Sánchez responds to Musk and Durov: “Let the techno-oligarchs bark, Sancho, it’s a sign that we’re riding”

Eduardo González The Prime Minister, Pedro Sánchez, has used a well-known saying to respond to the harsh words spoken by tech magnates Elon Musk, of the social network X, and Pavel Durov, of Telegram, regarding the Spanish government's legislative and regulatory measures to protect minors and strengthen control over social media against disinformation, hate speech, and the lack of protection of personal data and material, announced this week in Dubai. “Let the techno-oligarchs bark, Sancho, it's a sign we're riding on,” Pedro Sánchez wrote on social media, paraphrasing a popular saying (“they bark, therefore we ride”) erroneously attributed to Don Quixote. Separately, Pedro Sánchez also addressed the same issue this Thursday during his speech at the 8th National Industry Congress. “Today, the power of the State (…) is also there to protect our democracies from the attacks they suffer and our children from that toxic and impunity-ridden world into which social media has unfortunately transformed, what I have called a failed state.” “Some say that regulation is control, that politics is tyranny, that setting rules limits innovation, but they almost never ask themselves the key question: innovation, for what purpose? To expand rights or to put them at risk? To strengthen democracy or to erode it? To improve people's lives or for a few to line their pockets? Do we want a technology that normalizes and amplifies deception? That turns privacy into a commodity? A society in which a techno-oligarch can infiltrate the mobile phones of millions of citizens, as they did yesterday, to tell them lies?” he continued. “The answer has to be a clear no, and they are not going to break us, because the voice of reason, of the social majority and of democracy will not be subdued by those techno-oligarchs of the algorithm,” he added. Yolanda Díaz and Sumar Hours earlier, the Second Vice President of the Government and Minister of Labor and Social Economy, Yolanda Díaz, denounced at Harvard University the “threats” launched by Elon Musk and Pavel Durov of Telegram against “democracy” and the “elected government” in Spain. “The owner of Telegram has just threatened our country, saying that the Spanish government is limiting digital rights worldwide. We are going to defend democracy, break with digital monopolies, and regulate; they are not in charge,” Díaz stated during a conference at Harvard Law School (Massachusetts). Furthermore, she continued, the owner of the social network X, Elon Musk, “is also threatening democracy in Spain. The owner of a digital platform cannot believe himself to be above an elected government. We are going to show him that in Spain, the Spanish people are in charge.” Specifically, the Sumar party, led by Yolanda Díaz, has presented a non-binding resolution urging the government and the entire central administration to withdraw from the X network following attacks by Elon Musk, according to the Europa Press news agency. Yolanda Díaz and other Sumar ministers (Pablo Bustinduy, Ernest Urtasun, and Sira Rego) abandoned X a year ago in favor of the Bluesky network in protest against Musk's declared support for US President Donald Trump. However, government sources cited by the same agency have assured that both Pedro Sánchez and the rest of the ministries will continue using X and Telegram. Sánchez's measures and Musk's insults Last Tuesday, during the inauguration of the World Governments Summit in Dubai, Pedro Sánchez announced five legislative and regulatory measures by the Spanish government to protect minors and strengthen control over social media against disinformation, hate speech, and the lack of protection of personal data and material. These measures include a ban in Spain on access to social media for minors under sixteen, requiring digital platforms to implement effective age verification systems; legal reforms to hold executives legally responsible for infractions committed on their platforms; criminalizing the manipulation of algorithms and the amplification of illegal content; developing, in conjunction with the public prosecutor's office, mechanisms to investigate potential legal infractions by Google, TikTok, and Instagram; and creating a tracking, quantification, and traceability system to establish a "Hate and Polarization Footprint." In response to the measures announced by Pedro Sánchez, billionaire magnate Elon Musk wrote, via his own social network X, that "dirty Sánchez is a tyrant and a traitor to the people of Spain." Vox and PP For his part, the leader of the far-right Vox party, Santiago Abascal, also wrote on X: “Whatever they do on social media to censor us, and to censor young people, they won't find any way to stop us from speaking to all Spaniards on equal terms.” Meanwhile, the Deputy Secretary for Regional and Local Coordination and Electoral Analysis of the People's Party (PP), Elías Bendodo, asserted that his party had already proposed limiting the use of social media for minors months ago and denounced the government for “always playing catch-up.” “There was no need for them to go to Dubai to announce a measure that the main party in Spain had already proposed,” he added. European Commission On Wednesday, Thomas Regnier, the European Commission's spokesperson for technological sovereignty, praised the efforts of member states to address disinformation, hate speech, and the protection of personal data, specifically in reference to Spain. However, he cautioned that while member states have the power to adopt additional measures to protect minors, these must be aligned with European regulations, which establish a harmonized framework for the entire European Union. He also reiterated that the EU's Digital Services Act (DSA) regulates the operation of platforms to guarantee the protection of European citizens, stating that "it's not just about protecting children in Spain, but about protecting all European citizens under the DSA framework." Furthermore, he warned that "imposing measures or adding new obligations on platforms in this case is not viable," as everything is already regulated by the Digital Services Act, which has a harmonizing effect at the European level.

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