Sánchez, in Davos: “The owners of social networks must be held accountable even if they are the richest in the world”

Pedro Sánchez warns of the danger to democracy posed by the current drift of social networks at the hands of their owners and proposes a “battle” against the “technomillionaires” with several measures such as forcing them to account if they do not comply with the rules and ending the anonymity on platforms.

“I know it’s not going to be easy, I know, we are all a little scared because the people we are facing are very powerful, they have almost unlimited financial and technological resources, very dangerous allies and they are not playing fair because they are not complying with our moral standards do not even face these consequences,” said the President of the Government at the World Economic Forum in Davos (Switzerland). “But I know that we can win the battle because we are right, because there are more of us and because we have already done it in the past,” he added.

Sánchez has resumed his speech against what he recently defined as “techno-caste”, in reference to the owners of large technology companies in the United States, who have aligned themselves with the new president Donald Trump, inaugurated this week.

“We have to generate a common front that unites all those who believe in democracy, regardless of their political ideologies, so that they can adopt courageous measures to confront this overwhelming threat,” he claimed.

Sánchez has warned of the negative effects of social networks “hidden in algorithms”, which instead of empowering people have ended up in a concentration of power and wealth “in the hands of a few” and are “polarizing public debate” .

“They think that because they are rich they are above the law and can do whatever they want. That is why billionaires want to end democracy,” he denounced before warning: “A small group of techno billionaires is no longer satisfied with having almost complete economic power, but also wants political power by undermining our democratic institutions.” ”.

The head of the Executive has announced that he is going to propose to the rest of the European leaders in the next EU Council to end anonymity on social networks, force the platforms to “open the black box of algorithms” and finally make the managers and owners of the networks “have to be held accountable if they do not comply with the standards established for these platforms.”