Spain Follows Australia in Banning Children From Social Media. Crackdown Could Begin Next Week
Spain has announced plans to introduce legislation banning children under 16 from using some of the most popular messaging and online communications apps.
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez announced the ban during a speech at the World Government Summit in Dubai. Although short on detail, he said the ban could take effect next week and would be enforced by what Sanchez described as “effective age verification systems – not just boxes to check, but real barriers that work.”
The Prime Minister on Tuesday called social media a ‘failed state’ and blamed algorithms to distort the public conversation for everyone, but especially for kids online.
“Today, our children are exposed to a space they were never meant to navigate alone: a space of addiction, abuse, pornography, manipulation and violence,” Sanchez said. “We will no longer accept this. We will protect them from the digital Wild West.”
The proposed legislation is just one piece of a broader five-step process to regulate social media companies, according to Sanchez. The other proposed laws aim to hold platform executives accountable for legal violations of their sites, ban algorithmic amplification of illegal content, and implement a system to track how social media apps fuel division and promote hate speech.
This follows a landmark law in Australia that bans children under 16 from using TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, Threads, X, Snapchat, YouTube, Reddit, Kick and Twitch. It is not yet clear which platforms will be affected by the Spanish legislation, as “social media platforms” have not yet been defined under the potential new rules. It’s also unclear whether platforms like Discord, WhatsApp and Pinterest would be eligible.
Sanchez specifically criticized TikTokInstagram and X during its announcement, specifying that “[his] The government will work with the prosecutor to investigate and prosecute the legal offenses committed by GrokTikTok and Instagram.”
CNET has contacted a Spanish government communications representative for clarification. Representatives for TikTok and Meta (which owns Facebook, Instagram, Threads and WhatsApp) did not immediately respond to requests for comment. X also didn’t immediately respond, but CEO Elon Musk tweeted his criticism of Sanchez after the speech.
Other countries are monitoring the effects of Australia’s recent social media ban for under-16s. Today, some countries are ready to replicate this legislation.
Precedent from below: Spain follows in Australia’s footsteps
Although Spain could be the first country in Europe to finalize legislation banning children from social media, its ban closely resembles that of new law passed in Australia in December. In Australia, social media companies are legally responsible for removing their services from people under the age of 16 by implementing age verification technologies. Any company found guilty of violating this law faces a fine of $33 million.
Tech companies’ mixed reactions to Australia’s social media ban may provide insight into how they will respond to a possible ban in Spain. TikTok, Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat have complied with the new rules, beginning the process of removing infringing accounts from the platform.
Reddit pushes back challenge the law in Australia by launching a High Court challenge, saying in a statement that the legislation “imposes intrusive and potentially unsafe vetting processes on adults as well as minors, insulating adolescents from the opportunity to engage in age-appropriate community experiences.” When the Spanish ban comes into effect, social media companies could use this precedent to launch similar challenges in the country.
In December, Denmark, Norway and Malaysia were seeking to pass similar legislation. The UK, France and Greece could soon follow suit. The French National Assembly has already passed a bill to ban under-16s from accessing social media, but the bill is blocked in the Senate. A similar bill is also being debated in the UK House of Commons.
Additionally, countries like China, Russia, North Korea, Iran, India, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Uganda have already instituted partial or full bans on various apps – although in those cases the bans were largely motivated by political censorship reasons, while the Australian ban and the proposed Spanish ban cite security concerns as the driving force behind the new law.
