In summer 2025, Sweden’s neo-Nazi organization Nordiska Motståndsrörelsen (NMR) circulated fake posters using the logo of RFSL, the country’s national LGBTQ+ rights organization, falsely linking Pride to pedophilia. Released around Stockholm Pride, the posters spread widely across social media and public spaces. This episode offers a rare real-world case of targeted anti-LGBTQ+ disinformation in one of the world’s most LGBTQ-accepting societies. We field a preregistered four-arm vignette experiment to examine how exposure to this misinformation shapes attitudes toward LGBTQ+ people and Pride, and whether different corrective strategies can mitigate its effects. Respondents are randomly assigned to a control group, exposure to the poster, exposure via a newspaper article noting it might be fake, or exposure via an article featuring explicit counterspeech from RFSL representatives. The findings provide new insight into the effectiveness of far-right disinformation in eroding tolerance toward sexual and gender minorities—and how its impact can be reduced.
