Spain is yet another EU country that is coming up with legislative measures which officials say are necessary to combat “disinformation” both on social sites and in traditional media.
Such a plan, consisting of 31 points, has been approved by Spain’s Council of Ministers (the main government body), but the opposition is already rejecting it as a ploy to censor free speech.
“More transparency and accountability” is how Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez would like the measures, which will be debated in parliament, to be perceived.
The debate should be interesting, not least considering that the minority government has come up with the proposal supposedly to tackle disinformation – but in the wake of corruption allegations involving the prime minister’s wife.
The accusations leveled at Begona Gomez earlier in the year led to an inquiry, and now the government is determined to push new measures through the parliament that would stop “the spread of false news.”
And this is particular – and coincidentally? – applies to such news when they concern “public institutions and individuals.”
It seems pretty transparent what prompted all this, but that’s not what Sanchez says he has in mind when he talks about transparency: the prime minister frames the plan as needed to protect both accurate information, and democracy.
And not only that, but make that democracy “freer and cleaner” as the justice minister in the left-wing coalition government, Felix Bolanos, chose to put it. And he may or may not be the only one who knows what that is supposed to mean.
Meanwhile, the key opposition, right-wing People’s Party said it would vote against the proposal, as they believe the entire endeavor has to do with ushering in more censorship.
The plan which Bolanos stated should “restore confidence” in the media can also be read as putting some not-so-subtle pressure on them.
Amendments to the penal code are among the proposed provisions, but also a closer government look into media outlet’s finances – referred to as yet more transparency, this time around revenues.
Reports say that to achieve all this, the Spanish government wants to set up “a special commission to combat disinformation” and, speaking of revenues, another measure is to “restrict the operation of corporate advertising in the media.”
