The Swedish government is considering imposing age restrictions on social media platforms if tech companies are unable to stop criminal gangs from recruiting children and young people online for their purposes. Reuters news agency gave this news on MondayGang crime has increased rapidly in Sweden in recent years. The northern European country now has the highest number of deadly shootings per capita, according to Reuters.
Advertisement
According to Swedish police, organized crime has begun using social media platforms in the past two years, sometimes recruiting teenagers for murders and bombings. In the first seven months of this year, 93 youths under the age of 15 in Sweden were suspected of being involved in planning a murder. “Social networks are places where children and young people are very present,” Sweden’s Justice Minister Gunnar Strömmer said after a meeting between Scandinavian justice ministers and representatives. Are there for that too.” From Google, Meta, Snapchat and TikTok in Copenhagen on Monday For the Swedish daily newspaper Dagens NyheterHe described the situation as “serious”. The minister said they would examine steps taken by other countries and see what is best for Sweden.
Social media ban for children in Australia
Australia became the first country in the world to ban children from social media. In late November, the Australian Parliament made an immediate decision to ban social media for everyone under the age of 16. Tech companies, but also child protection and human rights organizations criticized the move. Initially, there will be a one-year trial phase in which tech companies will test age verification systems. The results should be evaluated in mid-2025.
In no other democratic country in the world are the new requirements as stringent as in Australia. Great Britain is also planning to raise the age limit for social media use to 16. France last year banned social media for children under 15, although this can be circumvented with parental consent. And Florida is the first US state to ban everyone under the age of 14 from the social network. Other US states allow use only with parental consent. A ban on social media for children and youth is also being discussed in Germany. However, the Federal Agency for the Protection of Children and Youth in the Media (BzKJ), formerly the Federal Testing Agency for writings harmful to minors and latterly Media Harmful to Minors, is clearly against a complete ban.
action plan of tech companies
at the meeting on Monday According to Dagens Nyheter Several tech companies presented an action plan to Scandinavian justice ministers. This, among other things, provides an opportunity to enhance cooperation with the police. “At the same time, platforms must be proactive when vetting content,” Stormer demanded. “You have to use both AI tools (…) and a lot of manual review to qualitatively identify and remove content associated with these criminal actors.” Ministers also urged social media platforms to better regulate and change the algorithms that control content display so that children and youth are not influenced by gang-related content. Tech companies should not only ban criminal content from their platforms, but also ban content that “promotes a criminal lifestyle.”
Representatives from Telegram and Signal were also invited to the meeting, but according to Stromer, “they didn’t even respond.” On the other hand, representatives of TikTok, Meta, Google and Snapchat have promised, Sweden’s Justice Minister said, “that they will do everything in their power to remove Nordic criminal networks from the platforms.” His Danish counterpart Peter Hammelgaard Thomsen, on the other hand, was more skeptical of Dagens Nyheter. A handshake does not equate to concrete measures, Hammelgaard said.
(AKN)
