networks

Social networks are a problem for teenagers. Taking them away as the Government wants will also be

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As father of two teenagershe Pedro Sánchez announcement It touches me closely. It has also done so in recent months the conversation and the measures that They have already been activated in other countries. For all parents in a similar situation, and for all those who are going to experience it – if indeed those measures end up being activated—, the conclusion is clear. For those under 16 years of age, the smartphone is two things at the same time. The first, a black hole that devours your attention and that also conditions that basic structure on which they build their own social identity. It is not just that the cell phone is a disturbing dopamine instrument in which they spend hours and hours: it is that it is there where they socialize. In fact, in 2026, leaving a teenager without a cell phone not only prevents them from accessing the entire viral world: it means leaving them in a situation of social ostracism. You make him more or less a pariah. WhatsApp—at least, in Spain—is the main and primary communication channel for adolescents, even more than that of adults. There they organize class work, meet to go out and manage their own group dynamics. If this measure is activated, couldn’t that significantly influence your ability to connect with your friends and acquaintances? Nowadays, relationships for them are already totally hybrid, and removing their access to social networks, no matter how well-intentioned the measure, can have a terrible impact for many of them. Banning social media seems like a good idea until it doesn’t. All this debate has brought back the buzz of dumb phones, dumbphones. They are those mobile phones with aesthetics from the 2000s that recover shell-type designs or even physical keyboards and small screensbut rather than being limited in form, they are limited in substance. The idea is to reduce this dependence on the smartphone and turn that device into something minimal to call, send SMS and little else with the idea of ​​not being glued to the screen all day. The idea is nostalgic, again well-intentioned and even romantic, but impractical. Those dumbphones They are postulated as a tool for digital detoxification, but this movement faces an overwhelming technological and social reality. In the short term the concept may be nice and praiseworthy. In the long term it is, above all, an obstacle. And it is because the modern world has been designed by and for be lived with the smartphone at your side. Not using it means returning to a more uncomfortable and less practical life. On the one hand, that FOMO which can be beneficial (not everything we miss will be important, and probably most of it will not be), but on the other hand, there are real advantages in that total access to today’s world that the mobile phone gives us. We actually don’t even need a stupid cell phone. There have long been ways to limit the use of applications and those dedicated to social networks—the settings of digital well-being from Android or iOS—as well as tone up our mobile so that its home screen does not encourage us to use the mobile, but precisely the opposite. Parents also have access to parental control solutions, and at home, for example, we use Family Link with some success, although recognizing that it is virtually impossible to control everything. Trying to solve the current problem – which there is – with these types of measures is like putting doors on the countryside. It is a technical challenge that is almost impossible to solve and that follow in the wake of the famous pajaporte. Beyond the other gigantic debate that arises from this, that of privacy, here this control of minors seems unfeasible. The solution is probably not in the device or the apps it runs, but in re-educating the kids. The mobile phone should be a functional tool, not an object of constant validation. Parents there all have a difficult role, and I always say that if I had had a cell phone at their age I would probably be as trapped by it as they are, or more so. Do we have a problem with young people, cell phones and social networks? Definitely. Is this measure the solution? It seems hard to believe. I, of course, have serious doubts that it is. Image | Miguel Angel Perez In Xataka | The life of those of us who change our mobile phone almost every week (for work)

the main social video networks to go to if you are thinking of changing

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We are going to tell you which are the main ones alternative social networks to TikTok. We are going to focus on those that have a similar function and purpose, that of sharing short videos. Thus, in case you want a change of scenery you will know the best places to go. Let’s try to make the list varied. We will start with the heavyweights within the alternatives, other large platforms. But we will also mention other more independent and less known ones, which are gaining or have recently gained weight. Instagram and Facebook Reels If you want to stop using TikTok because you are concerned about privacy, Instagram or Facebook It will never be the best option with your Reels. However, we are going to start with them for audience reasons, because they are still two of the most popular and most used social networks in the world. The Reels become a copy of TikTokwhich Meta launched on its networks when the Asian social network began to gain importance. Therefore, its operation and options are basically the same, with the addition of being able to share the content in stories on these networks. YouTube Shorts YouTube also has its own system of shorter vertical videos with maximum duration of 3 minutes. It was also created after TikTok began to gain traction, and its main advantage is being accessible to the hundreds of thousands of users who already use YouTube. Loops If you are looking a social network where privacy prevailsit is inevitable to talk about Pixelfed. It is a decentralized alternative to Instagram, where users can create their own instances based on ActivityPuband its content is accessible from other social networks in the fediverse that use this protocol, such as Mastodon. Since 2024 Pixelfed has a parallel social network of alternative videos to TikTok called Loops. In essence it is the same, a decentralized social network of vertical videos. It is still in beta and does not have such a powerful user base, but it is there for anyone who wants to bet on it. Among the most indie alternatives we find UpScrolled. It is a network that claims to have arrived promising that all voices will be treated equallywithout algorithms that hide content, shadowbans, or favoritism for those who pay. This social network claims to be politically impartial, and that its algorithms are fair. It allows you to create videos, upload stories and chat with your contacts. It has a hashtag system, no space limits, and an interface clearly inspired by Instagram. snapchat Snapchat was once a powerful emerging social network, until Instagram overlapped it by copying its stories. Now it remains in the second row in terms of popularity, but still pretty solid with hundreds of thousands of users using it around the world. Although its main function is stories, it also has Spotlight, its TikTok-style vertical video feed, with filters, augmented reality, and many creation options. skylight One of the “indie” alternatives that is gaining the most traction at the beginning of 2026 is Skylight. It is an American social network which uses AT Protocolthe social media protocol of Bluesky. This means that you can use it with your Bluesky account, or create a new one in Skylight and make the content accessible from the paired social network. Skylight is not open source, but it is a public benefit corporation. These are companies that balance profits with purpose, and legally committed to creating positive social impact. The downside is that it can be a bit confusing when mixed with Bluesky, and that It is not yet available in Spainalthough you can view the content from Bluesky. RedNote RedNote It is a Chinese social network that is basically a clone of TikTok, and that in the past has positioned itself as an alternative that many were trying to switch to. However, It is not the best option in terms of privacy either.since like many massive social networks they collect a lot of sensitive personal data. And we end with another social network to take into account for the future. diVine is a social network supported by Jack Dorsey, co-founder of Twitter, to resurrect the Vine platform of short six-second videos. Its applications are still in closed beta phase, but you can now play around with its web version. This network promises to adopt a decentralized concept similar to Bluesky, being able to have more control over moderation and algorithms. Its registry uses the Nostro decentralized protocol. Has positioned itself strongly against AIwith detection and blocking systems for this content to only have what is created by humans. In Xataka Basics | Your Bluesky account on Mastodon: how to create a bridge for your publications to reach the world

The supermarket sector has been highly contested in Spain for years. Now it is reflected in networks with the super hooligans

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That the supermarket sector is disputed highly disputed In Spain it is nothing new. Especially since Mercadona undertook a unstoppable conquest which has allowed it (thanks to its white brands and prepared dishes) to monopolize almost 30% of the marketat least in terms of value. What is new is that this rivalry between chains is encouraging a phenomenon as curious as chanante in networks: a pulse between ‘hoolingans supermarket’. Same as the ultras who have been going to football stadiums for decades, only in this case the phenomenon is cooked up on networks (X, Instagram or TikTok), through memes and focused on the main store chains. The protagonists here are not Real Madrid, Barça or Atlético, but Mercadona, Lidl, Aldi or Dia. Goodbye Barça, hello Bonpreu Click on the image to go to the tweet. Before getting into the matter, I propose a game. Enter TikTok, type the hashtag #hooligans and take a look at the search results. You will see that there are videos of ‘conventional’ ultras (what anyone would expect to find in a search like this) and others less orthodox that show images of people with balaclavas, scarves, flags and banners that do not read the names of football clubs, but of that store where you buy yogurt and bread. That is, nothing from Real Madrid, Barça, Atlético, Manchester United, Bayern Munich, Paris Saint-Germain or any other sports club. What they wave are flags that read Mercadona, Eroski, Aldi or Hipercor. In fact, it is their corporate colors that predominate in the scarves and flares. The phenomenon is so curious that a few days ago the @MariaMayrit account dedicated it an interesting thread in X, where he baptized it as “supermarket ultras.” Click on the image to go to the tweet. Click on the image to go to the tweet. What differentiates them from traditional hooligans? To begin with, the focus of attention It goes from sports to supermarket chains, but that is just one of its peculiarities. Another (fundamental) is that the ‘super ultras’ are a phenomenon that is concentrated on social networks and memesphere. There is no known group of fans of Mercadona, Alcampo, Hipercor or Covirán (to name four chains) that remain in the parking lots of shopping centers to confront each other. Your territory It is another: that of the meme, virality, montages and images generated with artificial intelligence. That does not mean that the phenomenon of ‘super hooligans’ is a curiosity limited to networks, a passing fad fueled by AI. In addition to videos and montages, there are also accounts focused on that content. In the end it is linked to something much more important: the weight that the large chains in the sector retail are acquiring in our daily lives as we homes change. The best example probably Mercadona leaves itwhich no longer aspires only to be the place where we buy food to fill the refrigerator, but rather our reference in general food, the place where they cook for you and you even sit down to eat. The ultras memes confirm something else: the roots that some brands, such as Mercadona, FGadis, HiperDino, Alimerka or Bonpreu, have achieved in certain communities. In fact, the sector itself manages studies that show that the super regionals are supporting the push of the giants of the industry. The reason: their commitment to certain products, but also the value of closeness to identity, precisely what is exploited (with a certain dose of humor) by the memes that circulate these days on the networks about ‘supermarket ultras’. Images | x In Xataka | Mercadona has grown so much in Spain that for the US it is no longer just a supermarket chain: it is a “cultural phenomenon”

More and more countries want to prohibit minors from using social networks. Denmark makes a move

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Should minors have social networks? The debate is raging and more and more voices are advocating a total ban. Australia has a law on the table that will prevent minors under 16 years of age from using social networks and our french neighbors They have also shown their inclination to follow this path. Now it is Denmark that makes its move. what has happened. The Danish government has reached an agreement to ban social media for those under 15 years of age. In statements to the Associated PressDanish Prime Minister Caroline Stage has assured that 94% of Danish children under 13 and more than half of those under 10 have profiles on social networks. “The time they spend connected to the Internet, the amount of violence and self-harm to which they are exposed online, poses too great a risk for our children,” he stated. The measure contemplates that parents who wish may authorize their children to access social networks from the age of 13. Why is it important. Denmark becomes the first European country to agree to such a ban. The ban could take months to take effect because they want to tie everything together. According to Stage, “We must ensure that the regulations are adequate and that there are no loopholes that technology giants can exploit.” The European position. This summer several countries, including Spain, approached the European Commission to request a ban at the European level. The commission’s response was clear: The ban must be carried out by each country, there will be no common prohibition. However, the EU is developing the European Digital Identityan app to identify ourselves when carrying out procedures and that will also work as an age verifier. How will they do it. The plan is to use Denmark’s electronic ID system, although they have not given many details on how it will work. The Prime Minister talks about forcing technology companies to “carry out appropriate age verification, and if they do not do so we will be able to enforce the regulations through the European Commission and ensure that they are fined up to 6% of their global income.” Pajaport. In parallel to the debate about access to social networks there is also that of porn. Spain announced the Beta Digital Wallet, known as ‘pajaporte’ to limit access to porn by minors. At the moment it is not in force, but there are other countries that have similar initiatives that are already underway, such as France, where its implementation caused the closure of Pornhub in the country. The United Kingdom is another of the countries where you have to identify yourself to watch porn. The traffic of Pornhub plummeted 77%, so it seems that the measure had an effect. However, the huge growth of VPN tools It suggests that many users could be masking their location to bypass the ban. Doors to the field. Using a VPN is a way to bypass restrictions, and in the case of access to social networks by minors it could also be an option to bypass the restriction. There are still many doubts about how it will be executed on a technical level, but with easy access to the screens and the ability of some children to avoid limitationsdoes not seem like an easy task. Images | Pexels 1, 2 In Xataka | Neither TikTok nor Instagram until the age of 16: Spain will raise the minimum age to register on social networks in two years

Synthetic influencers are already selling in the thousands. A startup offers them as a service to manipulate networks

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Influencer accounts created by AI are already a reality, some even have hundreds of thousands of followers. There is a startup that has taken this idea to the next level: they create and manage synthetic influencers to orchestrate massive actions on different platforms, all using AI. Their website reads “Never pay a human again”, a true declaration of intent. Doublespeed. It is the name of the startup that offers the service. Using AI, they create the accounts of these fake influencers and also the content, all with minimal human intervention, just a few finishing touches. Its goal is to “orchestrate actions on thousands of social accounts through the creation and massive deployment of content.” They count in 404media that the startup is financed by the Andreessen Horowitzone of the most important venture capital funds in Silicon Valley. Make it look human. The platforms have systems to detect bots, but at Doublespeed they have the solution to make their AI influencers appear human to the algorithms. In addition, the accounts they offer have been used, since newly created accounts with hardly any interactions are easier to detect as bots. The company’s co-founder, Zuhair Lakhani, said in a podcast that use a “mobile farm” (like the click farms) to manage all their accounts and boasted that one client got almost 5 million views in less than a month with 15 of these AI influencers. Raising the level. He astroturfing It is a tactic through which artificial opinions are generated that seek to appear real and spontaneous, all in order to give an impression of support (or rejection) of a topic or product. What Doublespeed does is next level, creating not only the message, but the “persona” who spreads it. Doublespeed sells “packs” between $1,500 and $7,500, depending on the number of posts they want to generate. Cons the rules. The point is that this practice goes against the rules of the main platforms, such as Meta, which they expressly say that accounts that “make a misleading representation of identity to deceive or confuse people” will not be allowed. It is not the first company to offer services of this type, What is striking is that it has one of the largest funds in the world behind it. dead internet. Is a conspiracy theory which says that the internet is full of bots and humans have been replaced by algorithms. There is some truth in it. According to the cybersecurity company Imperva, in 2024 more than half of internet traffic was non-human. With the emergence of AI, networks were flooded with AI Slop and now it also comes in the form of fake influencers. Image | Reshma Mallecha, Pexels In Xataka | The more we know about the evolution of the internet, the closer we come to a conclusion: bots can kill it

Spain has more and more problems with the drought and criminal networks have begun to realize it

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This story begins with a civil guard couple in civilian clothes chasing a tanker truck. They have been following trucks for months, they have checked thousands of livestock farms and, finally, they are about to find something. With 50 million liters of something. The initial track. More than a hundred residents of a district of Lorca denounced last year that there was an entire network selling water tanks to supply agricultural operations. It is nothing new: the Civil Guard has numerous investigations underway into the inspection and control of water use. Therefore, SEPRONA started to investigate the matter. And what have they found? The surveillance device located the tanker truck filling point: it was a well without authorizations for use and without a volumetric counter or any other type of measuring instrument. It seemed difficult to know the number of liters extracted. However, as the company pretended to be legitimate, the Civil Guard has been able to document that, during the last 18 months, 56 million liters of water had been sold for a value of at least 275,000 euros. This is only in the last 18 months: the armed institute believes that the illegal use of the well may have lasted several decades. Just one case out of a million. Over the last few years We have been talking about dozens of people investigated, detained and convicted due to illegal irrigation: in 2023 alone, hundreds of millions of cubic meters of water have been extracted illegally. The problem is real: so real that the Malaga water company has even hired private detectives to monitor employees, suppliers and customers. However, the key to this is not what has already happened. The key is what is going to happen. The list of threats is enormous. Climate change, overexploitation of aquifers, intensive agriculture, inadequate water management, forest fires, deforestation and population growth… Spain has a problem with water and that problem is not going to stop growing and growing. In this context, robberies are going to become more frequent and common. And that’s saying a lot: according to WWFthere are more than 500,000 illegal wells. But no one can be surprised. After all, there is a high financial incentive and relatively low penalties. Most cases they end, in fact, in fines and that is an excellent breeding ground for a huge problem. Image | VD Photography | Elentir In Xataka | Spain is facing a brutal drought and there are farmers watering avocados irregularly. A prosecutor wants it to be a crime

Social networks began to die in 2022 and nobody realized. The new nightmare is that they resurge

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Social networks were wonderful until they stopped being. Very soon they became not only a problem almost addictionbut also of health. Anxiety levels shot And they were made frequent the Sexting cases either Bullying Through these platforms. The funny thing is that while all that happened and we thought that its use was increasingly worrying, something happened. People began to stop using them (both). Social networks had their peak in 2022. An ambitious study conducted By Financial Times He recently revealed the current state of social networks. More than 250,000 adults in more than 50 countries talked about their online habits, and in that data it is clear that the apogee of social networks occurred in 2022. Since then there has been a turning point. Especially for a specific sector of the population. Young people get tired of Facebook. Among the different demographic sectors, there is an especially striking one: young people between 16 and 24 are the ones who are most clearly reducing the time they spend on these platforms. At the end of 2024 they passed average two hours and 20 minutes a day in them, 10% less than what happened in 2022. It is the population segment that is more quickly falling, although the change is clear in the rest of the ages. Other parallel studies, such as Made in Sweden Between 2022 and 2024, he pointed to Clear falls too especially among the youngest. The time we spent on social networks did not stop increasing until 2022. Then the trend changed. Source: Financial Times. The era “zero posts” arrives. Social networks were a day to tell our lives, but From a while to this part the trend is another: “zero posts”. Users publish much less than before, instead of that user community that shared their reflections, the normal thing is now to find an endless commercial showcase. According to recent studies, a third of Spanish Internet users have abandoned some social network in the last year. Robotic consumption. The study data published in FT confirms that phenomenon. According to their conclusions, less and fewer people use social networks to maintain contact with their friends, and that kind of use experience has been decreasing since 2014. instead of what has been seen is that the users of these platforms go to them with the explicit intention of filling holes of time that are empty. Or what is the same: when they get bored consume content, but they don’t share it. Use ceases to be reflective and interactive to be passive, more “robotic”, ironically. The shitting of social networks. The writer Cory Doctorow The term coined long ago “Enshittification“ (“shit”) to talk about how platforms become worse for users. At present, social networks have little social and are dedicated to trying to maximize the time that users are trapped in them. Algorithms have taken control And they immerse us in an echo chamber from which it is difficult to leave. The “Ai Slop” arrives. Before the decline – at least, in time of use – of social networks, the option seems clear: take advantage of the content generated by AI. All to a greater or lesser extent have begun to integrate it progressively, but two new wedges are now added to traditional social networks: Meta Vibes y Openai Sora They are absolutely focused on content generated by AI. It is another era in which interaction and social participation fade and Doomscrolling He seizes more than ever from the user experience. The “AI Slop”the “junk content” generated by AI, begins to flood that experience. And it seems that tactic works. The study, however, gives a worrying fact: the time that Americans spend social networks are growing. It is the only region where it does, because in Europe and Asia-Pacific that consumption is falling slightly from the 2022 peaks. It remains to be seen if those new social networks They end up compensating that fall of the time that users spend on “traditional” social networks. Image | Pexels In Xataka | The exhausted society: how “existential tiredness” has become the great industry of the West

More and more people are stopping publishing things on their social networks

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There was a time when opening Instagram meant to look out to the life of our friends. A smoking coffee under the Valencia filter, a badly framed selfie on the beach or the pet of a colleague yawning. It was an improvised, domestic showcase, a mural of shared banalities that, paradoxically, made us feel closer. As The New Yorker recalledthat “breakfast photo” represented the utopian dream of social networks: that millions of common people could publish fragments of their lives with minimal intervention, from the most trivial to the most intimate, and that that worldly record became something valuable, a “dynamic file of reality from the ground.” More than a decade later, the landscape is another. Yes in 2018 The BBC calculated That about 40% of the world’s population used social networks, dedicating about two hours a day to share, today users are still connected, but less and less willing to show their lives. From vacuum feed. The decrease in the public use of networks is already evident. According to a Morning Consult report28% of Americans publish less than a year ago, compared to 21% that does more. Among generation Z, just 18% admit to posting daily. In a recent article, the BBC has confirmed the trend: One third of users publishes less than before, with a descent specially pronounced among those under 30. And the phenomenon is not limited to the United States. In Spain, Iab Spain has presented the 16th edition of the Social Network Study 2025in collaboration with praise, which confirms a similar wear: 33%of Internet users have abandoned a platform in the last year, especially X (28%) and Facebook (15%), but also Pinterest (15%) or LinkedIn (12%). The main reasons are the lack of use, loss of interest and boredom. The hangover of publishing. This withdrawal has even its own name. National Public Radio (NPR) He has baptized it as Grid Zero, The Instagram phenomenon in which more and more young, especially from the Z gene, erase all their publications and leave their profiles as a “blank canvas.” Adam Mosseri, Chief of Instagram, acknowledges: “Adolescents spend more time in private messages than in stories, and more in stories than in feed.” Instagram itself has detected that young people prefer ephemeral or private interactions. His cultural researcher Kim Garcia has summarized it as follows: “Gen Z has award to permanence and the fingerprint. They do not want their entire personal change process to be publicly exposed.” According to NPRhe Grid Zero It works as an immune system against digital addiction: hide the feed, take refuge in the intimacy of chats or private accounts is a way of protecting. This modesty contrasts with the millennial era. For those who border medium age today, networks were the natural space of the exhibition. The hangover was predictable, as the writer Kyle Chayka has pointed out In an interview with the BBC: “We learned the disadvantages of sharing your life online during the 2010s.” Unless you want to be an influencer, it is no longer worth it: the disadvantages of publishing are too large and the advantages do not reach. ” Privacy and fear of judgment. The FEED blackout responds to different variables, but the first is the need to take refuge in oneself. According to online psychologymany users choose not to publish to protect their privacy, take care of their mental health and avoid risks such as harassment or unnecessary exposure. However, in the case of gene z the phenomenon is more extreme. The nod mag He explained Digital hyperconcience: a simple “like” can be interpreted as a political or identity statement. The fear of cancellation leads many to interact as little as possible. The young Kanika Mehra (24) He has recognized it for The New Yorker: “We are all voyeurs now: we keep looking, but we no longer post, because publishing generates a ram of vulnerability.” To this climate is added the sensation of inadequacy in the midst of global crises. A waitress in Washington has told The New Yorker that he erased some happy selfies because “with everything that happens in the world, I was ashamed to seem frivolous.” From the social to consumption. Beyond personal motivations, there is an undeniable fact: almost everything we see today in networks is consumed. “The platforms have become less social; they look more like television, full of mercantilized content, lifestyle aspirations and advertising,” Chayka has summarized in the BBC. Besides, The New Yorker also coincides: The feeds are dominated by influencers, war headlines, political propaganda, videos generated by AI and “sponcon.” Amateurism, the initial engine of the networks, was replaced by careful production and light rings. And the data are there to confirm it: Morning Consult He has found that more than half of adults (52%) perceive the content of networks as “repetitive and tired.” And the Wall Street Journal He has pointed out that users feel that “the community is no longer there”; Instead, there is an endless commercial showcase. Although it is not an empty network. Silence in the feed does not mean abandonment of the platforms. On the contrary: we remain connected, but we move to more intimate spaces. Mosseri He has recognized it in an interview cited by WSJ: “All sharing between friends is going to direct messages. Today more photos and videos are sent by Stories, and more for stories than by the feed.” The BBC Reaffirms the turn: Personal content “has been oriented towards individual messages and private groups.” In Spain, the IAB Spain study Confirm What WhatsApp is the most used network: 96% of Internet users use it daily. The social did not disappear: he simply hid. Millennials, the new boomers? This hurts, but we enter generational. Millennials – among the ones I included – we grew up exhibiting our online life. Today we appear as the “digital boomers” in the eyes of the gen Z. from the new code They have explained it with irony: Millennial profiles seem outdated, full of poses, … Read more

Connecting to unknown networks can be risky for your personal data. Protecting you don’t cost even 2 euros per month

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It is a reality: cyber attacks have become increasingly common. There is a lot of undesirable loose looking to get sensitive information, whether large companies or a user like us. If we work from home or we usually connect with our network we have a safety layer, but what if we use ourselves A network on which we don’t have any control? The good news is that there are several ways to protect our Internet traffic, wherever we are. The simplest, useful and effective way to do so is to use a VPN, and if we can afford it, better bet on one of payment. In fact, There are very cheap: Surfshark’s barely costs 1.99 euros a month. Protect your traffic and IP with a good VPN As we say, it exists A good variety of free VPNperfect if we need to use something at a timely moment. The problem they have is that, in addition to being little safe, They work limitedly in terms of traffic or speed volume. For this reason, the ideal is to bet on a payment like this Surfshark, which also has a great price. One of the advantages that this has is that We can install it in an unlimited number of devicesideal to take it in the laptop, on the mobile or on the tablet (or everywhere at the same time). With this, we can protect our Internet traffic, thus gaining a greater dose of privacy. Moreover, it also helps us hide our IP, information that is better to keep away from undesirable. Surfshark VPN is included in its Starter Plan, which also comes with another tool called ALTERNATIVE ID. With it, we can create a series of fictitious data to use them on web pages where we do not want to enter our real information. That way, we keep our personal data at a good collection. As we have commented before, for 1.99 euros A month we have a quality VPN. That means that its two -year plan comes out for a total price of 47.76 euros, a fairly affordable price to have this tool with us for a long season. There does not end the thing, because we will also receive three extra monthsin such a way that we will have surfshark for 27 months instead of 24. You may also interest you NORDVPN – Basic Plan (Monthly) * Some price may have changed from the last review Some of the links of this article are affiliated and can report a benefit to Xataka. In case of non -availability, offers may vary. Images | Chase Chappell in Unspash In Xataka | In Xataka |

In the twentieth century the pipelines were the key to the world. In the 21st century are the electrical networks and a country is winning them: China

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While a nation installs almost one hundred solar panels per second, another revitalizes factories to produce gasoline engines. While A build the largest solar plant in the worldthe other promises “Dominant Energy” Based on oil and gas. At first glance, two different strategies seem. Actually, it’s a career. And the prize is not just energy: it is the geopolitical power of the 21st century. Two opposing models. An Ember graph published by Our World in Data He has illustrated The point with amazing clarity. At the beginning of the 2000s you can see China’s gradual rebound. However, the crossing occurs in 2010 where the Asian giant exceeds the 4,000 Teravatios-Hora barrier (TWH), to a vertiginous ascent exceeding 10,000 SWH in 2024. In simple terms, China produces more than double electricity than the United States, which remained in the same line. But the most relevant is not how much it produces, but how it does. Data Source: Ember (2025); Energy Institute – Statistical Review of World Energy (2024) The silent revolution. In just one month, China installed 93 gigawatts of solar capacity, which is equivalent – more or less – one hundred panels every second. To that are added another 26 GW in wind, some 5,300 new turbines underway. According to Lauri Myllyvirta, principal researcher at the Institute of Policy of Asian Society, cited by The Guardian: “Only the facilities of that month would generate as much electricity as whole countries such as Poland, Sweden or the United Arab Emirates.” In total, between January and May 2025, China has added 198 GW of solar capacity and 46 GW of wind, sufficient to match the electricity production of Türkiye or Indonesia. This way, Keep overcoming The more than 1,000 GW, which represents half of the world total. They have known how to get ahead. More and more linked climatic ambitions with the growth of renewable technologies. In a recent speech, cited by The GuardianXi Jinping linked the development of the clean energy sector with China’s economic revitalization: “We have built the world’s largest and most complete energy chain in the world.” The term “new energies” includes renewables, batteries and storage technologies. The Asian giant is currently the largest global supplier of clean technologies: the market of solar panels, wind turbines, batteries, electric vehicles and nuclear reactors under construction dominates. In addition, it has almost 700,000 patents in clean energy, more than half of the world total, According to The New York Times. The other face. For a good part of the twentieth century, the United States was the reference in energy innovation: from the first commercial solar cells until The first wind farms. However, since Trump’s arrival, the focus It has been placed again strongly towards fossil fuels. According to The New York TimesWashington has pressed allies such as Japan and South Korea to invest billion dollars in American natural gas infrastructure. At the same time, companies such as General Motors have given clear signs of where the wind blows: the company canceled an electric motion plant near Buffalo (New York) to allocate 888 million dollars To manufacture gasoline V-8 engines. Where asymmetry resides. It is not just two different paths, but in world influence. According to Climate Energy Finance datathe companies of the Asian giant have announced more than 168 billion dollars in foreign investments in clean energy projects: from turbines in Brazil to electric cars in Indonesia, through gigantic solar plants in Saudi Arabia and hydroelectric projects in the Congo. Green energy, for Beijing, is not just a business. It is a soft power tool. A way to gain global land through infrastructure, long -term contracts and own financing. An influence that does not need military bases, but solar panels. In contrast, the United States has cut many of its international energy cooperation programs. Its foreign strategy is more transactional: specific gas, oil or even weapons agreements. But without a structural project that allows you to compete on this new energy board. And this change of roles? Half a century ago, the United States led energy innovation. In 1979, Jimmy Carter He installed solar panels In the White House. Decades later, Barack Obama financed projects like Tesla. But cases Like Solyndra’s failurea solar company that broke after receiving a federal loan, unleashed a conservative narrative against public investment in renewables. China, on the other hand, assumed risks. In the early 2000s, then Prime Minister Wen Jiabao – rare earth geneologist – understood that the country’s economic and geopolitical future went through controlling energy production. Your government invested hundreds of billions of dollars in subsidies, factories, technical training and innovation. Protected his market, automated manufacturing and dominated access to essential raw materials such as lithium, cobalt and silicon as has developed New York Times. The forecasts. The world is moving towards solar and wind energies, so confirms it The International Energy Agency. The energy demand will continue to grow, but its origin will be different. And that will change the global balance, because whoever leads this new energy matrix will also have a geopolitical, commercial and diplomatic advantage. China is prepared to lead that world. The big question is whether the United States – or any other global actor – is willing to compete with the same strategic vision, patience and scale. Because energy not only moves factories or illuminates cities. Today the global board moves. Image | Unspash Xataka | An explosive ramifications have just opened in the world energy industry: the “Peak Oil” of China

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