Ammon News - Spain and Greece on Tuesday proposed bans on social media use by teenagers as attitudes hardened in Europe against technology some say is designed to be addictive and the measures announced by Spain's Prime Minister, Pedro Sánchez, drew fury from Elon Musk.

Spain wants to prohibit social media for under-16s, Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said. Greece is close to announcing a similar ban for children under 15, a senior government source said.

But Sanchez also said his government would create a law to hold social media executives personally responsible for hate speech on their platforms.

The world's richest man and owner of X, formerly Twitter, reacted to socialist leader Sanchez's measures affecting social media platforms. "Dirty Sánchez is a tyrant and a traitor to the people of Spain," he wrote on X.

About an hour and a half later, he escalated his criticism, posting on X: "Sánchez is the true fascist totalitarian."
Representatives of Google, part of Alphabet, TikTok, Snapchat and Meta did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Spain's proposed measures.

Spain and Greece join countries such as Britain and France in considering tougher stances on social media, after Australia in December became the first nation to prohibit access to such platforms for children younger than 16.

Reuters