Wednesday, February 4, 2026 - Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez has announced that his government will ban children under the age of 16 from accessing social media.
“Platforms will be required to implement effective age
verification systems — not just check boxes, but real barriers that work,”
Sánchez said during an address to the plenary session of the World Government
Summit in Dubai. “Today our children are exposed to a space they were never
meant to navigate alone ... We will protect [minors] from the digital Wild
West.”
The proposed ban, which is set to be approved by the
country’s Council of Ministers next week, will amend a draft bill currently
being debated in the Spanish parliament.
Spain’s ban is included in a wider package of measures that
Sánchez argued are necessary to “regain control” of the digital space.
“Governments must stop turning a blind eye to the toxic content being shared,”
he said.
That includes a legislative proposal to hold social media
executives legally accountable for the illegal content shared on their
platforms, with a new tool to track the spread of disinformation, hate speech
or child pornography on social networks. It also proposes criminalizing the
manipulation of algorithms and amplification of illegal content.
“We will investigate platforms whose algorithms amplify
disinformation in exchange for profit,” Sánchez said, adding that “spreading
hate must come at a cost — a legal cost, as well as an economic and ethical
cost that platforms can no longer afford to ignore.”
Spain joins a growing chorus of European countries hardening
their approach to restricting kids online.
Denmark announced plans for a ban on under-15’s last fall,
and the French government is pushing to have a similar ban in place as soon as
September. In Portugal, the governing center-right Social Democratic Party on
Monday submitted draft legislation that would require under-16’s to obtain
parental consent to access social media.
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