On Monday, the Nordic justice ministers met with representatives from Google, Meta, Snap, and Tiktok in Copenhagen.
In September, the ministers jointly demanded an action plan from the tech companies to stop gangs' recruitment of young people for various violent crimes, including murder. Now, such a plan has been presented.
The plan presented is a small step in the right direction, but I lack more concrete action, says Danish Justice Minister Peter Hummelgaard Thomsen at a press conference and continues:
Tech giants say they remove content that violates their guidelines, but the fact is that, for example, on YouTube, there are videos where illegal gangs and violence against police are glorified – videos that have been there for three years.
Taken in hand
The encrypted apps Telegram and Signal were also invited to the meetings, but did not respond. Something that Justice Minister Gunnar Strömmer (M) describes as "lousy".
He says, however, that recruitment often begins on the open platforms "that all our children" have access to and not just in encrypted apps.
Today, I think we should give the platforms a hand on taking responsibility for doing everything they can to remove material from the Nordic criminal networks from the platforms, he says at the press conference.
It's also about material that is not illegal, but promotes a criminal lifestyle, according to Strömmer.
Does not rule out age limit
He also wants to see concrete action from the companies and says that it is enough to scroll for a few minutes on different platforms to find material that should not be there.
Now it's up to the platforms to show that they mean business in practice, he says at the press conference.
He does not rule out introducing an age limit for social media either.
I rule out nothing in this situation, we have reached a point where we see that the harm and risks are so great both from a societal perspective and for individual children that we must be open to discussing different things, he says.
Both Tiktok and Snap write in comments to TT after the meeting that they are working hard to remove inappropriate material and look forward to continued cooperation with police authorities in the different countries.
