Madrid, February 5, 2025.- The President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, has announced today new measures against the "ruthless technological race" and the "plan designed" by the "technocaste", authoritarian powers and anti-system forces and to prevent "the digital space from becoming the wild west". Among the initiatives it stands out to advance in the end of anonymity in social networks, deepen the algorithmic transparency to “make moderation and self-control a legal requirement” and guarantee the personal responsibility of the directors of the platforms before the impact of their contents. This has been the case during the closing ceremony in Madrid of the presentation of the Digital Rights Observatory, launched today from Red.es with the support of dozens of companies, institutions and universities, with special support from the Hermes Foundation, to protect rights and freedoms in the digital world. The presentation was also attended by the Minister for Digital Transformation and Public Function, Óscar López, and the Minister of Territorial Policy and Democratic Memory, Ángel Víctor Torres; the Minister of Economy, Trade and Business, Carlos Corporal; and the Minister of Equality, Ana Redondo.

Pedro Sánchez has argued that people cannot be allowed to “be insulted, threatened, swindled and abused without any consequence.” “Faith in technology and its promises has blinded us to its worst consequences”, he lamented in reference to the exit of digital products and services to the market “without controlling their risks and their potential damages”, so he urged “to prevent, combat and eradicate once and for all the manipulation and misuse of digital environments”. Although he stressed that the digital revolution “has transformed our lives, the way we work, live and even love”, he has “turned our economies upside down” and transformed the civic space by opening spaces, he has warned that “under the aura of economic, social and cultural miracle there are many miseries hidden”, because “the algorithm does not share opportunities because the big platforms are not neutral and lies travel in them faster than the truth”.

“Social media is a real battleground”

In this regard, he referred to the immediacy and the “obsession with the like” that “distorts reality and impoverishes public debate” and he denounced that “social networks are today real battlefields, where it is not discussed, but attacked, not argued, disqualified, and not sought to understand, but to impose”. The main consequence, he said, is that “very often what is viralized in social networks is the lie”, with false data, modified images and fake news, as happened in the dana in Valencia when “Thousands of bots tried to multiply the damage by spreading hoaxes”.

However, he has stressed that what happens in the digital world has consequences in digital life. In fact, he has pointed out that digital crimes already account for a fifth of all criminal offenses, one in four young people receive unwanted requests for sexual content and online hate crimes grew by 32% in the last year. “We thought the platforms would help level the playing field, but they’ve made it more unfair. One third of social media profiles are bots, which generate nearly half of internet traffic. The searches, content and news we consume are biased. Virality is very much above the truth,” he said.

Act for a “human and humanist” digitalization in front of a “technocaste” who does “everything for the pasta”

This is due, in his opinion, to “a plan systematically designed, planned and executed” by “foreign powers such as Russia, which seeks to weaken our democratic institutions, by anti-system forces that seek to create chaos in our societies, either to achieve power or to take advantage of the vulnerable and, now, by a small group of millionaires for whom it is not enough to have more money than 150 countries together”. “They also want political power. Sit directly on the councils of ministers, without caretas or mediators. Control our laws and our lives. Conditioning what we see and what we think. Even our memory as a society, if it is necessary to promote authoritarianism and hatred, but let no one deceive themselves: their main motivation for controlling democratic power is none other than money. All for the pasta,” he has censored.

It is, he said, a “ruthless technological race where the technocaste and authoritarian powers that fight without rules or principles in the digital world and that have an impact on real life are combined” and a “technology at the service of power and ideology” that also wants an artificial intelligence “without dissent”. Faced with those who “promote absolute deregulation for the technocaste”, Sánchez has called to “rebel” with an alternative led by Spain and that Europe consolidate a model of technological development that contributes to economic growth from full respect to the digital rights of citizens with “a human and humanist digitization”.

Regulation: end anonymity in social networks and moderation and algorithms

In this way, he has defended the three measures with European implications that he proposed at the World Forum in Davos to protect citizens and resume control of the platforms, such as ending the anonymity that “poisons social networks and cannot be an excuse for impunity”. “Just as it is not possible to drive a car without registration or get on a plane without identification, we cannot allow those who harass other citizens, spread lies, or spread hatred and do so with impunity,” he said.

He has also urged to advance in the defense of the digital rights of citizenship, and deepen in algorithmic transparency: “Platforms must be forced to share the information necessary for their supervision and to make moderation and self-control a requirement, a legal requirement.” Thus, the President of the Government has announced that “we are going to strengthen, from the material and personal point of view, the capabilities of the Center for Algorithmic Transparency of the European Commission”, located in Seville. In addition, the Government will approve in the coming weeks the designation of the National Commission of Markets and Competition (CNMC) as Coordinator of Digital Services and we will provide it with the material and human resources to exercise the supervision of the activity of digital platforms.

Responsibility of the “technobillionaires”

Pedro Sánchez also stressed the need for “the CEOs of companies not to refuse to comply with their obligations, as do entrepreneurs, any self-employed or worker, and, when they do, to respond for the damages caused by their platforms”, so that work is done to guarantee personal responsibility in the digital era and that “technobillionaires and technological giants respond for their acts and the damage caused by their algorithms”. Therefore, the Executive is studying mechanisms that ensure the legal responsibility of managers with respect to the operation of the platforms, ensuring that they can be held accountable for the violation of rights and freedoms that may occur in them.

The second front of “priority” action is the promotion of digital and technological sovereignty in which Europe and Spain are already advancing, because “Europe cannot depend on others to define its digital future”. “We cannot allow our data, infrastructure and communications to remain in the hands of foreign powers or companies without democratic control. We need to invest in innovation, develop our own technologies and infrastructures and strengthen a regulatory framework that protects our citizens,” he said. For this reason, he has advocated that Europe “lead its digital transformation with clear rules, firm values and the ambition to be a global reference in ethical and responsible technology”, which means “developing its own browsers, European public and private social networks and messaging services that use open protocols”.

The head of the Executive has advanced that Spain will defend in the European Commission the elaboration of an investment plan for the promotion of public-private infrastructures, in line with the national digital infrastructure developed by Spain, which this month has launched the first model of ALIA, the new family of Artificial Intelligence in Spanish and co-official languages. In addition, the government mobilizes 150 million euros to accelerate the adoption of AI in Spanish companies. Likewise, Spain has been one of the first countries in the world to have a Digital Rights Charter during the pandemic. “The Digital Rights Observatory shares the same philosophy: that these rights be real, tangible and effective in the lives of all people from public-private collaboration, with the participation of the academic world, business and civil society. We are facing a decisive moment, which forces us to choose between two alternatives: either we follow the path marked by others and let ourselves be carried away by the current; or we assume the leadership to define a new way of understanding, designing and building technology. Let us choose this last way: to be masters of our own destiny,” he concluded.

Óscar López: “If we want a secure digital space, we have to regulate it”

At the beginning of the event, the Minister for Digital Transformation and Public Function, Óscar López, also spoke, who defended that “it is necessary to regulate coexistence and protect people because when cars appeared, traffic lights were invented”. “The road will not be easy and the resistances will be tireless, they already are, but if we want a secure digital space we must position ourselves and the Government of Spain, with its president at the head, is clear. In the face of negationism, science, in the face of the hoax, the truth, and in the face of the technocratic case, digital rights,” he said.