The gang's crime ads often look like regular job ads and appear in chat channels on major platforms. They can involve anything from throwing a hand grenade to shooting someone dead.
The police have no clear legal basis to demand that it be taken down; that is the basis we want to create, says Gunnar Strömmer.
Quick takedown
The new law, which comes into force on Wednesday, means the police can demand that platforms take down digital channels as quickly as possible - within one hour at the latest.
If this is not done on time, the companies risk fines of up to five million kronor, depending on the severity of the violation.
It ranges from carelessness to someone very consciously and methodically looking the other way when gangs recruit, says Strömmer.
If recruitment is systematised, the sanction fee could be as much as four percent of the supplier's global turnover.
With the law, Sweden becomes the first in the EU to use legislation targeting gangs that is similar to the removal of recruitment material for terrorism.
The criminals use, among other things, Tiktok and Snapchat, and then redirect the calls to encrypted services such as Signal, writes Diana Qudhaib, press spokesperson for the police's national operational department (Noa), to TT.
Signal is not cooperating
Larger groups that were previously used have simultaneously been replaced with smaller ones - and in several cases, existing groups where computer games or football were discussed have been bought up by the gangs.
“This is problematic, especially since there is a complete lack of cooperation from Signal, which is the most common encrypted messaging service used in these contexts,” Qudhaib writes.
The police are also working closely with many of the tech companies, and the vast majority want to do more and cooperate with the police to protect children, according to Qudhaib. However, it is believed that the companies should do more to “act proactively and self-clean their platforms from this type of content,” Qudhaib writes.
