Sweden to censorship of online “illegal material” to secure Swedish parliamentary elections

The government is planning a meeting where they will require network giants like Facebook and Google to remove “offensive” material from their platforms. 

By – Brünnhilde

Facebook has chosen to not participate in the government’s planned meeting.

Last week, Minister of Digitalization Peter Eriksson (MP) threatened to tighten laws against online giants such as Google and Facebook to remove unwanted persuasive political material from their services.

According to TT , the minister would request a hard stop to “political dialogue”, which could affect the outcome of the parliamentary elections in the autumn.

But if the politicians cannot persuade online giants to obey their requests, it may become an issue of legislation.

“It is quite possible that we may have to take harder measures to fix this issue,” said Peter Eriksson to TT.

The minister first flew to the EU Commission in Brussels to discuss the issue, and then to Facebook’s European office in Dublin.

In the coming days, the Swedish government will also meet Facebook in Sweden, requesting the network giant to expand their crew so that they can quickly act to remove “offensive or illegal material” on their platforms.

“We must be able to make sure that they follow their own guidelines and remove such material as quickly as possible,” said Justice Minister Morgan Johansson (S) to Ekot.

But now the company has set up the meeting, where Twitter and Google will also be participants. According to Johansson, Facebook has expressed objections to the form of the meeting and to the other participants – claims that the government denies.

Facebook denies, however, that it is promised to participate in the meeting. In a letter to Ekot, it is pointed out that Peter Eriksson was already informed of Facebook’s response before the Swedish election at the Dublin meeting last week.

In social media, the government has been criticized for not specifying what exactly is meant by several terms of the request, including what type of political dialogue constitutes “illegal material”. It has been pointed out that it is the role of courts to determine what is illegal, not the government’s.

When Johan Andersson, in Review Sweden , called for the Environment Party’s press secretary Carl-Martin Vikingsson to address claims in the media that the government is conducting a “discussion” about the so-called responsibility of the network giants.

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