Proposes a measure that would expose people to reprisals for speaking out

Pedro Sánchez attacks the right to privacy and compares using a social network with buying a gun

Esp 1·22·2025 · 19:40 0

Spain's prime minister, socialist Pedro Sánchez, appears to have lost his mind in his authoritarian drift.

Sánchez, his mafia-like exercise of power and the silence of a large part of journalism
Pedro Sánchez imitates a measure of the Putin regime to limit press freedom

Compare using a social network with buying a hunting weapon

Speaking at the Davos Forum, Sánchez said he would propose ending online anonymity in the European Union and compared using a social network to buying a gun, saying:

"In our countries, people cannot walk down the street with a mask on their face, or drive a car without a driving license. You cannot send a package without giving an ID, or buy a hunting weapon without giving an ID. And we are allowing people to run freely on social networks without linking their profiles to a real identity."

Sánchez also stated that "citizens have the right to privacy, not to anonymity or impunity."

A measure that attacks the right to privacy

It is hard to believe that the head of government of a democratic country would make such absurd statements. The right to anonymity on the Internet is part of our right to privacy. What Sánchez is trying to do is as absurd as if we were obliged to wear a t-shirt with our name and surname in order to express our opinion on the street or in a bar. Comparing the mere fact of using a social network with the purchase of a weapon already shows how completely Sánchez has lost his mind. He is totally out of touch with reality.

Significantly, the Popular Party already proposed such nonsense in 2021. As I explained then, wanting to ban anonymity on the internet is labelling all anonymous users as criminals, even if they have never committed any crime.

In fact, anonymity is a way of protecting ourselves from unscrupulous people. The vast majority of us who remain anonymous on the Internet do so precisely to protect ourselves from criminals, in my case after suffering serious death threats, reported to the courts without the complaints serving any purpose. What the government needs to do is provide more resources to the Police, and not treat innocent citizens as suspects for the mere fact of connecting to a social network with an anonymous profile.

The risks that such a measure would entail for citizens

Furthermore, it should be remembered that to connect to the Internet you need to be a client of a communications operator, with which you are already identified with all your legal data. When someone on the network commits a crime, what the Police and Justice do is ask the operator what name is behind that IP and the time at which they connected, in the case of a variable IP.

Four years ago I recalled here the words of Ramón María Orza, Professor of the Department of Constitutional Law at the University of Granada, in an article published by Telefónica's Telos magazine, stating that the right to anonymity "is one of the rights that is usually questioned most intensely in debates on new rights in the communications society. But we have no doubt about the fact that its protection and maintenance must constitute a guarantee for the exercise of public freedoms, in the same way as the secrecy of communications or data protection are also". Professor Arza added:

"If the mere concealment of the number of an incoming call has received such attention within the EU as an unquestionable guarantee for the exercise of various fundamental rights, the protection of anonymity when surfing the Internet should be of much greater interest. As anyone can imagine, the study of a mere list of pages visited by a specific person, especially if the tracking relates to a more or less prolonged period of time, can offer a huge amount of information about the personality, economy, tastes, hobbies or concerns of that specific citizen. The profile obtained can be used for various purposes and may entail serious threats to his or her freedom or security."

A measure in line with Sánchez's authoritarian drift

Every time a politician proposes ending anonymity on the internet, what they are doing is attacking our right to privacy, threatening to expose us to reprisals for expressing opinions that are not to the liking of some. It is no coincidence that this is proposed by a politician allied with the heirs of the terrorist group ETA, and who refuses to condemn the criminal repression of the Venezuelan socialist dictatorship against the dissidents of that anti-democratic regime.

Pedro Sánchez's government is immersed in an authoritarian drift whose next step is that anyone can suffer reprisals for expressing opinions on the Internet that are not to the liking of the socialists and their communist partners, whose allergy to dissent is one of the characteristics of the so-called "cancellation culture."

What Sánchez proposes would open the door to labor, academic and other types of reprisals for all those who express opinions that are not to the liking of others. What Sánchez does is an attack on freedom of expression. Another one.

Sanchez criticizes impunity after granting it to his allies

Finally, it is the height of cynicism for Sánchez to say that there is no right to impunity, after having granted an openly unconstitutional amnesty to his separatist partners in exchange for their support for his re-election. This is the same Sánchez who two weeks ago presented an impunity law to end the judicial proceedings for corruption against his government, his party and his family. What he now intends is that we cannot protest about these things either or, if we do, we expose ourselves to reprisals.

---

Photo: World Economic Forum.

Don't miss the news and content that interest you. Receive the free daily newsletter in your email:

Opina sobre esta entrada:

You must login to comment. Click here to login. If you have not registered yet, you can create a user account here.