By Aislinn Laing
MADRID, Feb 4 (Reuters) - Telegram founder Pavel Durov on Wednesday joined Elon Musk in publicly criticising plans by Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez to ban social media access for youth under 16 and to prosecute executives for hate speech on their platforms.
Durov said in a message on Telegram to users that Spain's proposed legislative package would force social media platforms to gather data on all users, and its measures to curb hate speech would prompt platforms to strip content to avoid prosecution.
The proposal by Sanchez would criminalise the use of algorithms deemed to be amplifying harmful content, and Durov, who is based in Dubai, said this would allow governments to control what users see.
"These aren't safeguards; they're steps toward total control. We've seen this playbook before - governments weaponizing 'safety' to censor critics," he wrote on Telegram.
The Spanish prime minister's office defended its plans, saying Durov's mass message to all Spanish users of Telegram showed the urgent need to regulate social media and messaging apps to protect citizens from misleading information. It said Durov took advantage of his "unrestricted control" of the app to message all Spanish users, and accused him of spreading lies.
"Spaniards cannot live in a world where foreign tech oligarchs can flood our phones with propaganda at their will simply because the government has announced measures to protect minors and enforce the law," the office said in a statement.
Sanchez, one of a dwindling band of leftist leaders in Europe, has been criticising technology platforms since early last year when he proposed ending anonymity on social media and linking users' data to a common EU identity wallet.
His wider campaign against disinformation began earlier and was instigated by what he described as a right-wing smear campaign against his family over the investigation into allegations of influence peddling against his wife, Begona Gomez. She denies the accusations and the case is ongoing.
Spain joins countries such as Britain, Greece 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.
Russian-born Durov was detained in Paris in August 2024 over alleged criminal activities on the messaging app. In March 2025, he denied any wrongdoing.
His message about the Spanish plans was forwarded from an account in his name to a channel that normally advises Telegram users about security and account issues.
Musk, the owner of X, has also condemned Sanchez's proposed measures, describing him in an X post on Monday as "a tyrant and a traitor to the people of Spain".
Representatives of Google, part of Alphabet, TikTok, Snapchat and Meta did not respond to requests for comment on Spain's proposed measures.
(Reporting by Aislinn Laing; additional reporting by Joan Faus; Editing by Alexander Smith and Cynthia Osterman)
