Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez has clashed with social media platform owners over plans to ban social media for under-16s in the country.Describing social media platforms as the “Wild West”, Sanchez announced plans to hold platform executives responsible for criminal or harmful content.Social media executives, including tech billionaire and X owner Elon Musk and the Russian Telegram founder Pavel Durov, hit back, with Elon Musk calling Sanchez a “true fascist totalitarian” over the proposed measures this week.Then, in an open Telegram message to all users in Spain, Durov accused Sanchez’s government of “pushing dangerous new regulations that threaten your internet freedoms”.He claimed the measures would turn Spain “into a surveillance state under the guise of ‘protection’”.In response, unnamed government sources told the media: “Telegram founder Pavel Durov used his unrestricted control of the app to send a mass message to all users in Spain, spreading several lies and making illegitimate attacks against the government. This is the first time this has happened in our country’s history.“Spaniards cannot live in a world where foreign tech oligarchs can flood our phones with propaganda at will simply because the government has announced measures to protect minors and enforce the law.”So what is the dispute about, and why has it become so heated?What has Sanchez announced?Speaking at the World Governments Summit in Dubai on Tuesday, Sanchez said that by bannin …
