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Swedish artist turns Carl Bildt’s tweets to cartoons

The Local catches up with a Swedish illustrator Henrik Tomenius, who has captured the interest of the world through his tongue-in-cheek illustrations of tweets by Sweden's Twitter-savvy foreign minister Carl Bildt.

Swedish artist turns Carl Bildt's tweets to cartoons

Tomenius, 35, is an illustrator from Uppsala, eastern Sweden, whose artistic take on Carl Bildt has got people talking.

“Carl Bildt’s tweets are not intended to be funny but still they all hold comic potential as they are personal and raw,” he told The Local.

“I just need to tweak the meaning of them in one way or the other and the drawing is usually done.”

Tomenius’s comic versions of Carl Bildt’s tweets have resulted in thousands of people following him on Twitter (@carlbildtcomics), eager to see Bildt’s tweets coming to life each day.

“People seem to like it as it is a new approach to Twitter and tweets, and also as a new way of ridiculing a famous politician,” he told The Local.

The choice of Bildt was simple, according to Tomenius, and added that the 140 character limit of Twitter opened new doors for him as an artist.

“I chose Carl Bildt because he travels a lot, meets different people, voices his opinion about all manner of things and because he’s famous,” he said.

“The challenge of making something fast out of a short text like a tweet. The shortness of the tweet leaves a lot of room for interpretation, which is good for me.”

While unsure of whether the minister himself has noticed the comics, Tomenius sees big things ahead for the fictionalized version of Bildt he’s developed through his cartoons, including potentially even a book.

“It would be fun to collect the best tweet comics in a book or something… Maybe together with some longer Carl Bildt adventures in comic form.”

The Local has gathered some of Tomenius’s previously published comics in a gallery which can be viewed by clicking the link below.

The Local’s Carl Bildt comics gallery

And starting this week, we’ll be updating the gallery with new installments from @carlbildtcomics at least once a week, so be sure to keep an eye out for more creative cartoon interpretations of Carl Bildt’s tweets.

The Local

twitter.com/thelocalsweden

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DISCRIMINATION

Twitter appeals French court ruling on hate speech transparency

Twitter has appealed a French court decision that ordered it to give activists full access to all of its relevant documents on efforts to fight hate speech, lawyers and a judicial source said on Saturday.

Twitter appeals French court ruling on hate speech transparency
The Twitter logo is seen on a phone. Twitter has appealed a French court judgement requiring it to share documents with activist groups. Photo: Alastair Pike / AFP

In July, a French court ordered Twitter to grant six French anti-discrimination groups full access to all documents relating to the
company’s efforts to combat hate speech since May 2020. The ruling applied to Twitter’s global operation, not just France.

Twitter has appealed the decision and a hearing has been set for December 9, 2021, a judicial source told AFP, confirming information released by the groups’ lawyers.

Twitter and its lawyers declined to comment.

The July order said that Twitter must hand over “all administrative, contractual, technical or commercial documents” detailing the resources it has assigned to fight homophobic, racist and sexist discourse on the site, as well as the offence of “condoning crimes against humanity”.

It also said Twitter must reveal how many moderators it employs in France to examine posts flagged as hateful, and data on the posts they process.

READ ALSO: French court orders Twitter to change smallprint over ‘abusive’ methods

The July ruling gave the San Francisco-based company two months to comply. Twitter can ask for a suspension pending the appeal.

The six anti-discrimination groups had taken Twitter to court in France last year, accusing the US social media giant of “long-term and persistent” failures in blocking hateful comments from the site.

The groups campaign against homophobia, racism and anti-Semitism. Twitter’s hateful conduct policy bans users from promoting violence or threatening or attacking people based on their race, religion, gender identity or disability, among other forms of discrimination.

Like other social media giants it allows users to report posts they believe are hateful, and employs moderators to vet the content.

But anti-discrimination groups have long complained that holes in the policy allow hateful comments to stay online in many cases.

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