A jury in Gothenburg District Court has found Sara Nilsson, publisher of the site Dumpen, guilty of gross defamation against a man. The final verdict will be delivered on February 6, when the judge has the final say. The case concerns an exposure that the plaintiff claims has led to severe consequences.
In Gothenburg District Court, a jury has participated in the case against Sara Nilsson, the responsible publisher of the site Dumpen, who has been charged with gross defamation. According to the jury's decision following the main hearing, Nilsson is guilty. Lawyer Patrik Hansson, representing the suing man, emphasizes that it is the judge who decides finally. "But it is still the judge who has the final word here and decides," he says.
The man has sued Nilsson after a publication on Dumpen that he considers defamatory. Hansson describes the consequences as enormous and demands six months in prison. "This exposure has led to enormous consequences for him and we believe that the penalty value for this act corresponds to a prison sentence of six months," he explains. He points to the nature of the information and its wide dissemination as reasons why the sentence should exceed the minimum level.
During the trial, Patrik Sjöberg, co-creator of Dumpen and Nilsson's "right hand," testified. He explained the site's purpose: "We publish meetings with people who sex chat with children and want to meet them. That is our purpose and we have no other motives. We show reality." Sjöberg admitted that during a confrontation, he said the man likes "hard sex," based on chat messages. He dismissed the man's attempt to nuance the age: "I understand it as him trying to make it that he wished the child had turned 15. But we are children until we are 18 years old legally in Sweden, period."
A woman who previously worked for Dumpen testified for the defense. She described how she contacted the man for weeks via the apps Kik and Snapchat using an AI-generated image portraying her as a 14-year-old child. The man used his own name as a username, which facilitated identification via LinkedIn.
The case highlights the tension between journalism and defamation in Sweden, where juries are used in such cases to assess guilt.
