The Congress of Deputies will resume this week the processing of the Organic Law Project for the protection of minors in digital environments, a regulation that aims to prevent access to social networks for those under 16 years old and that will be debated in a presentation this Tuesday in the Justice Commission.
The parliamentary groups already held a first presentation before the summer holidays, and then sources from the PSOE indicated that they were leaving "satisfied" with the "agreement among the formations of the progressive majority of the Chamber and having incorporated the socialist amendments and transactional proposals into the new law."
Among the registered proposals, PSOE and Sumar agreed to prevent access to social networks that include "harmful content for childhood and adolescence" for those who have not turned 16 years old.
The text focuses attention on the responsibility of large digital platforms, which must prove to the National Commission of Markets and Competition (CNMC) that they do not resort to addictive designs, that they do not expose minors to harmful content or behaviors, that they safeguard their privacy, and that they provide effective tools against unwanted contacts.
In any case, the project establishes that, to access those platforms that have the authorization of the CNMC, minors under 16 years old will also need the express consent of their parents or legal guardians.
Through amendments, the partners of the Executive have also added the inclusion in the Penal Code of the manipulation of algorithms aimed at amplifying harmful content. In this way, it will be considered a crime for a platform or intermediary services to use their algorithms to promote harmful content, including those that incite suicide or self-harm, child sexual abuse material, sexual deepfakes, or hate messages.
Likewise, it is expected that executives who are aware of this effect and do not intervene may be prosecuted criminally, and it is added that disobeying an order to remove illegal content, whether judicial or administrative, will also incur criminal responsibilities.
In a recent interview with Europa Press, the Minister of Youth and Childhood, Sira Rego, emphasized that they have made "an effort" from the Government to "place responsibility where it belongs," on "the large platforms" and not on families.
"This cannot continue to be the law of the jungle. Therefore, it is the platforms, it is the social networks that have to guarantee that the environment is safe and therefore the limit has to be managed by them, not the families. That is to say, what we advocate is to limit the degree of action of the large platforms, of the tech companies and of the digital leaders," she insisted.
Although Rego declares herself "in favor of talking about regulation rather than prohibition," she clarified that "while all this is being organized," they must be "more demanding when it comes to children accessing the digital environment" to protect them from platforms that, she warns, operate under a "law of the jungle."
Alongside the prohibition, the minister also defends "mechanisms of pedagogy, of accompaniment through the National Strategy for Safe Digital Environments for families, for the family environment" and the existence of "alternatives to digital environments."
As she specified, "it is not about" saying a "radical no" to digital environments nor about "going to maximalist rejection positions" but about "having an absolute guarantee that the digital environment is safe for children, as they mature and enter." "It should be a gradual process, an accompanied process, and a process with guarantees," she emphasized.
European context and measures in other countries
In parallel to the advancement of this law in the Spanish Parliament, on September 16, the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, presented an initiative to prohibit the use of social networks by minors under 13 years old throughout the European Union and to allow their access with limitations until the age of 15.
This restricted access will be articulated through "mini accounts, set up and monitored by parents," with specific adjustments on the platforms that ensure limited use, she detailed. In addition, adolescents aged 15 to 18 will be able to use these services through an adapted design that the platforms must offer to guarantee navigation with a reinforced security model.
"I am aware that the power of the tech giants seems overwhelming and impossible to reverse. And I do not agree. We do not have to accept addictive functions and we do not have to accept that children are exposed to increasingly extreme content," Von der Leyen stated, after recalling the case of Oléa, a 14-year-old Belgian girl who was a victim of online bullying and who committed suicide last month.
Likewise, the Parliament of France gave the green light this summer, definitively, to the prohibition of the use of social networks for minors under 15 years old, a measure that will be implemented gradually from the start of the school year until January 1, 2027. The law, promoted by the Government of Emmanuel Macron, also includes the prohibition of the use of mobile phones in schools.