On February 3, the big news broke. President Pedro Sánchez confirmed that Spain will prohibit access to social networks for those under 16 years of age.
The measure comes after Congress in September approved the organic law for the protection of minors in digital environments, which raises the minimum age for registration from 14 to 16 years and forces device manufacturers to offer free parental control systems.
The objective is for technology companies to implement age verification systems and controls that allow them to monitor and measure the exposure of minors to content not recommended for them..
As expected, the reactions of large social networks were immediate. «Dirty Sánchez is a tyrant and a traitor to the Spanish,» businessman and founder of SpaceX, Elon Musk, published in X.
These words are now added to those of the CEO of Telegram. Durov assures that the regulatory package would force platforms to collect data from all users and remove content preventively to avoid possible sanctions. According to him, this would push networks to censor more than necessary for fear of legal consequences..
For the founder of Telegram, this opens the door for governments to decide what is seen and what is not on the internet. «They are not protective measures, they are steps towards total control,» he comments. It also makes it clear that this entire «manual» has already been seen before in other countries.
«These are not safeguards; they are steps towards total control. We have seen this strategy before: governments using ‘security’ as a weapon to censor their critics,» he wrote on Telegram.
Sánchez makes it clear that it is more necessary than ever to protect the youngest from all the dangers of the internet
Meanwhile, it is known that The Spanish Executive will work together with the Prosecutor’s Office to investigate possible breaches of large social networks such as TikTok, Instagram or X. The final idea is that Spain can create a solid framework that holds all these huge companies responsible for the safety of the youngest.
On the other hand, add that this new regulation also forces platforms to apply controls to prevent minors from bypassing the restrictions by all means.
There is talk of automatic age detection and verification systems, as well as mechanisms to report and eliminate content that is not recommended for the youngest.
«You have to be crazy to believe that WhatsApp is safe in 2026»
The truth is that Durov has been dropping big pearls against everyone for some time. After a long time of silence, it seems that now there is no one to stop him.
Without going any further, the creator of Telegram recently targeted WhatsApp, attacking where it hurts the most: the privacy of its messages. «You have to be crazy to believe that WhatsApp is safe in 2026,» he commented.
The truth is that This statement is released just when WhatsApp is under scrutiny for a lawsuit that questions whether the messages are really private and protected..
Specifically, we are talking about a complaint filed in the United States against Meta, Mark Zuckerberg’s company, accused of deceiving millions of users about the real security of WhatsApp.
According to the lawsuit, the app is sold as fully encrypted, but in reality Meta could save, analyze and access a large part of those conversations that supposedly no one can read.
As expected, Meta has responded quickly, denying everything and calling the lawsuit absurd. Insists that end-to-end encryption works and that not even they themselves can access the content of the chats.
The creator of Telegram insists that his team has analyzed the WhatsApp system and found «several forms of attack.» That is, different weak points through which someone could sneak in.