Gang crime: Sweden takes social media platforms to task

The Swedish government is considering introducing age restrictions for social media platforms if tech companies are unable to prevent criminal gangs from recruiting children and young people online for their own purposes. This was reported on Monday by the news agency Reuters. Gang crime has risen sharply in Sweden in recent years. According to Reuters, the northern European country now has the highest number of fatal shootings per capita in Europe.

According to Swedish police, organized crime has started using social media platforms in the last two years, in part to recruit teenagers for murders and bombings. In the first seven months of this year, 93 young people under the age of 15 were suspected of being involved in the planning of murders in Sweden. Social networks "are places where children and young people are very present. Obviously, criminals also use them to attract young people and then lure them into encrypted channels," Sweden's Justice Minister Gunnar Strömmer told the Swedish daily newspaper Dagens Nyheter after a meeting between Scandinavian justice ministers and representatives from Google, Meta, Snapchat and Tiktok in Copenhagen on Monday. He described the situation as "serious". The measures taken by other countries will be examined to see what is best for Sweden, he said.

Social media ban for children in Australia

Australia is the first country in the world to ban children from social media. At the end of November, the Australian parliament fast-tracked a social media ban for all under 16-year-olds. Tech companies as well as child protection and human rights organizations criticized the move. There will initially be a one-year test phase in which tech companies will trial age verification systems. The results are to be evaluated in mid-2025.

The new requirements are stricter in no other democratic country in the world than in Australia. The UK is also planning an age limit of 16 for the use of social media. In France, a social media ban for children under the age of 15 was passed last year, although this can be circumvented with the consent of a parent or guardian. And Florida is the first US state to ban all under 14-year-olds from social networks. Other US states only allow use with the consent of a parent or guardian. A social media ban for children and young people is also being discussed in Germany. However, the Federal Agency for the Protection of Children and Young Persons in the Media (BzKJ), formerly the Federal Review Board for Publications Harmful to Young Persons, later Media Harmful to Young Persons, is clearly against a blanket ban.

Action plan of the tech companies

According to Dagens Nyheter, several of the tech companies presented an action plan to the Scandinavian justice ministers at the meeting on Monday. Among other things, this provides for increased cooperation with the police. "At the same time, the platforms must take a proactive approach to checking content," Strömmer demanded. "They must use AI tools (...) as well as carry out many manual checks to qualitatively identify and remove content associated with these criminal actors." The ministers also urged social media platforms to better control and change the algorithms that control the display of content so that children and young people are not inundated with gang-related content. Tech companies should not only ban criminal material from their platforms, but also material that "promotes a criminal lifestyle".

Representatives from Telegram and Signal were also invited to the meeting but, according to Strömmer, "did not even respond". The representatives of TikTok, Meta, Google and Snapchat, on the other hand, had promised, according to Sweden's Minister of Justice, "that they will do everything in their power to remove the Nordic criminal networks from the platforms". His Danish counterpart Peter Hummelgaard Thomsen, on the other hand, was more skeptical, telling Dagens Nyheter. A handshake is not the same as concrete measures, said Hummelgaard.

(akn)