For a year now, the Nordic think tank for tech and democracy has been filing proposals on how to reduce the influence of the tech giants on the democratic discourse.
The think tank is composed of the Nordic Council of Ministers and has now published a report with proposals for laws and regulations for a decent digital life in the Nordic region.
Parental control
One of the proposals reads: "The Nordic countries should introduce legal requirements for effective age verification and parental control as a starting point (default mode) for relevant social media platforms. This may include a built-in time limit, which can then be changed.
"Of course, we want to make it possible for children to have a strong freedom of expression and the right to privacy. At the same time, we see that parts of the social media environments create a lot of problems, says Carl Heath, researcher and member of the Council of Ministers' think tank.
Health problems linked to social media, which can be particularly serious for young people, are, for example, comparative with others, loneliness and lack of sleep, the report says.
Public should leave the tech giants
Among the other proposals is to enable a kind of association support for those who engage digitally – for example, an administrator of a large mothers' group.
The think tank also wants public actors to communicate outside the sphere of the existing tech giants, so that everyone can access it. For example, ministers should not then communicate via Facebook, Twitter or Instagram.
The think tank also urges the Nordic countries to give their public service broadcasters a greater mandate to act digitally.
"Public service came about as a consequence of technological development. But over the past 30 years, our media landscape has been different. We need to be more technology-neutral and provide better conditions for public service to exist in our digital age," says Carl Heath.
Culture News has sought Minister of Culture Parisa Liljestrand (M).