The Sánchez government's digital Putinism: blocking a website without a court order

The coalition government of socialists and communists led by Pedro Sánchez is veering in an increasingly dangerous authoritarian direction.

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Last week, many Spanish users lost access to the website archive.today, as well as to other mirror sites for the same service, such as archive.ph, archive.is, and archive.li. When attempting to access archive.today, a page from the Ministry of Culture's website now appears, displaying the following statement in red letters against a black background: "You are attempting to access an illegal website." The notice, in Spanish, continues as follows:

"Access to this page has been blocked by a Resolution of the Second Section of the Intellectual Property Commission for illegally facilitating access to content protected by intellectual property rights.

By accessing content protected by intellectual property rights that has been made public without authorization, you are contributing to illegal and criminal activity and putting your security—as well as that of your data and devices—at risk.

Conversely, if you choose to access content from legal sources, you contribute to artistic creation, the improvement of cultural products, and economic development."

At the bottom of this notice appears the logo of the aforementioned Second Section of the Intellectual Property Commission—a body under the Ministry of Culture, currently led by Minister Ernest Urtasun of the far-left Sumar coalition. The Ministry of Culture has already added the site in question to its list of blocked websites. Until now, Archive.today was a tool widely used by Spanish journalists to obtain an automatic copy of a specific webpage at a given moment, thereby preserving a record of its content in case the site ceased to exist or altered its original publication.

Significantly, a few days ago, Xataka.com noted that only two other countries block Archive.today: Russia and Communist China. Coincidentally, both of those countries are dictatorships. Xataka.com also noted that Australia and New Zealand had blocked the site as well but ultimately lifted the ban.

It is worth recalling that Article 20 of the Spanish Constitution recognizes and protects the right to "freely express and disseminate thoughts, ideas, and opinions through speech, writing, or any other means of reproduction" and to "freely communicate or receive truthful information by any means of dissemination." Clause 5 of that article specifies the procedure for limiting this right: "The seizure of publications, recordings, and other means of information may only be ordered by a court decision."

As is evident from the notice displayed when attempting to access it, the blocking of the aforementioned website was carried out by order of a body within the Ministry of Culture and without a court order. Consequently, this blockade constitutes a clear violation of Clause 5 of Article 20 of the Spanish Constitution. If there is a conflict between the right to freedom of information and intellectual property rights, that matter must be decided by a judge, not by a government agency acting under the orders of a politician. Indeed, the procedure followed by the Ministry of Culture is characteristic of a dictatorship—the type of regime where a politician orders a website to be blocked without recourse to the judicial system.

In Russia, such digital censorship is carried out by a political body known as Roskomnadzor, which operates under the Russian Ministry of Digital Development, Communications and Mass Media. In Communist China, censorship is enforced by the Cyberspace Administration—also known as the Great Firewall—which answers directly to the Chinese Communist Party. Pedro Sánchez’s government is already implementing censorship methods in Spain typical of dictatorships. How long will it be before we see similar blocks applied to websites that hold views opposed to the government? Not only has a dangerous precedent been set, but this has occurred with barely any protest, highlighting the alarming direction in which Spain is heading.