Australian Government vs Social Media – “My Feed, My Way”: Another Slogan, Nothing Solved

The Australian Government seems hell-bent on wasting public resources and time on legislation that has little or no impact on anyone other than to give them headlines as if they are taking on Big Tech. Which they aren’t.

This afternoon, the Albanese Government announced it will take legislation to the House called the “Digital Duty of Care”.

Notably, and you won’t read this anywhere, this legislation is being released for “targeted consultation”, which means they’ll ask a few organisations they know hate social media and then force it through Parliament. An honest approach would be to actually allow the public to have their say.

It’s being pitched as pushing big tech companies with social media platforms to provide a safe online environment and set minimum standards for the features and tools on their platforms. The government is calling it “My Feed, My Way,” a great slogan, kind of like the “Let Kids Be Kids” that forced the social media minimum age legislation last year.

How big a deal is this for the social media companies? From the announcement today, the legislation requires that social media platforms send a notification to new and existing users, offering them a choice over their default feed.

I don’t really see how that’s a very big deal. There’s already the option in every single platform to choose to see content from an algorithmic or a following feed. On TikTok, it’s called “For You” versus “Following.” On Instagram, the same. How you get to it, perhaps people don’t know that well.

Let’s be clear here. The government’s actually not forcing us to have the option to opt out of having an algorithm. They’re simply forcing the platforms to tell us how to switch our feed from what is effectively the “For You” page to the “Following” page.

But here’s the thing: the headlines talk about this algorithm and this opt-out, but in fact, this legislation hides more protections for kids. I’m not going to argue that. I’m just arguing that it’s an admission that the social media ban isn’t working. These new protections are aimed at under-18s, but of course that’ll cascade all the way down to the teenagers who are under 16 and still on these platforms. Under this legislation, the platforms are required to protect under-18s from harmful content, like content that promotes, encourages, or accelerates eating disorders, or that promotes hostile ideas around women and gender equality.

Of course it also restricts pornography and a bunch of other content areas, which everyone would agree should be minimised, frankly, for all users, not just under-18s.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese says “This is not about giving government control, it is about giving people control.”

“Australia is leading the world with our social media age ban and online safety approach.”

“This work has been led by parents and advocates and we have backed them. We will continue to do so.”

Perhaps if the Australian government really wanted to have an impact on both kids and the general community with social media, they should be looking at what Facebook has agreed to in the United States in a $17 billion legal settlement. They’ve agreed to things that go far beyond anything that our government has implemented or even suggested right now. What we need now is not just to let parents be parents, but to stop politicians from being politicians. These people are coming up with ideas for headlines. They’re coming up with ideas to make themselves seem like they’ve achieved something when they’re achieving absolutely nothing.

Can we get some real people, some actual experts, in a room and sort this out? There are things we need to do to make social media better. There are things we need to do to protect kids, but at this point, the Australian federal government has done and appears to be doing nothing of any consequence.

For the record, if you’re on TikTok and you want to opt out of the algorithm, swipe across to the left, and you’ll be seeing videos only from those people you follow. When you’re on Instagram, click the Instagram logo at the top of the page, and then click Following, and that’ll show you just the content from the people you follow. Exactly what the government is now legislating for?