The President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, launched this Tuesday a package of five measures with which he aims to confront the abuses of large digital platforms and guarantee a safe digital environment. It was during his speech at the World Governments Summit in Dubai, where he stated that “social networks have become a failed state, in which laws are ignored and crimes are tolerated.” There, he has assured that Spain will prohibit access to social networks for minors under 16 years of age, forcing digital platforms to implement effective age verification systems. This measure will be implemented, according to sources from the Ministry of Digital Transformation and Public Service, through an amendment to the bill on the protection of minors in digital environments. “We will protect them from the digital Wild West,” he said.
In the bill to protect minors on the internet, promoted by the Ministry of Youth and Children, there is already a regulation in this regard: to be able to register on these platforms you must be at least 16 years old. However, in its current wording, the bill allows minors under that age to open accounts with the authorization of their parents. That will no longer be possible if this amendment goes ahead, which must be negotiated in Congress.
As for how this ban will be made effective, government sources assure that the age verification tool has already been developed and has obtained all the required security certifications. It should be operational before the end of the year, these sources add, since it will be one of the use cases of the digital wallet that all European citizens must have available under the eIDAS community regulations.
The ban on networks for minors under 16 years of age is in line with the guidelines set by the European Commission this summer, which other countries around us, such as Portugal or France, are already beginning to apply. Portugal’s proposal, which entered Parliament this Monday, contemplates two different scenarios. For minors under 13 years of age, a total prohibition of access is proposed; For those between 13 and 16 years old, the responsibility of deciding will be delegated to parents. Meanwhile, the French parliament gave the green light last week to the central article of a bill to protect young people from the harm that social networks can cause and that . Australia is, for the moment, the only country that has already banned them, in this case and claiming the prevention of health problems.
The age limit is the most innovative of the five actions listed by the president, which range from modifying the algorithm as a crime to a system to track the hate that circulates on the internet. Two of the measures are of a technical nature and three others are of a legal nature. The minister spokesperson, Elma Saiz, said after the Council of Ministers that the fine print will be known in the coming weeks. The PP, for the moment, has been in favor of the restriction for those under 16, so the usual minority in which the Government is in Parliament would not prevent the proposals from going ahead in Congress.
The platforms prefer, for now, to remain silent. Asked by this newspaper about this battery of measures, sources from Meta, owner of platforms such as Facebook or Instagram, prefer not to comment until they know more details. Sources from Alphabet, YouTube’s parent company, say the same. X, for its part, stopped having press interlocutors in 2022, when tycoon Elon Musk acquired the company.
“Social networks, their companies, are richer and more powerful than many countries, including mine. But their power and influence should not scare us because our determination is greater,” the president has warned. “Last year I went to Davos to warn governments of the dangers of social networks. And today I am here to tell them in Dubai that Spain is going to take measures,” he assured.
The second of the measures that Sánchez has announced consists of implementing “a system, a footprint of hate and polarization that will follow, quantify and reveal how digital platforms feed division and amplify hate.” Neither the Chief Executive nor the Ministry of Digital Transformation and Public Service have provided data on how this system will work or whether it has already been designed. “For too long it has been considered that hate was something invisible and impossible to quantify, but we are going to change that with a tool that will be the basis for defining future sanctions, because spreading hate has to have a cost: a legal cost, of course, also an economic cost and an ethical cost that the platforms will no longer be able to afford to ignore,” Sánchez said.
Legal responsibility of directors
The third measure, already on the legal side, has to do with legal responsibility for possible infringements in the digital field. “We are going to modify the legislation in Spain so that platform managers are legally responsible for the multiple violations that take place on their platforms. This means that the CEOs of these technological platforms will face criminal liability if they do not remove hateful or illegal content,” Sánchez explained.
Currently, the European Union requires large platforms, through the Digital Services Regulation (DSA), to be held accountable for the content they disseminate. The application of this regulation has already led to the imposition of the first fines, such as the one applied to failing to comply with its transparency obligations in the advertising repository. The novelty that the president points out is to attribute legal responsibility for these infractions to the directors.
The European Commission has, however, cooled Sánchez’s expectations by reminding that national governments “cannot place additional obligations on large digital platforms”, in the words of the spokesman for the EU Executive on digital affairs, Thomas Reignier. Asked about the president’s announcement, he stated that in recent times there have been announcements in a similar direction from Austria, France or Denmark and that Brussels’ position is always the same, reports Manuel V. Gómez.
Algorithm manipulation
Sánchez’s fourth announcement was that the manipulation of algorithms and the amplification of illegal content will be criminalized. “It is something that is created, promoted and disseminated by certain actors whom we will investigate, as well as the platforms whose algorithms amplify misinformation in exchange for benefits. No more hiding under the code and saying that technology is neutral,” the president indicated. To do so, as in the case of acting against company directors, the Executive will propose a reform of the Penal Code through an organic law that will be sent to Parliament. Precisely this Tuesday, the Paris Prosecutor’s Office is searching the offices of X in France and summons Elon Musk.
He has also referred to a fifth measure: “My Government is going to work with our Prosecutor’s Office to investigate and prosecute the crimes committed by Grok. [la inteligencia artificial de X]TikTok and Instagram. We are going to have zero tolerance on these issues and we are going to defend our digital sovereignty against any type of foreign coercion.” A few weeks ago, the Ministry of Youth and Children already sent a letter to the Prosecutor’s Office requesting an investigation into whether
Sánchez’s objective, as he stated, is to “turn social networks into a healthy and democratic space, as it should always have been.” Although he has acknowledged being fully aware of his limitations. “We know that this is a battle that far exceeds the borders of any country. And that is why I want to inform you that Spain has joined forces with five other European countries in a coalition of the digitally willing, committed to imposing stricter, faster and more effective regulations on social networks,” he noted. They will meet for the first time in the coming days and will carry out coordinated actions at a multinational level.
“What we face is the convergence of two failures: a digital space without responsibilities that weakens us from within and a global order that is under pressure from outside. Both require governance, not resignation. And that is why we must act, with courage, with unity and with hope,” Sánchez continued. “Because moments like these define entire generations, and generations like ours are going to define the future of the next generations.”
The PP supports the initiative announced this Tuesday by the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, that Spain will prohibit access to social networks for minors under 16 years of age, forcing digital platforms to implement effective age verification systems. The leader of the PP, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, assures that he himself presented that same proposal a few months ago in Madrid, to the point that he defends that the Government has copied him. “We presented this proposal months ago; you should pay us the copyright,” Feijóo said ironically at a campaign event in Teruel, reports Elsa G. de Blas.
The reception has been different in Vox. “Sánchez not only wants to promote the migratory invasion, but also intends, with the usual subterfuges of the left and globalists, to muzzle us all and prevent us from defending our positions,” said Santiago Abascal in Brussels, reports Silvia Ayuso.
