Mette Frederiksen has apologised for saying she would rather see small children smoke than leave them alone on social media, after the Danish prime minister’s remark drew attention during a high-level debate on artificial intelligence, child safety and online platforms in Copenhagen.
Frederiksen says cigarettes were the wrong comparison
The Danish Social Democratic leader made the comment on Tuesday at Christiansborg, during the Copenhagen Youth AI Summit, a conference focused on how governments, technology companies and civil society should make artificial intelligence safer for children.
According to Danish media, Frederiksen said that, if she had small children today, she would rather have them smoke than allow them to be alone on social media. She added that she was still acting prime minister and therefore would not say what she was “about to say”, before making the comparison anyway.
The statement quickly became controversial because it appeared to set one major public health concern against another. Frederiksen later apologised in a Facebook post, writing that she regretted the reference to cigarettes.
“Of course children and young people should not start smoking,” she wrote. “And therefore I should have said something else to underline my point.”
A provocation about children alone on social media
Frederiksen’s central argument was not about smoking policy, but about children’s exposure to social media. In her clarification, she said children should not be left alone on platforms where they may encounter harmful images, drug offers, grooming or blackmail involving intimate images.
The remark fits into a broader Danish debate over how governments, parents and technology companies should respond to online risks for minors. Denmark has increasingly framed children’s digital safety as a public policy issue, linking social media use to questions of mental health, privacy, online exploitation and the responsibility of major platforms.
The reference to cigarettes was intended to provoke adults, Frederiksen said, but the apology suggests that the wording risked distracting from the substance of the debate. Smoking remains a central public health issue in Denmark and across Europe, especially in discussions on youth prevention.
Denmark’s social media age limit remains the policy backdrop
The controversy comes after Denmark moved to introduce a ban on social media for children under 15, while allowing parents to grant access from the age of 13 on selected platforms. The Danish government has presented the measure as a response to concerns over children’s wellbeing, screen time and exposure to harmful online content.
That policy background matters because Frederiksen’s comment was not an isolated remark. It echoed a political line she has developed over recent months: that children’s digital lives have been left too much to platforms whose business models are built around attention, data and engagement.
For Denmark, the challenge is now partly practical. A formal age limit would require enforcement mechanisms, cooperation from platforms and clear rules for parental consent. It would also need to fit within the European regulatory framework, including the EU’s Digital Services Act and the wider debate over child-safe artificial intelligence.
Online safety is becoming a Nordic and European policy issue
The Copenhagen summit showed that the issue is no longer only national. Organisers said the event brought together policymakers, technology executives, educators, civil society leaders and young people to discuss child safety in the AI era. New polling released for the summit found very low trust among parents in AI companies’ ability to prioritise teen safety.
In Denmark, the debate combines several concerns at once: children’s mental health, digital addiction, exposure to harmful content, cyberbullying, sexual exploitation and the limits of parental control. Similar concerns are being debated across the Nordic region and within the European Union, where platform regulation has become a major part of digital policy.
Frederiksen’s apology does not change the direction of that debate, but it shows how politically sensitive the language around children, health and technology has become. The Danish prime minister’s message was that children should not be left alone in unsafe digital spaces. Her correction was that cigarettes should not have been used to make that point.
