Spanish Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez presented a new system on March 11 designed to analyze how “hate speech” spreads on social media, saying the tool will track the presence, amplification, and impact of such content online.
The new tool, called HODIO, an acronym in Spanish for Footprint of Hatred and Polarization, will allow the government to systematically track the presence, amplification, and impact of what it deems hate speech online, according to Sanchez.
The tool, promoted by the Ministry of Inclusion through its Spanish Observatory for Racism and Xenophobia (OBERAXE), will publish semi-annual rankings on the prevalence of “hate speech” on digital platforms.
The government, which is led by Spain’s ruling Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party (PSOE), said on March 11 that HODIO will allow users to calculate and publish “periodically an indicator of hatred and polarization in each social network: its prevalence, the level of amplification and impact.”
It stated that it uses a “combined system of analytics that studies public content on social media, identifying hatred and polarization.”
Sánchez said that it was important to start talking about the “footprint of hate” in the same way society discusses carbon footprints.
“We want to start talking about the impact of hate. When something is measured, it ceases to be invisible,” he said.
The tool’s results will be made public, so that citizens can see “who is blocking this content, who is looking the other way, and who is profiting from it,” according to Sanchez.
Santiago Abascal, leader of the right-wing Vox party, criticised the initiative, calling it government monitoring of social media.
“[He] is entrenched in censorship and wants to monitor what people say,” Abascal said in a March 11 post on X.
Digital law expert Borja Adsuara Varela said in a March 12 post on X that he had problems with the new system.
In a March 12 post on X, he said it was unclear who would decide what constitutes hate and asked whether that power would lie with the government.
He also said Article 20 of the Spanish Constitution states that the only limit to freedom of expression is the law and noted that the proposal “deliberately confuses hateful messages or ‘hate speech’, which are not crimes, with ‘hate crime.’”
Sánchez presented the tool at Spain’s “First Forum Against Hatred” in Madrid on March 11, which brought together institutional representatives, experts, platforms, and individuals described as being affected by hate speech to discuss its impact.
OBERAXE Director Karoline Fernández de la Hoz said, “Hate is built and the object of hatred is manufactured and clearly seen with the data of the OBERAXE.”
Left-leaning political commentator Sarah Santaolalla said: “I’m a young woman. I’ve never hidden that I’m anti-fascist. That’s what really bothers them.”
José Luis Zimmermann, Meta’s director of public policy for Spain and Portugal, said platforms remove hate speech content using artificial intelligence tools, technology, and human moderators, which he described as a “fundamental part of content moderation and key to resolving and eliminating hate speech.”
On Jan. 27, Spain presented a proposal that would allow about 500,000 people without legal status to obtain residence permits under a new administrative decree, without requiring parliamentary approval.
With Spanish residence permits, regularized immigrants would be entitled to travel within the Schengen area of the European Union for up to 90 days in any 180-day period.
Migration Minister Elma Saiz said at a press conference that illegal immigrants who have lived in Spain for at least five months as of the end of 2025 and who have no criminal record would be eligible for the new permits.
“A measure long worked on, discussed, and necessary to respond to a reality that exists on our streets, and that has an impact on coexistence and the economy,” she said in a post on X.
The plan would also apply to illegal immigrants who applied for asylum before the end of the year but whose claims are still pending.
Reuters contributed to this report.
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