Wammen challenges tech giants over child safety

Justice Minister Nicolai Wammen says tech companies are doing too little to protect children and young people. He told representatives of Meta, TikTok, Google, Snapchat, Roblox and Discord at a meeting in the ministry that they must do more, DR reports. Representatives of the organisations Red Barnet and Digitalt Ansvar also attended.

Wammen said children in Denmark can encounter sexual content and videos of violence and humiliation on social media, be recruited into gangs or be offered drugs for sale.

“The big tech giants have done far too little for too long, and Danish children and young people are paying a price for it,” he said. “They need to step up now and join the fight.”

Martin Ruby, Meta’s head of public policy for the Nordic region, said the company had no interest in hosting “disgusting or illegal content”. Meta owns Facebook and Instagram.

Ruby acknowledged that the presence of even one such item on Meta’s platforms meant the company was not doing enough, but said it was in a better position than it had been a few years ago. He said the company uses both moderators and artificial intelligence to identify and remove harmful content, while stressing that new material constantly appears and that some content still gets through.

“We want to remove these things,” Ruby said. “It is just a question of catching what is being uploaded in Brønshøj or Bangladesh right now. We have to catch it in a split second.” He added that regulation was acceptable and described the effort to find and remove harmful material as an “eternal battle”.

Christian Hannibal, TikTok’s head of public policy in Denmark, said violent and humiliating videos had no place on the platform, and that the company had a significant responsibility to remove them. He said TikTok removes harmful content once it becomes aware of it, and called the effort a “race” against users who upload such material.

Wammen said he was pleased the companies were focused on the issue but that “far too much is moving far too slowly”. He said the companies must demonstrate in practice that they want to protect young people, and that he and other government colleagues would continue to hold them accountable.

Wammen said he did not expect one meeting to bring about a miracle, but argued that it was important to keep the companies under pressure. “They are not protecting our children and young people properly today,” he said.