As European governments toughen up on online safely, Spain plans to implement a social media ban for children.
The country could press social media platforms to prevent children under 16 years of age from accessing their site – and willhold executives accountable for illegal content.
To do this, the platforms will move to ban children under-16 from accessing social media, stepping up pressure for robust age verification.
Calling social media a “digital wild west”, Spain’s Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez told a World Governments Summit this week that the platforms are run by wealthy and powerful companies that don’t necessarily take the right age verification measures.
He says these verification must be more than check box exercises but should be real barriers.
He also called for the CEOs of tech platforms to face criminal charges if they don’t remove illegal or hate-inciting content.
Spain also has plans to prevent the manipulation of algorithms that amplify illegal material.