Sanchez Goes Nuclear on Cam: 'Migrant' Musk Attacked as Spanish Declares Social Media 'Failed State'

Feb 3, 2026 | Spain’s Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez has ignited a global debate after launching a fierce attack on social media giants at the World Governments Summit in Dubai. Calling social platforms a “failed state,” he accused them of spreading disinformation, hate speech, and harmful content targeting children. Sanchez also took direct aim at Elon Musk amid a row over migrant regularisation and online influence. Now, Spain is moving toward tough new rules, including age bans and criminal liability for executives. But how far will this digital crackdown go, and who could be affected next?

Spain Becomes Latest Country to Announce Plans to Ban Social Media for Minors Under 16 | DW News

Feb 4, 2026 | Spain's Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez has announced a plan to ban social media for youths under the age of 16. He says it's necessary to protect children from a so-called a 'digital wild west.'

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Elon Musk Calls Spanish PM a ‘Tyrant’ over Plan to Ban Under-16s from Social Media and Curb Hateful Content

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

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.

Musk wrote on X in response: “Dirty Sánchez is a tyrant and a traitor to the people of Spain.” About an hour and a half later, he escalated his criticism, posting on X: “Sánchez is the true fascist totalitarian.” » | Staff and agencies | Wednesday, February 4, 2026

Why Spain’s Prime Minister Has Broken Ranks in Europe – and Dared to Confront Trump

THE GUARDIAN: Outrage at the US, close ties with Venezuela and mounting domestic challenges have prompted Pedro Sánchez to take a stand

Spain’s prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, rarely utters the words “Donald Trump” in public. Since the US president took office, Sánchez has typically referred to the US administration and its president without explicitly naming him. This was initially interpreted as a calculation designed to avoid personal confrontation, but even without using Trump’s name, Sánchez has managed to deliver harsher criticism of the US president’s aggression than any of his fellow European leaders.

This week, Sánchez did not wait for a joint EU statement to issue judgment on the US’s illegal military intervention to capture the Venezuelan president, Nicolás Maduro: he swiftly joined Latin American countries in condemning it. A few hours later he went even further, saying the operation in Caracas represented “a terrible precedent and a very dangerous one [which] reminds us of past aggressions, and pushes the world toward a future of uncertainty and insecurity, similar to what we already experienced after other invasions driven by the thirst for oil”.

Sanchez was speaking in Paris on Tuesday after a meeting of the “coalition of the willing” for Ukraine. Indeed, he made the case that on Venezuela, Ukraine and Gaza he was applying the same reasoning in defence of an international order “based on the observance of fair rules, not on the law of the jungle”. He also pushed back against US sabre-rattling over Greenland: “Spain, believing in peace, diplomacy and the United Nations, cannot, of course, accept this, just as we cannot accept the explicit threat to the territorial integrity of a European state, as is the case with Denmark.” » | María Ramírez | Friday, January 9, 2026

Kudos to Pedro Sanchez for having the courage to stand up to the arrogant orange bully. — © Mark Alexander

Espagne : le gouvernement publiera en novembre une liste de symboles franquistes à «retirer» de l'espace public

LE FIGARO : Cette annonce intervient alors que le 20 novembre prochain marquera en Espagne le 50e anniversaire de la mort du général Franco, dans un pays qui reste profondément divisé sur l’héritage mémoriel de sa dictature.

Le premier ministre socialiste espagnol, Pedro Sánchez, a annoncé mercredi que son gouvernement publierait en novembre une liste des symboles du franquisme à «retirer» de l'espace public, 50 ans après la mort du général Franco, qui avait dirigé le pays d'une main de fer entre 1939 et 1975. «Je vous annonce qu'avant la fin du mois de novembre, nous publierons au Journal officiel le catalogue complet des éléments et symboles franquistes afin qu'ils soient définitivement retirés de notre pays et de nos rues», a déclaré Sánchez devant les députés. » | Par Le Figaro avec AFP | mercredi 22 octobre 2025