Sweden’s democratic experiment in the @Sweden Twitter account, where different citizens “curate” the official account of the nation, seems to have turned a corner from fun to not-funny.
The New York Times reported that the @Sweden program, known as Curators of Sweden, came about when both the Swedish Institute and Visit Sweden, the government tourist agency, sought to develop a plan to present the country to the world on Twitter.
The project has been in full swing for about six months and has covered a variety of topics at the hands of each seven-day director. There have been photographs of a Christmas moose hunt, thoughts by a Muslim lawyer about immigrants named Muhammad, and an honest appraisal of masturbation.
But the latest curator, Sonja Abrahamsson, seems to be trying a bit too hard to be funny, reports The Atlantic Wire. Her tweet from Monday made a cringe-worthy Hitler joke:
“Before WW2 Hitler was one of the most beautiful names in the whole wide world. I know. Its as chocking as dolphin rapists.”
Tuesday as Abrahamsson continued to tweet, she seemed to be digging herself a hole. Gawker tracked a variety of unfortunate tweets, including this lovely observation:
“Whats the fuzz with jews. You can’t even see if a person is a jew, unless you see their penises, and even if you do, you can’t be sure!?”
For some, the Swedish experiment is inspirational. Nelson Bonner, a 66-year-old California native and the founder of @TweetWeekUSA, @TweetWeekNYC, and the Rotation Curation website told ABCNews, “Where I see this going is literally a revolution for world communications.”
But revolutionary or not, Sonja’s story embodies the Times deceptively simple point, “there is no such thing as a typical Swede.”