The progressive Spanish government follows the position of some countries around the world and decides to ban the use of social media by children under 16. This is what was announced today by Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, speaking at the World Government Summit in Dubai, anticipating five measures with which Madrid aims to deal with the abuse of large digital platforms and guarantee a safe digital environment. Among these, the Spanish leader specified, is also a rule to hold social media managers personally responsible for hate speech on their platforms.
The provision
The Madrid government will ban access to digital platforms to children under 16, forcing platforms to implement effective age verification systems. This is a measure foreseen in the draft law on the protection of minors in digital environments, approved by the government and currently being examined by the Spanish Congress. In this way, the Sanchez executive aims to make “legally responsible” the managers of the platforms that do not remove content that violates the law and that incites hatred. In reiterating “zero tolerance towards any form of coercion”, the Spanish Prime Minister also explained that the manipulation of algorithms and the amplification of illegal content will be classified as a crime.
Thus, Spain joins the list of countries, including the United Kingdom, Portugal and France, which are considering tightening rules on social media. The debate intensified after Australia became the first country in the world to ban under-16s from the platforms in December. At the same time, governments and regulators globally are examining the impact of children’s time spent in front of screens, particularly on development and mental health.
“The coalition of the digital willing”
However, Spain places itself at the head of a new European front for the control of digital platforms. The Spanish Prime Minister announced the formation of what he called the “coalition of the digital willing”, a strategic alliance with five other European countries aimed at coordinating and tightening the application of regulations on the web. The declared objective is clear: to strengthen the application of cross-border regulation, overcoming the limits of individual national jurisdictions. The new coalition will hold its first operational meeting in the coming days. However, there remains an aura of mystery about the exact composition of the group: Sanchez did not specify which are the other five nations involved.
The initiative comes within the framework of the EU’s Digital Services Act (DSA), which will come into full force at the beginning of 2024. Although the legislation imposes stringent obligations on platforms on content moderation, critics highlight the growing tensions between responsible governance and the risks of censorship.
The attack against the “techno-caste”
It is not the first time that the Spanish socialist leader has used harsh tones against the giants of Silicon Valley. Already last year he had frontally attacked the owners of social media, defining them as a “techno-caste” guilty of “poisoning society” through the unscrupulous use of algorithms.
Hardening Sanchez’s tough position is the rapid evolution of generative Artificial Intelligence. The debate has become more bitter after the scandal linked to Grok, the AI chatbot of X, Elon Musk’s social network. Grok has ended up at the center of harsh political and public condemnation because it helps users generate sexually explicit and non-consensual photos and videos from real photos (deepfakes), which also include images of minors. The president of the Iberian government announced that the government will work with the Prosecutor’s Office to evaluate possible violations by Grok, TikTok and Instagram, citing the case of the dissemination of millions of images of sexualized women, already under examination by the European Commission.
X (again) in the sights of the European Union: Brussels launches an investigation into Grok’s sexual deepfakes
