The Danish Minister of Culture: Social media’s handling of misinformation is critically insufficient. Mis- and disinformation on social media is a growing problem, which according to Minister of Culture Jakob Engell-Schmidt (M) is becoming unmanageable. A new report from the Ministry of Culture, which Politiken has insight into, reveals that the popular platforms X (formerly Twitter) and LinkedIn do not have any employees to moderate Danish content. In contrast, the most used social media platforms in Denmark, Facebook and Instagram, both owned by Meta, only have a total of six moderators for the task. – Meta has one moderator per 1.4 million users in Denmark. It is simply so underwhelming that I become deeply concerned, states Jakob Engell-Schmidt to Politiken. He emphasizes that the problem of misinformation and harmful content on social media is exploding and poses a serious threat to democracy, especially in connection with elections and public debate. With the upcoming EU Parliament election on Sunday, Jakob Engell-Schmidt believes that social media companies have an “extended responsibility” to protect public debate. He sees it as crucial that these companies take this responsibility seriously and intensify their efforts. According to the report, Snapchat has 15 Danish-speaking moderators, YouTube has 18, and TikTok has 27, showing a greater effort compared to the Meta platforms. The IT Industry, representing several social media platforms, points out in an email to the media that the effort should not only be measured by the number of Danish-speaking moderators, but also by the technologies and methods used to remove harmful content. The IT Industry highlights that the use of artificial intelligence and other technologies that work across many languages play a significant role in combating harmful and manipulative content such as pornography, violence, and terrorism. In terms of language moderation, Facebook and Instagram have moderators covering all 24 official EU languages, while Snapchat and Pinterest cover half, and LinkedIn and X only have moderators for about a third of the languages.

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