Spain planning to ban social media for under-16s: ‘We will protect them from the digital Wild West’
Spain plans to ban access to social media for minors under 16, and platforms will be required to implement age-verification systems, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez has announced.
Speaking at the World Government Summit in Dubai, Sánchez said “children are exposed to a space they were never meant to navigate alone … We will no longer accept that”.
“My government will investigate and pursue the infringement committed by Grok, TikTok, and Instagram … and we will defend our digital sovereignty against any form of foreign coercion,” he said.
In December, Australia became the first country to ban social media for children under 16, a move being closely watched by other countries considering similar age-based measures, such as the UK and France.
Sánchez said Spain had joined five other European countries — that he dubbed the “coalition of the digitally willing” — to coordinate and enforce cross-border regulation.
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