Spain Moves to Protect Kids From 'Digital Wild West'

Spain just dialed up Europe's clash with Big Tech, asking prosecutors to probe X, Meta, and TikTok over suspected AI-generated child sexual-abuse imagery on their platforms. Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez accused the companies of harming children's "mental health, dignity, and rights" and said their "impunity" must end, per the New York Times. The firms didn't immediately comment; X has previously denied similar allegations in France, where police recently raided its Paris offices.

The Times notes that the latest move slots Spain into a broader European push to aggressively police US tech giants, from the EU's first Digital Services Act fine against X in December to fresh investigations in Britain and Ireland into sexually explicit AI images tied to X's chatbot, Grok. The Elon Musk-owned platform is also the center of a larger EU investigation out of Belgium, per the AP.

European leaders frame the pressure as citizen protection, while US politicians and tech execs warn of threats to free speech. Sanchez—who's also backing a proposal to bar under-16s from social media to protect them from what he calls the "digital Wild West," per the Guardian—has become a prominent foil to Musk. The latest investigation request quickly drew a crude personal response from the X owner, a clash some analysts say bolsters Sanchez's bid to cast himself as a global liberal standard-bearer.