Denmark’s upcoming EU Presidency will prioritize safeguarding children, young people, and adults from the detrimental effects of harmful online content, addictive algorithms, and excessive screen time. This initiative aims to hold tech giants accountable for their impact on users’ well-being, particularly concerning children.

Key areas of focus during the presidency will include banning harmful algorithms, setting requirements for the removal of harmful content, implementing age verification measures, and combating the sharing of child abuse material.

Specifically, Denmark will advocate for concrete regulations on retention mechanisms used by tech companies, especially for users under 18, potentially through the Digital Fairness Act negotiations. The government aims to establish specific timeframes for social platforms to remove harmful content upon notification and to proactively identify and eliminate such content. This would place greater responsibility on these companies, similar to safety standards applied to other industries.

To ensure a safer digital environment, Denmark will push for mandatory age verification when creating social media accounts or accessing restricted content, such as pornographic websites. The EU’s existing European wallet solution could be utilized for this purpose.

Furthermore, the Danish Presidency will address the urgent need to combat the spread of child sexual abuse material by seeking a compromise on the CSA regulation. Failure to do so would significantly hinder efforts to stop the sharing of such content.

Finally, the government will support initiatives to gather comprehensive data on the online experiences of Danish citizens to strengthen the enforcement of existing regulations, such as the DSA regulation, and hold tech giants accountable.