Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez was at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, this week, where he announced that tech billionaires are responsible for the imminent downfall of European democracy. In the same way that "the owner of a small restaurant is held accountable if their food poisons customers," he said, "social media tycoons should be held accountable if their algorithms poison our societies."

This isn't just about pernicious algorithms. Along with French president Emmanuel Macron, Norwegian prime minister Jonas Gahr Støre and the UK's prime minister Keir Starmer, Sánchez has recently criticised Elon Musk for publishing his political views on X, formerly Twitter, the social media platform purchased by the American tycoon in 2022 for 44 billion dollars (42bn euros).

I've clearly been under the spell of a radically mistaken belief - namely that publishing one's opinions on social media without fear of censorship is one of the precious freedoms of living in a democracy. But these leaders apparently believe the opposite: that freedom of speech poses a danger to democracy. Musk's political beliefs - insofar as one can derive them from his provocative little posts - will seem moronic to centrist voters; but he has the right to publish them.     

Sánchez declared in Davos that he wants to "make social media great again", phrasing surely borrowed from Donald Trump. But a few posts from Musk haven't suddenly lowered the standards  

of communication on X. Social media has always leant itself to divisive, superficial exchanges. The best way to deal with people who publish daft opinions - for example, that Germany's salvation lies with the hard-right Afd, as Musk recently claimed - is simply to ignore them.

On the fringe of the main event at Davos, Sánchez also had to defend himself against criticism from Trump, once again installed in the White House after a characteristically embarrassing inauguration speech. Trump highlighted Spain's failure to reach the Nato spending target of 2% of GDP on defence, telling a journalist that its contribution was "very low". Although true (last year Spain spent 1.28%), that was the least alarming thing revealed during the interview.

There was a long pause before Trump asked what he clearly thought was a rhetorical question: "Are they [Spain] a Brics nation?" referring to the group consisting of Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa and five other nations, not including Spain, that's considered an alternative to the G7 bloc. "What?" replied the journalist.

"They're a Brics nation, Spain," said Trump with a knowing smile. "Do you know what a Brics nation is? You'll figure it out." One suspects that a few posts on X would be enough to summarise what Trump and his biggest donor, Musk, really understand about Europe.