By Johan Ahlander
STOCKHOLM (Reuters) – Ministers in Sweden’s federal government are taking into consideration enforcing age restrictions on social media sites systems if technology firms locate themselves not able to stop gangs from hiring youngsters on-line to execute murders and battles in the Nordics.
A wave of gang criminal offense has actually brought about Sweden taping one of the most lethal capturings per head in Europe, an opposite from 20 years back when it had amongst the most affordable.
Over the last 2 years Swedish cops state gangs have actually started utilizing social media sites systems as “digital marketplaces” to freely hire confidential teens, sometimes as young as 11, to devote murders and battles in the nation and in other places in the Nordics.
“It’s a very serious situation,” Swedish Justice Minister Gunnar Strommer informed Reuters after a conference with various other Nordic justice preachers and social media sites firms in Copenhagen on Monday.
“We are not ruling out anything,” he claimed, including that they would certainly analyze procedures taken by various other nations and see what was ideal for Sweden.
Australia passed a social media sites restriction for kids under 16 in November.
In the initial 7 months of this year 93 kids in Sweden under the age of 15 are thought of having actually been associated with intending murders, 3 times greater than in the exact same duration in 2014, according to cops stats.
Strommer claimed that reps from TikTok, Meta, Google and Snapchat had actually assured to do “everything in their power” to deal with the problem which it depended on the social media sites systems to reveal “concrete results.”
Telegram and Signal were additionally welcomed yet did not go to, the Danish federal government claimed in a declaration.
TikTok, Meta, Google, Snapchat, Telegram and Signal did not promptly react to ask for remark.
Danish cops claimed this month that because April they had actually signed up 32 situations in which Swedes were worked with to devote fierce criminal offenses. The mainly young criminals have actually been identified “child soldiers” by Danish political leaders.
Swedish Education Minister Johan Pehrson claimed he was seeing advancements in Australia after a social media sites restriction was enforced there lately.
“It’s not a the first step but it’s not ruled out,” he claimed of a restriction, yet he included that the federal government would certainly leave no rock unturned to quit kids investing way too much time on social media sites.
“We see that children are stuck in this dark sludge, throwing away their lives” he claimed.
(Reporting by Johan Ahlander; Additional coverage by Jacob Gronholt-Pedersen; Editing by Hugh Lawson)
