end anonymity and be held accountable

The president of the government, Pedro Sánchez, has warned of the danger to democracy that he believes social networks pose and has launched a “battle” against their owners, whom he has defined as “techno-billionaires”, proposing several measures , such as the obligation to be held liable if they do not comply with the rules and to end anonymity on the platforms.

“I know it won’t be easy. “We are all a little scared because the people we are facing are very powerful, they have virtually unlimited financial and technological resources, very dangerous allies and they are not playing fair,” he said. noted at the World Economic Forum in Davos (Switzerland).

Sánchez says that these businessmen do not adhere to moral standards and do not suffer the consequences of non-compliance, but he is confident that he will emerge victorious from this dispute: “I know that we can win the battle because we are right, because there are more of us and because we have done it in the past.”

In this way, Sánchez continues his speech against what he recently defined as “techno caste”, referring to the owners of major technology companies in the United States, who have joined the new President Donald Trump, inaugurated this week.

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 “polarize the public debate.”

For example, he has warned that search engines are biased by bots, which account for a third of social networking profiles and generate half of the Internet’s traffic, as he has noted, and that the algorithms hide some political views and promote others. .

Right to privacy, not anonymity

The head of the executive branch has announced that he will propose to the rest of the European leaders at the next Council of the European Union to end anonymity on social networks, force the platforms to “open the black box of algorithms” and ultimately The operators and owners of the networks “must be held accountable if they fail to adhere to the standards set for these platforms.”

He considers it an anomaly “that cannot remain that way” to allow profiles that are not linked to a real identity, because citizens in a democracy have the right to privacy, “but not to anonymity or impunity.”

“All these platforms should be required to link user accounts to a European digital identity. This way, citizens can use a nickname, a fake name if they want, but if they commit a crime, the authorities can link that account to a real identity and hold them accountable,” he explained.

Transparency of algorithms

Regarding algorithms, he proposes to strengthen the competence and capacity of the European Center for Algorithmic Transparency so that it can exploit social networks “without any restrictions”. This topic, he argues, should be one of the research priorities in the European Union so that the best experts can work on these issues, “just as the enemies of democracy do.”

Sánchez believes that this drift of the networks has occurred as a result of the action of foreign powers such as Russia that try to weaken the institutions of democratic countries, of anti-system forces that try to create chaos to gain power, but for the owners. social networks, “a small group of techno-billionaires who are no longer satisfied with the current situation.”

Billionaires who want to end democracy

“They are not satisfied with having almost complete economic power, but they also want political power, which undermines our democratic institutions,” he accuses. However, he points out that these measures will be futile if they do not hold the owners of the networks accountable, “because they are among the richest and most powerful people in the world,” he emphasizes.

So just as the owner of a restaurant is responsible if his food poisons customers, for Sánchez, the owners of social networks must be responsible for the fact that algorithms can “poison the population,” he indicated.