At the World Government Summit, Spanish Prime Minister, Pedro Sanchez announced that Spain will be following in the footsteps of Australia and will be planning on removing under 16s from social media.
“Today, our children are exposed to a space they were never meant to navigate alone: a space of addiction, abuse, pornography, manipulation, and violence. We will no longer accept that. We will protect them from the digital wild west,” the Spanish Prime Minister declared.
During his speech, Sanchez condemned the misconduct of social media platforms.
“Social media has become a failed state, a place where laws are ignored, and crime is endured, where disinformation is worth more than truth, and half of users suffer hate speech,” expressed Sanchez. “A failed state in which algorithms distort the public conversation and our data and image are defied and sold.”
He explained that to enforce the ban, “platforms will be required to implement effective age-verification systems—not just checkboxes, but real barriers that work.”
Australia made history in December of last year, being the first nation to kick off Australian teens from social media platforms. These included Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, Snapchat, YouTube, X, Twitch and more.
Spain has joined France, Denmark and Austria as the first European countries to consider age restrictions across social media.
