Cory Doctorow (Toronto, 1971) is one of the most lucid voices for discussing power and technology. Aware of the importance of words –he is a novelist and journalist–, he invented a concept at the end of 2022 to define, avoiding technicalities, the process that platforms were experiencing: emmerdification. A concept that has become popular and gives its name to his latest book, which has been translated into Spanish by Capitán Swing.

In the war for the digital narrative, the tug-of-war between the Spanish government and the PP has moved to the vertical format. The two main Spanish politicians opened accounts on TikTok almost simultaneously, although the impact they have is quite different. Alberto Núñez Feijóo was the first to land there in September 2025, just two days before the Spanish prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, did. It is the socialist leader, however, who has gotten the most out of it: Sánchez already has 764,400 followers and over nine million likes. The most striking data from the comparison is that the total number of followers of the popular leader is approximately equivalent to the volume of new users that the Spanish prime minister gains in just one week. A gap that becomes even more evident in the impact of the content: Sánchez's last ten videos have an average of 1.1 million views, thirty-six times more than Feijóo's 31,200.

Last Tuesday, the Council of Ministers decided enough was enough: after months of watching how the artificial intelligence tools of big tech companies became automatic generators of child pornography, the Spanish government has ordered the State Attorney General's Office to investigate X, Meta, and TikTok for possible crimes of sexual abuse of minors. Let no one say they weren't warned: when users of Grok, Elon Musk's AI, created 3 million sexualized images in 11 days – 23,000 of which showed minors – perhaps someone in Silicon Valley could have suspected that things weren't going well.

Pedro Sánchez is not backing down and is taking another step in the crusade against Big Tech. The Spanish government on Tuesday asked the Public Prosecutor's Office to investigate X, Meta (which includes Facebook and Instagram), and TikTok for the sexual violence crimes they may be committing in the creation and distribution of child pornography using their artificial intelligence (AI) tools. "These platforms are threatening the mental health, dignity, and rights of our sons and daughters. The State cannot allow this. The impunity of these giants must end," Sánchez himself stated early in the morning in a message published on X.

Following a discreet pilot program in the UK, TikTok has announced it will implement a new age verification system in Europe to keep users under 13 off the app, as demanded by the EU. The algorithm will consider a range of factors related to account activity—such as the type of content viewed or posted—and in case of suspicion, a human expert will decide whether the account is deleted or remains on the service. In the UK, this methodology has already resulted in the removal of several thousand user profiles belonging to users under 13. Deletion will not be automatic, and users will have the right to attempt to prove they are over the age limit with a credit card, facial recognition analysis, or presentation of their ID. The company Yoti will act as an intermediary in these cases. The system will begin to be rolled out asymmetrically across different countries, and the news comes just as an awareness campaign is underway in Australia demanding that users under 16 be barred from the platform. The UK is also considering a similar ban. Until now, signing up for TikTok as a minor was as easy as entering a fake birthdate. The EU has long been calling for more effective filters. ByteDance, the Chinese company behind TikTok, has also explained that it plans additional measures for teenagers over the age of 13. It explained that those under 16 will not be able to send direct messages and that those under 18 will have a one-hour daily limit on their use of the short-video app.

Catalan content creators have often explained that every time they upload a video they receive insulting comments, photos, or who asks them to switch to SpanishNow, a counter-narrative has emerged. It involves a character named Montserrat Pujol who, in recent weeks, has been making her presence felt on the accounts of many Spanish-speaking influencers. She charmingly and enthusiastically asks them to make videos in Catalan. "Could you do it in Catalan? Thank you." Or: "If you spoke Catalan, you would win many hearts here." And also: "It would be even more charming in Catalan."

ByteDance, owner of the short-video platform TikTok, has agreed to sell its US operations to a conglomerate led by American investors. This follows Trump's demands, who, citing security concerns and the risk of espionage, insisted that the app be divested of Chinese ownership to continue operating legally. After months of negotiations—and extensions to the ultimatums—the parent company has announced it will relinquish its assets in the country.

What should we do with the social media profiles of someone who has died? And with all the other accounts where they stored photos, emails, and contacts? How can we ensure that our online usernames will disappear with us or that they will continue to be managed as we would have liked? Among the legal experts consulted, there are different opinions on whether or not it is necessary for social media to be part of a will, but they agree that it is an option that will most likely gain significant popularity in the coming decades. The reason? That more and more people are living completely digital lives, many of whom own social media profiles with thousands of followers, or whose social media accounts are a source of income, such as those from the United States. influencers.

The philosopher Martin Heidegger produced a very fruitful distinction between fear and anxiety that is still fully relevant. Fear always has a concrete object that threatens the realization of our projects (and here "projects" can simply mean staying alive); on the other hand, anxiety has no concrete object, because it is precisely the impossibility of becoming emotionally involved in any project, the unease that manifests when we realize there is no ultimate foundation behind anything and we are alone before the precipice of free choice. What is more characteristic of the internet: fear or anxiety?

In Jairon Orellana's most viral video, you can see how his boss speaks to him in Spanish at the construction site ("Jairon, are you done there or not?") and he answers him in Catalan ("We brought 20, 25 tiles more or less") and the man automatically speaks to him in Catalan. A sarcastic voice-over comments: "See? I made him speak Catalan."

The construction of a data center to serve TikTok has raised many eyebrows in Finland. In recent years, the construction of this type of infrastructure, which is key to the functioning of the internet, has boomed in the Nordic country, thanks to access to low-cost electricity, good connectivity, and a cold climate that allows servers to be cooled. However, data centers also raise important questions about the security of the data they store, their energy consumption, and the low economic impact they generate for the site that hosts them.

Our teenagers are hooked, above all, on the Chinese platform TikTok from a very early age. Their digital lives are very active on this and other social networks, giving them access to everything, with few barriers. They are also on Instagram, Facebook, WhatsApp, and Twitter, although these networks, also popular, appeal more to adults. Is it necessary to limit minors' access to this digital ocean? How? Who should do it? To what extent? These are questions that concern families, governments, the educational community, and mental health experts. There are, indeed, reasons for concern. But the answers are not so obvious.

Ireland's Data Protection Commission (DPC) has fined TikTok €530 million for transferring European users' personal data to China. The Irish body announced in a statement on its website that the video platform, owned by Chinese company ByteDance, violated EU regulations under the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) by failing to verify that this data received the same level of protection on servers in China as it did in the European Union (EU). Furthermore, the DPC has required the app to adapt its data processing systems to EU regulations within six months. Failing that, TikTok must suspend the transfer of this data to China.

Núria Marín (Viella, 1981) read as a young womanHello and the Frames because she wanted to be a Hollywood actress. This hasn't happened (yet), but her journalism career has been anything but boring. She worked for four years in Superpop, a magazine that influenced several generations of teenagers. Then came fifteen years at Mediaset, presenting and collaborating on many programs such as Butterfly net and Save me. And two years ago 3Cat rediscovered it and started working in Catalan (It is passing, Love cost and Do you have a minute?). Now she's looking for an apartment in Barcelona and time to feed her TikTok.

Change is scary. Uncertainty can be distressing. When the ground beneath us is shaky, our survival instinct drives us to seek firmness. And when we find it, we cling to it without question. The illusion of stability is comforting, especially when we are young and in the process of defining ourselves. What do you do if the gender stereotypes that were meant to guide you are in question and new identities are yet to be defined? Well, look for certainty in the most nostalgic versions of virility.