Sanchez laid out his plan during an address before attending the WEF’s annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland.
Spain’s PM urged world leaders, corporate heads, powerful bureaucrats, and other power elites in the Davos audience to unite in an effort to eliminate “anonymity” and “misinformation” online.
Sanchez says he wants to end anonymity on these platforms and replace it with, what he calls, “pseudonymity.”
The plan involves forcing platforms to link all accounts to a European Digital Identity Wallet.
If adopted, only people with digital IDs would be able to access social media platforms.
The result would be the ability of the authorities to know the real-life identities of every social media user.
However, the Spanish prime minister said those users would still be allowed to use nicknames “if they want” instead of their real names online, for now.
In addition, the move would trigger a surge in the uptake of digital IDs, which are currently unpopular among members of the public due to privacy concerns and other issues.
While the plan wouldn’t technically mandate digital IDs universally, individuals would need to obtain one if they wish to continue using social media.
Nevertheless, Sanchez insists that the plan will be pitched as an example of “accountability” that in no way undermines freedom of speech.
According to Sanchez, forcing citizens to adopt digital IDs is somehow “an essential compliment” to free expression.
Sanchez repeated the talking points of other digital ID advocates, arguing that the technology is good for society because it will help to solve crimes and protect minors.
The prime minister also sees anonymity as “paving the way for misinformation, hate speech and cyber harassment.”
Although the move would unavoidably undermine the privacy of all social media users, the vast majority of whom are not criminals, the plan involves unmasking all individuals to the government.
Yet, Sanchez insists that privacy is possible without anonymity.
Other than promoting this idea of what one might call “pseudoprivacy,” Sanchez also went after social media owners and CEOs, who he referred to as “tycoons.”
He accused the companies behind the platforms of concentrating “power and wealth in the hands of just a few.”
But he didn’t voice a similar complaint about the legacy media ecosystem that operates along the same lines, while also being considerably less diverse in terms of speech and opinion.
Sanchez treats social media as a “threat” that needs to be fought and “faced head-on” by world leaders.
He proposes holding CEOs “personally accountable for noncompliance with laws and norms in their platforms” as one tactic.
WATCH: Click on the text at the top of the video below to view below what he stated to the WEF
His speech is littered with alarmist language, however.
Sanchez likens social platforms to “invaders concealed in the belly of a Trojan horse.”
He claims the platforms fuel misinformation, cyberbullying, hate speech, sex offenses, privacy violations, anxiety, violence, and loneliness.
Sanchez also warned the WEF elites that social media is “harming the liberal order and democracy.”
But at one point, Sanchez momentarily said the quiet part out loud when he told Davos globalists: “Let’s take back control.”
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