Elon Musk calls Spanish PM a 'tyrant' over plan to ban under-16s from social media and curb hateful content

Source: The Guardian

Elon Musk calls Spanish PM a ‘tyrant’ over plan to ban under-16s from social media and curb hateful content

Pedro Sánchez says urgent action needed to protect children from ‘digital wild west’, drawing anger from owner of X

Staff and agencies
Wed 4 Feb 2026 01.05 GMT
Last modified on Wed 4 Feb 2026 01.13 GMT

Spain has proposed a ban on social media use by teenagers as attitudes hardened in Europe against the technology, drawing personal insults against the prime minister from Elon Musk.

The government is preparing a series of measures including a social media ban for under-16s, the prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, said, promising to protect children from the “digital wild west” and hold tech companies responsible for hateful and harmful content.

Sánchez said on Tuesday that urgent action was needed because social media was a “failed state where laws are ignored and crimes are tolerated”.

He also took Musk to task for using X to “amplify disinformation” over his administration’s decision last week to regularise 500,000 undocumented workers and asylum seekers, pointing out that Musk was himself a migrant.

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Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/media/2026/feb/04/spain-under-16-social-media-ban-elon-musk-insults