Spain’s Sánchez launches AI tool to track hate speech on social media

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez on Wednesday unveiled a new government AI tool that will rank social media sites based on how much hate speech they host.

“If hate is already dangerous, social networks have turned it into a weapon of mass polarization that ends up seeping into everyday life,” Sánchez said at an International Summit against Hate and Digital Harassment. “Today social networks are a failed state,” he said.

The new system, known as HODIO, will analyze large volumes of publicly available activity on social media to measure the scale and spread of online hate speech. The data will be used to track how hateful content evolves and spreads on platforms, and will feed into a public ranking comparing how much hate speech circulates on major networks.

The European Union has rolled out laws and regulations like the Digital Services Act to crack down on illegal and harmful online content. The rules have drawn the ire of the United States’ administration, which sees them as online censorship.

The new Spanish hate speech tool comes as Sanchéz repeatedly clashed with U.S. President Donald Trump last week over the conflict in Iran.

The Spanish prime minister said the initiative is aimed at holding platforms accountable for how their algorithms amplify polarizing content, and added that the government plans to introduce a legal offense for “algorithmic amplification” of hate speech.

Sánchez launched a broader push for stricter digital regulation last month and wants to ban social media access for users under 16.