Spain’s Sánchez proposes under-16 social media ban and legal liability for tech bosses

Standing under the spotlights of a Dubai conference hall, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez described today’s social media platforms as a “failed state, where laws are ignored and crimes are tolerated” — and vowed to lock children under 16 out of them. Within hours, Elon Musk was denouncing him as a “fascist totalitarian” and a “tyrant” to his millions of followers on X.

The clash of rhetoric reflects the scale of what Spain is attempting. In an opening keynote at the World Government Summit on Feb. 3, Sánchez unveiled a five-part plan that would ban under-16s from social networks, force companies to deploy strict age checks and expose tech executives to possible criminal charges if their algorithms amplify illegal or harmful content to children.

The package has not yet become law. But if enacted as announced, it would amount to some of the toughest rules in Europe on young people’s access to social media and on the legal responsibilities of those who run the platforms.

A five-point crackdown

Sánchez’s proposals are aimed squarely at large digital platforms and the way they design, operate and profit from their services.

First, the government says it will prohibit minors under 16 from accessing social networks in Spain. The ban would apply to “platforms operating in our country,” Sánchez said, and would be enforced through mandatory age verification systems, not the self-declared birth dates and simple check boxes widely used today.

“Today, our children are exposed to a space they were never meant to navigate alone,” he told the audience in Dubai. “We will no longer accept that.”

Second, platforms would be required to introduce what Sánchez called “effective age verification systems” that create “not just check boxes, but real barriers that work.” Officials have not yet specified what technologies would be allowed or required, leaving open questions about whether companies would need to collect identity documents, use biometric checks or plug into emerging European digital ID schemes.

The third and fourth measures go beyond age limits and into uncharted legal territory for the tech sector. Sánchez promised to “put an end to the impunity of managers” by making senior executives legally responsible if illegal or hateful content is not removed from their services. Spanish and international legal analysts say the government is contemplating potential criminal liability for top managers in cases of serious or repeated failures.

The government also plans to criminalize “the manipulation of algorithms and the amplification of illegal content.” In his speech, Sánchez said it was time to stop “pretending that technology is neutral,” arguing that recommender systems and ranking algorithms can no longer be treated as black boxes when they boost abuse or extremism.

As a fifth measure, Sánchez said Spain would work with the Public Prosecutor’s Office to investigate possible legal infringements by specific services, naming Grok — the artificial intelligence system integrated into X — as well as TikTok and Instagram, particularly in relation to harmful material and AI-generated abuse. He also announced the creation of a “Hate and Polarisation Footprint” to track and quantify online hostility and division.

All five elements are to be advanced through changes to Spanish law, most likely by amending a bill on the protection of minors in digital environments that has been before parliament since 2025.

Not law yet, but politically potent

Sánchez leads a center-left coalition that does not hold an outright majority in Spain’s Congress of Deputies. That means any overhaul will have to be negotiated with opposition parties and smaller allies.

So far, early signals suggest the under-16 ban itself has a path. The main opposition party, the center-right Popular Party, has said it previously advocated similar restrictions and has indicated broad support for raising age limits on social media use. The far-right Vox party has attacked the initiative, alleging it could be used to suppress criticism of the government. Left-wing and digital rights voices have warned that sweeping bans and criminal measures may go too far.

The bill on minors in digital environments already includes provisions on parental controls, deepfakes, pornography and online grooming, as well as obligations for large “influencers” and audiovisual platforms. Government officials have suggested the new measures can be folded into that legislative process, potentially speeding their passage but also exposing them to amendments and legal scrutiny.

Constitutional specialists in Spain have started to question whether a blanket under-16 ban on social networks would be considered a proportionate restriction on minors’ freedom of expression and access to information. Others note that the European Union’s Digital Services Act, fully in force since 2024, already harmonizes many obligations for large platforms and may limit how far individual member states can go in adding national rules.

Europe’s direction of travel

Spain is not alone in seeking tighter controls on children’s online lives. The European Parliament adopted a nonbinding resolution in November calling for a minimum age of 16 to access social media, video-sharing services and AI “companions,” with possible access for 13- to 15-year-olds only with parental consent. Lawmakers also urged the European Commission to explore personal liability for senior managers in cases of persistent noncompliance with child-safety rules.

France introduced a requirement for parental consent for under-15s to sign up to social media in 2023 and has since moved toward an outright ban on social media access for children under 15, paired with reinforced phone bans in schools. Denmark and several other European countries have restricted smartphones in classrooms and are considering broader age-related rules.

Outside Europe, Australia has enacted an Online Safety Amendment that effectively bans under-16s from having accounts on defined social media services and allows for financial penalties if companies fail to take “reasonable steps” to block younger users.

In that context, Spain is aligning itself with a broader pattern but pushing further in some respects — notably by making explicit links between child protection, algorithmic design and the personal legal exposure of corporate leaders.

Public alarm and expert doubts

The political appetite for such measures rests on mounting concern about the impact of social media on young people’s mental health.

European surveys have found that large majorities of parents worry about cyberbullying, exposure to pornography, and addictive use of smartphones and platforms. A World Health Organization study of adolescents in Europe and Central Asia reported that about 11% show signs of problematic social media use, with higher rates among girls. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development has warned that nearly all 15-year-olds in its member states now own smartphones and that a significant share report anxiety when disconnected.

Spanish psychologist José Antonio Galiani called the proposed under-16 limit “not capricious, but a preventive intervention,” pointing to adolescent brain development and the pressures of constant comparison and feedback online. But he also cautioned that rules alone will not solve the problem.

“Prohibiting without educating is not effective, but educating without limits neither,” he said in an interview, arguing that both structural changes by platforms and digital literacy efforts in families and schools are needed.

Digital rights advocates, however, say the focus on age cutoffs and executive punishment risks creating new problems. They argue that reliable, privacy-preserving age verification systems do not yet exist at the scale required, and warn that strict enforcement could push platforms to collect identity documents or biometric data from all users, undermining anonymity and increasing surveillance.

Civil liberties groups also worry that criminalizing “algorithm manipulation” without precise definitions could chill legitimate technical design, journalistic curation or even activism that relies on boosting certain messages online.

Algorithms, CEOs and the law

One of the most closely watched aspects of Spain’s initiative is its move from corporate fines to the possibility of individual criminal accountability.

Under existing EU rules, large platforms can already face hefty penalties if they fail to manage systemic risks such as disinformation, illegal content and harm to minors. By introducing potential criminal charges for executives whose services consistently promote illegal or hateful material, Spain would be stepping into territory more familiar from banking, environmental regulation or health and safety law.

Legal scholars say that if the proposals become law, prosecutors would still have to prove intent or at least serious negligence — for example, that managers knowingly tolerated or incentivized algorithmic practices that predictably amplified illegal content, despite warnings and prior sanctions.

For engineers and data scientists, the plan raises questions about documentation, audits and design choices. To demonstrate compliance, companies may need to show how their recommendation systems avoid systematically boosting certain types of harmful content for young users, and what safeguards are in place when those systems are trained and deployed.

Industry responses have been limited so far. Meta and X have not issued detailed public statements on the Spanish plan beyond Musk’s personal attacks. TikTok and other platforms have pointed to existing youth-safety tools and settings but have not commented on potential executive liability.

A test for how far democracies will go

Spain’s government says its goal is to protect children from a “digital Wild West” and restore a sense of accountability to online spaces it views as lawless. Supporters argue that voluntary measures and self-regulation have failed, and that only clear age limits, hard obligations and real sanctions will change corporate behavior.

Critics counter that sweeping bans may be blunt tools that leave teenagers cut off from beneficial communities, information and support, while pushing them toward less regulated corners of the internet that are harder to monitor. They warn that intrusive verification may normalize ID checks for everyday speech and expression online, affecting adults as well as minors.

For now, the plan remains a proposal. Drafting legislation, winning parliamentary backing, and surviving potential court challenges could take months or longer. Technical details — from how to define “social network” to how to measure a “Hate and Polarisation Footprint” — will determine how far the measures go in practice.

As lawmakers in Madrid debate those details, other European capitals and tech boardrooms will be watching closely. The outcome will help answer a question that now stretches far beyond Spain: in an era of ubiquitous screens and powerful algorithms, how much control are democracies willing to assert over the digital lives of their youngest citizens — and over the people who design the systems that shape them?