New Law Targets Gangs' Murder Advertisements in Sweden

Sweden has enacted a new law to combat criminal gangs openly advertising "jobs" for murder and bombings online. The legislation grants police the authority to demand the immediate removal of such advertisements from online platforms.

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It will have powerful economic muscles in this legislation.

Justice Minister Gunnar Strömmer emphasized the law's "powerful economic muscles," stating that platforms must comply with police requests within an hour. Failure to do so risks substantial fines, starting at five million kronor and potentially reaching up to 4% of a company's global turnover for systematic or deliberate non-compliance. Strömmer noted that these penalties apply to everything from negligence to intentional disregard of recruitment activities.

This new law makes Sweden the first EU member state to introduce legislation specifically targeting gang recruitment, drawing parallels to measures against terrorist recruitment material. Criminals are known to use platforms like TikTok and Snapchat, often directing conversations to encrypted services such as Signal. However, Signal reportedly does not cooperate with such requests, posing a challenge for law enforcement.

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Police have no clear legal basis to demand that it be taken down; that is the support we want to create.

While police maintain close cooperation with many tech companies, and most express a desire to protect children, authorities believe these companies should be more proactive in self-policing their platforms. The law aims to create clear legal grounds for police to demand the removal of these dangerous advertisements, which often resemble legitimate job postings.

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It is problematic, especially since there is a complete lack of willingness to cooperate from Signal, which is the most common encrypted messaging service used in these contexts.