The Spanish would remove minors from social networks: They angered Elon Musk

According to the Reuters report, Sánchez also said that Spain will present a new bill next week, and the package of measures also mentions stronger protection of minors, including the idea of ​​banning social networks for those under 16 and mandatory age verification. In the same performance, Sánchez spoke about the fact that social networks have become a space where laws are not consistently enforced, and that algorithms are often used to push the most toxic content because it brings clicks.

Those messages were immediately followed by a public exchange of blows with Elon Musk. On Xu, Musk attacked Sánchez and called him a ‘tyrant’, and used harsher labels in his posts, after the Spanish prime minister had previously criticized the role of platform owners in spreading misinformation and hatred. This further pushed the story into the political ring, instead of remaining only on the issue of platform regulation.

For the platforms themselves and their bosses, the most sensitive part is the idea of ​​personal responsibility, that is, the possibility of criminal consequences if the content that the law defines as illegal or as inciting hatred is not removed. Sánchez announces that Spain wants to go further than the existing EU rules, and the next step will be the concrete text of the law and a discussion about what exactly is considered ‘forbidden’ content and how to carry out age verification without new holes in privacy.