THE SIGNAL IN ONE SENTENCE
Australia is proposing a simple right for social media users over 16: choose the algorithmic feed, or turn off personalized recommendations and see only the friends and creators you deliberately followed.
01
WHAT ACTUALLY CHANGED
The Australian government released draft Digital Duty of Care legislation for targeted consultation on September 8. Inside the wider online-safety proposal is an initiative called My Feed, My Way, which would require social media platforms to offer new and existing users a choice over the feed they see when they open the service.
Australians over 16 could opt in to a default feed containing personalized content selected by the platform's recommendation algorithm. They could instead opt out of personally recommended content and receive a default feed drawn from the friends and creators they chose to follow. The platform would have to notify users about the choice and respect it.
The feed switch is only one piece of the draft duty. Online games, apps, messaging services, and AI chatbots would also be expected to protect people under 18 from design features with negative behavioral effects, including addictive mechanics and features that can harm self-esteem. The proposal also names categories of harmful content involving eating disorders, misogyny, pornography, dangerous stunts, abuse, bullying, and serious mental distress.
Digital services would need to document the steps they take to identify and reduce risks to Australian users, then show that those measures remain effective. The independent eSafety Commissioner would oversee compliance. Failure to meet the duty could attract penalties of up to A$109.2 million.
Nothing changes on a user's phone today. The government is consulting platforms, industry groups, civil-society organizations, and advocates, and says it intends to introduce legislation to Parliament later in 2026. The final language, affected services, interface rules, and passage are still unsettled.
02
WHY THIS MATTERS
Recommendation systems do more than arrange a pile of posts. They decide what repeatedly reaches a person, what disappears, and what gets rewarded with attention. Australia's eSafety Commissioner notes that platforms commonly optimize for engagement without reliably separating positive engagement from angry, fearful, or compulsive engagement.
The proposed switch does not ask the government to decide which harmless video belongs at the top of everybody's feed. It asks the service to preserve a less manipulative exit. That is an appealingly practical regulatory idea because it gives a person a choice while leaving personalized discovery available to anyone who genuinely wants it.
The details will determine whether that choice is real. A platform can technically provide an opt-out while hiding it behind six menus, switching it back after an update, weakening the non-personalized feed, or decorating the consent screen until the preferred button glows like a casino entrance. Respecting a choice requires durable settings and neutral interface design, not merely a checkbox somewhere in the basement.
This is also an AI policy story hiding inside a social-media story. Recommendation engines are among the most influential AI systems most people encounter every day. Giving users control over them could become a model for other automated systems that rank news, products, entertainment, jobs, and public information.
03
WHERE IT COULD HELP
- Offer a durable following-only feed on social platforms
- Let users compare personalized and non-personalized recommendations
- Audit whether an opt-out remains active after updates
- Measure harmful recommendation patterns across repeated exposure
- Require clear notices and neutral choices instead of buried settings
KEEP A HAND ON THE WHEEL
This is draft legislation under targeted consultation, not an enacted right. The government announcement does not yet answer which services qualify, how a following-only feed must be ordered, how often users may be prompted, or how regulators will detect manipulative interface design. The wider duty also covers children, chatbots, games, and harmful content, so the final parliamentary debate will extend well beyond one feed switch.
04
TERMS WORTH KEEPING
OPEN GLOSSARY CARD
Recommender system
Software that ranks or suggests content based on signals about the user, the material, and other people's behavior.
OPEN GLOSSARY CARD
Default feed
The stream of content a service shows when a person opens it before making another selection.
OPEN GLOSSARY CARD
Digital duty of care
A legal obligation for an online service to identify foreseeable risks and take reasonable steps to reduce harm.
SOURCES AND VERIFICATION STATUS
This article was written from the materials below. Product claims and dates were checked against those sources on September 8, 2026.
PUBLICATION RECEIPT: Revision 1. Published September 8, 2026.
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