Spain weighs social media ban for under-16s as European nations harden stance
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The Spanish government will also introduce a new Bill next week to hold social media executives accountable for illegal and hateful content.
PHOTO: REUTERS
MADRID – Spain plans to ban access to social media for minors under 16 and platforms will be required to implement age verification systems, Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said on Feb 3 as he announced several measures to guarantee a safe digital environment.
Mr Sanchez’s left-wing coalition government has repeatedly complained about the proliferation of hate speech, pornographic content and disinformation on social media, saying it had negative effects on young people.
“Our children are exposed to a space they were never meant to navigate alone... We will no longer accept that,” Mr Sanchez said, as he addressed the World Governments Summit in Dubai, calling on other European countries to implement similar measures.
“We will protect them from the digital Wild West.”
Australia in December became the first country to ban social media for children under 16
Mr Sanchez said Spain had joined five other European countries that he dubbed the “Coalition of the Digitally Willing” to coordinate and enforce cross-border regulation.
The coalition will hold its first meeting in the coming days, he said.
Mr Sanchez did not say which countries were in the group, and his office did not immediately respond to a request for clarification.
“We know that this is a battle that far exceeds the boundaries of any country,” he said.
One of Europe’s few centre-left leaders currently, Mr Sanchez first took aim at social media owners in 2025, referring to them as a “techno-caste” that should be held responsible for “poisoning society” with algorithms.
The EU’s Digital Services Act, which took full effect in early 2024, requires social media platforms to moderate content, while critics say this creates tensions between responsible governance and censorship concerns.
The recent rapid explosion of AI-generated content online has fuelled the debate, however, highlighted this month by a public outcry over reports of billionaire Elon Musk’s Grok AI chatbot generating non-consensual sexual images, including of minors.
The proposed measures will be a form of censoring criticism of the government, said Ms Pepa Millan, parliamentary spokesperson of far-right Vox party, which uses social media to spread its message.
“The only thing they legislate for and the only measures they take are to cling to power and maintain the official narrative in the media,” she said.
Hold social media executives accountable
Spain will also introduce a Bill next week to hold social media executives accountable for illegal and hate-speech content, as well as to criminalise algorithmic manipulation and the amplification of illegal content, Mr Sanchez said.
Among the measures he proposed was a system to track hate speech online while platforms would be required to introduce age verification systems that “were not just checkboxes”, he said.
His government would begin the process of passing legislation from as early as next week, he said.
He added that prosecutors would explore ways to investigate possible legal infractions by Mr Musk’s artificial intelligence chatbot Grok, as well as social media platforms TikTok and Instagram.
The ban will be implemented as part of a change to an already existing bill on digital protection for minors that is being debated in parliament, according to a government spokesperson.
The spokesperson didn’t provide further details.
About 82 per cent of Spaniards said they believed children under 14 should be banned from social media inside and outside school, according to a 30-country Ipsos poll on education published in August 2025. That was up from 73 per cent in 2024.
“It’s a good measure to encourage children to play with each other and not be on their mobile phones in parks, which I think is terrible, to be honest,” said Mr Miguel Abad, a 19-year-old student in Madrid.
In Australia, social media companies collectively deactivated nearly 5 million accounts belonging to teenagers within weeks of its ban taking effect, the country’s internet regulator said last month, suggesting the measure could have a sweeping impact. REUTERS
