Breaking with what has been traditional in his speech at the Davos Economic Forum, the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, has left behind his typical speech focused on the benefits of the Spanish economy to focus on the risks posed by social networks for democracies. The head of the Spanish Executive demanded that a sort of digital identity that allows you to end anonymity on social networks and hold technology billionaires accountable for the functioning of the platforms.
To combat the negative effects of social networks, the President of the Government has proposed “end anonymity on social networks” in such a way that each user is associated with a real identification. As a second point, he has advocated for “opening the black box of algorithms” and for all platforms to apply verification mechanisms.
The socialist leader has asked that the European Digital Services regulations be “fully applied” and sanctions be applied to those who do not comply. Finally, he considered that it makes no sense to ask users for responsibility and not do the same with their owners. “There is Ensure that social media executives are held accountable for compliance on the platforms, as happens in other sectors,” he stated.
At the beginning of his speech, Sánchez contextualized social networks as in his beginnings, in the 2000s. They were articulated based on the promise of uniting people and strengthen democracy. Although such a promise “was fulfilled for a time,” it also comes with counterparts, such as cyberbullying, sexual offenses or violence, he listed.
The socialist leader asked the audience to “open their eyes” to show that social networks are inflicting three harms that cannot continue to be ignored. On the one hand, he referred to the polarization of public debate with messages and short videos that “are not enough to explain important topics. “The political debate on social networks makes us replace rigor and complexity”he stated
To this he added that the result of this situation is “the erosion of democracies”, “promoting misinformation”, “altered images and fake news.” Sánchez pointed out that big technology companies do not have these practices because they generate benefits in the form of clicks and advertisements.
“What was going to be a space for the exchange of ideas has become a space for manipulation and censorship,” Sánchez said before the Davos audience. In this framework he has referred to Russia, whom he accused of “weakening democratic institutions and forces” and hinted that the owners of big technology companies are dissatisfied with the fact that democracies “limit the power of the elite”, of “those who think that because they are rich they are above the law they can do what they want.”
“That’s why tech billionaires want to undermine democracy“said Sánchez, who pointed out that social networks have brought “lies and a divisive agenda.” And he added: “a small group of men, only men, triples the EU budget.”
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