MADRID, Feb 5 (Reuters) – Tech companies will not sway the will of the Spanish government as it intends to ban young people from social media platforms, Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said on Thursday, accusing “tech oligarchs” of spreading lies about Spain.
Telegram founder Pavel Durov on Wednesday joined Elon Musk in criticising plans by Sanchez to ban social media access for under-16s and to prosecute executives for hate speech on their platforms.
Spain joins countries such as Britain, Greece and France in considering tougher stances on social media, after Australia in December became the first nation to prohibit access to such platforms for children younger than 16.
“Democracy will obviously not be swayed by the tech oligarchs of the algorithm,” Sanchez told an event in Madrid. “Just yesterday they addressed millions of people via their platforms to spread lies.”
Durov said in a Telegram message that Spain’s proposed legislation would force social media platforms to gather data on all users and allow governments to control what users see. The day before, Musk posted on his X profile that Sanchez was “a tyrant and a traitor to the people of Spain”.
The Spanish government said Durov’s message to all Spanish users of Telegram showed the urgent need to regulate social media and messaging apps to protect citizens from misleading information.
Sanchez, one of a dwindling band of leftist leaders in Europe, has been criticising technology platforms since early last year, when he proposed ending anonymity on social media and linking users’ data to a common EU identity wallet.
(Reporting by Emma Pinedo, writing by Andrei Khalip, Editing by Alex Richardson)
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