Spain's worrying failure in information pluralism

The internet's dazzling democratizing dream has long been showing cracks, and one of them directly affects the health of journalism—that is, citizen-centered information. According to the official narrative, everyone can be a broadcaster and make their voice heard. But a glance at the dizzying mergers and acquisitions of companies—worth tens of billions of euros—reveals that we are once again in an era of corporate consolidation that directly threatens media pluralism. The Ellison clan, just days apart, announced its intention to control TikTok and Warner Bros. Discovery. Too much power, too few hands.

The European Audiovisual Observatory has just published a comprehensive study that, among many other issues, analyzes pluralism across the continent. In short, there is indeed more content and more voices than ever before, but the decisive role of digital intermediaries—networks and search engines—is hindering the rich and diverse flow of information that could be achieved. The report's authors have developed a barometer that measures the level of risk to pluralism in different countries. Only four countries show a low risk – below 33 points on a scale of 100 –: the Netherlands, Germany, Sweden, and Denmark. And none fall below 28 points. Spain appears in the medium-high risk group, with 53 points. The main problem in solving this issue is the slow pace of legislation: just when you've established regulations for search engines, social media appears, and when you establish regulations for social media, AI emerges. We need to find a way to adaptively update the regulatory framework, and one of the keys is to break the opacity of the algorithms: you can't regulate what you don't know. Nor is it a coincidence that they maintain opacity regarding the traffic data they monitor. Seen this way, they govern from the shadows and thanks to the shadows.