Sánchez proposes EU end to anonymity on social media

Sánchez proposes ending anonymity on social media

Pedro Sánchez will propose that the European Union put an end to anonymity on social media. He justifies it with a street analogy: “In our countries, people cannot walk down the street wearing a mask or drive without a licence,” and concludes that “in a democracy, impunity is not a right.” Behind the packaging, those tracking the digital agenda point to the European digital ID, a unique identifier for each person to operate on the internet.

The most telling detail is technical and boring. Anyone who has begun integrating that system into a website describes it as a wall: no libraries available, no sample code, just a manual and coding everything from scratch. Any provider with an API gives its client a snippet ready to copy and adapt. Here, no. And if integration is this uphill for a developer, the question of what happens with the rest of the internet is left hanging.

What exactly is proposed to end anonymity on social media?

The proposal, announced for transfer to Brussels, aims to ensure that no account can function without a verified identity behind it. The format is not unprecedented either: some recall that most major platforms already require a mobile number to open an account, and that number is tied to a person. The novelty is turning voluntary identification into a legal requirement and harmonising it across the EU. Another piece with a name of its own appears in the conversation: the digital ID, which, according to its critics, would work like the DNI (Spain’s national ID card), but for any online procedure.

The response has quickly drifted into the technical, and there agreement is nowhere in sight. Skeptics argue that identifying the user to their operator does not close any door, because traffic can exit elsewhere as soon as someone reroutes it. The interpretation of those who see the measure as viable assumes that identification before access and filtering by addresses would be enough for the bulk of cases.

The VPN argument against controlling anonymity

The most repeated argument against its effectiveness fits in one sentence: how does the state stop someone from connecting to a server in another country that does not require any European identification? A VPN or a proxy is enough. The reply to that argument involves access control — first you identify yourself and then you are allowed out — but that forces the ID into the same infrastructure that makes the internet work, and that infrastructure was not designed for that.

The discussion shifts to IPv6, the protocol that was supposed to assign a different address to each device. With IPv6, traceability improves, but it still points to a device or a service, not a person. Distinguishing the device from its owner requires exactly what the measure intends: a personal identifier. And at that point the political cost starts to weigh more than the technical one.

The control they already tried through the back door

No need to wait for Brussels. The so-called decreto ómnibus (omnibus decree) — which included the uprating of pensions — contained measures designating the Comisión Nacional de los Mercados y la Competencia (Spain’s competition regulator) as “digital services coordinator”, with the power to inspect platforms and to force them to reveal their algorithms. The bill died in Congress with votes against from Partido Popular, Vox and Junts. The episode feeds the thesis that the regulatory offensive is being smuggled in through side channels.

What is at stake there is not only anonymity, but the regulator’s perimeter. For its critics, a body capable of auditing the internal workings of platforms is a supervisor with power over speech, not only over competition. That is the line separating content moderation from administrative censorship, depending on whom you ask.

Who wins and who pays with the end of anonymity

The calculation is on every corner. As one participant in the debate argues, the main social networks are foreign companies and, in practice, they will not demand a European ID from someone connecting from Spain. That, according to this approach, reduces the measure to the symbolic: a user identified to their operator leaves a trace of when they connected, but little more, without the cooperation of the tech companies. The result, always according to this reading, would be more capacity to pressure platforms and an added bureaucratic step for citizens.

There is also a market reading. Those defending digital assets argue in the thread that anonymity is the last wall protecting certain assets and the economy built around them. The usual reply is that fences around the commons go up whenever someone wants: technical resistance is not a guarantee, it is a delay. That discussion — freedom, privacy and control — is the one that has truly peine up.

And a closing note: the idea is not original. As recalled in the thread, back in 2015 the Partido Popular proposed something similar for social media.