in 2025 and 2026. The agency finds clear indications that an East Asian vendor created it and evidence that a state actor ordered it, but states that no definitive technical attribution has been made and names no state. After it and the Post and Telecom Authority alerted X, the platform suspended all the accounts in summer 2026.