Pedro Sánchez is strengthening his offensive against what he has been denouncing for months as one of the great problems of the 21st century: the absolute lack of control of the digital world and especially of social networks. The President of the Government raised the tone with a speech full of data and examples to warn against a situation that especially affects minors, who enter these uncontrolled networks which, in his opinion, promote hate speech and polarization.
The leader of the PSOE had promised in Davos, almost a year ago, that he would take action against those responsible, the big technology companies, and he decided to start in Spain with one of the largest, Meta (Instagram, Facebook, WhatsApp). In a post on the Metafuturo forum, by Atresmedia, Sánchez announced that the PSOE will propose to bring those responsible for Meta to Congress to provide explanations for the massive espionage of its own users without their consent.
Furthermore, he also announced that various regulations are being studied to try to put more controls on the networks, a place that he defined as a “failed state” in which instead of warlords, as usually happens in the real world when a state does not control its territory, there are “technological oligarchs” who decide with their algorithms to promote lies and hatred in the face of the truth. “On the networks, the prices of hate rise, lies are rewarded with clicks and the truth melts like sugar in the algorithm until it becomes unrecognizable,” he said.
“The big tech platforms have operated for years as if the rules didn’t apply to them,” Sánchez explained. “Meta accumulates fines of 1,000 million euros for abusive market practices. Google, with 3,000 million for abuse of dominant position, is under investigation for possible violations of the law on digital services. And the European Commission keeps formal investigations open against
“An investigation conducted by experts in Spain, Belgium and the Netherlands revealed that Meta would have spied on millions of users without their knowledge. How? Through a hidden system that allowed them to track their Internet activity, even when they browsed in private mode or using a VPN. Although users believed they were protected, Meta continued to observe. And the most serious thing: it linked everything they did outside of their applications with their personal accounts. That is, Meta knew who did what in the digital space, through their browsers and their phones without the consent of their users,” Sánchez explained. For this reason he announced that he will try to denounce those responsible for Meta to Congress, before the Economic Affairs and Digital Transformation Commission. “In Spain the law is above any algorithm or big technology. And those who violate our rights will pay the consequences,” he concluded.
Furthermore, he announced, in the next semester the Executive will present “a wide range of concrete, ambitious and necessary measures to address the four challenges I raised today: disinformation, the protection of minors, incitement to hatred and the systematic violation of privacy”.
“The misinformation and hatred that circulate on the Internet has the real capacity to destroy a life. We see it every day. In the boys and girls who suffer cyberbullying. In minors exposed to unwanted sexual content, in young people who build their identity under impossible pressures, in groups who endure constant hatred, just because of their origin, their accent or their way of being or living”, insisted the president. “Behind it there is an economic and political interest: it is the business of lies and the agenda of the far right. Lies such as that paracetamol causes autism, that migrants steal our jobs or live on aid or that equality laws are against men, find a perfect interlocutor in the networks, which multiply algorithms optimized to exacerbate the impact of lies. To hate without guilt, we must first dehumanize. Erase the other. Transform it into a label: Mori, menas, feminists, travelos. Does this sound familiar? Insults that eliminate humanity. Here’s how it starts. And History offers ample examples of how badly this spiral ends,” he concluded.
