Overview
- Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez said Spain will move to prohibit social-media access for under-16s, requiring platforms to deploy effective age checks rather than self-declared birthdates.
- Executives would be held legally responsible for illegal content on their platforms, with potential criminal liability, under proposals the government says it will bring forward.
- Manipulating algorithms to amplify illegal content would be criminalized, and authorities would build a system to trace and quantify a “footprint of hate and polarization.”
- Spain has joined a six-country European coordination effort and will work with the public prosecutor to examine potential violations by services including Grok, TikTok and Instagram.
- The push follows Australia’s December rollout that compelled platforms to block under-16 accounts—eSafety reported 4.7 million accounts blocked and Snapchat cited 415,000 removals—highlighting verification gaps that Spain will need to address.