The regulatory attitude towards social media platforms in Denmark and its implications for digital creators

In this article we investigate how social media platforms are regulated in Denmark and what implications an increasingly critical regulatory attitude towards these digital platforms has for Danish digital creators.

Since Denmark is a member of the European Union, the country’s legislation is highly affected by EU legislation and its implementation and adaptation to the Danish national context. In terms of the regulation of social media platforms, the EU has taken important regulatory steps, which the AI Act, the GDPR, the DMA, the DSA, and the directive on improving working conditions in platform work demonstrate. As these initiatives exemplify, the European Union is a regulatory frontrunner regarding digital platforms. What these examples also demonstrate is the complexity of a regulatory landscape where attempts are made to govern global digital platforms via supranational regulation followed by legislative implementation in different national contexts.

The focus of this article is on the national context of the Danish welfare state. The Danish government has in recent years taken a firm stance on trying to regulate social media platforms and the growing influence of tech giants. However, just as the case is with the EU, there are multiple different stakeholders with varied political and economic interests vying for influence when it comes to regulating digital technology and culture in Denmark. Therefore, we are interested, not only in analyzing Danish legislation in the area, but in analyzing the current debate regarding the regulation of social media platforms and the various regulatory attitudes exhibited by the different governmental and non-governmental stakeholders. We are also interested in how the different dimensions of the country’s regulatory landscape impacts Danish digital creators since their working conditions are and continue to be affected by the Danish government’s legislative agenda and the various stakeholders’ regulatory attitudes.

Methodologically, this article engages with document analysis (Bowen, 2009) and qualitative interviews (Creswell & Poth, 2018; Bryman, 2016) to map and analyze the various regulatory initiatives and attitudes within the Danish national context. We therefore identify and analyze the laws, proposals, reports and agreements provided by different governmental and non-governmental institutions and organizations that concern the regulation of the dominant social media platforms operating in Denmark. This mapping reveals the complex regulatory landscape and consequent regulatory debate currently taking place within the context of the Danish welfare state, which we further seek to illuminate by interviewing key actors and stakeholders. Theoretically, the article engages with literature on platforms and platformisation (Gillespie, 2018; van Dijck et al., 2018; Poell et al., 2019; Poell et al., 2022), the governance and regulation of platforms (Helberger et al., 2017; Gorwa, 2019) and the distinctiveness of the digital welfare state (Schou & Hjelholt, 2018; Andreasen et al., 2021; Jørgensen, 2021; Collington, 2022; Dencik, 2022).