Australia’s Feed Choice Leaves the Algorithm Easy to Keep

Australia on Tuesday, 8 September 2026, put a feed prompt at the centre of its next social media fight. Draft Digital Duty of Care laws would make apps ask every user over 16 whether their default feed should be ranked by an algorithm or limited to people and creators they already follow.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Communications Minister Anika Wells branded the switch My Feed, My Way. Street interviews in Sydney boiled the pitch down to a short line: it is good to have a choice. The draft still lets ranking remain the easy everyday product, and it leaves the hard parts (does the choice stick on Reels, after a restart, on every surface) for later drafting and for the platforms that have to build it.

Platforms Must Prompt Every User Over 16

The My Feed, My Way draft released Tuesday is an exposure text for targeted feedback, not a law in force. Social apps would have to send a notification to new and existing users offering a choice over the default feed. You can opt in to personalised recommendations, or opt out and see friends and creators you chose to follow.

Wells said Australians over 16 will be able to opt in or opt out of the algorithm easily, and that platforms must give them a choice on the feed they see when they open the app and respect that choice. Albanese, speaking in Canberra, put the politics in one sentence.

This is not about giving government control, it is about giving people control.

Anthony Albanese, Prime Minister of Australia, media release

That line is doing a lot of work. A prompt on first open is more visible than a toggle buried three menus deep. It is still a prompt. It is not a follows-only default. Coverage ahead of the release treated the plan as a classic opt-out, with ranking left on unless you hunt for the exit. The published text is a forced choice on the default feed, and it does not say which option is pre-ticked inside the box.

THREE WAYS TO HANDLE THE ALGORITHM

Wells has already said many people may keep recommendations. If that is how the pop-up plays out, the headline win is a screen people tap through, not a quieter feed.

Follows-Only Is the Other Button

Opt out, in the government’s own words, means a feed of friends and creators you follow. That is closer to early Facebook than to TikTok’s For You page. It is also a different product. Accounts you never followed stop arriving. News brands, small shops, new musicians, and mid-tier creators who lived on being ranked into a stranger’s session lose that free distribution the moment a user takes the follows-only path.

The off switch already exists in pieces. Instagram lets people open a Following view. TikTok has topic sliders. Meta has been adding “Your Algorithm” controls that show inferred interests and let you ask for more or less of a theme. Plenty of users still talk as if the old chronological feed is a rumour. They believe the setting is in there somewhere and cannot find it, which is why a legal duty to put the question on the door matters more than another item in Settings.

The next design fight is which ranking systems the prompt actually kills. A main feed is only one pipe. Stories, Reels, comments, search, and “suggested for you” units each run their own ranking. A follows-only Home that still floods Reels with recommended clips is a change of wallpaper. The draft, as described on Tuesday, talks about the default feed. It does not, in the public summary, map that duty onto every surface of an app.

Amsterdam Already Treated Reset Feeds as a Dark Pattern

Canberra is not writing on a blank page. The EU Digital Services Act recommender rules have, since 17 February 2024, required very large platforms to offer a recommender that is not based on profiling, and to make that option directly and easily accessible. Meta built versions of a Following or chronological path. Digital rights group Bits of Freedom then took Meta to the Amsterdam District Court, arguing the non-profiled choice was hard to find and did not last.

On 2 October 2025 the court agreed in preliminary relief. It found that automatically dropping a user back to a profiled feed after they closed the app, or moved to another section, was a dark pattern under the DSA because it wore people down and undercut a choice they had already made. The Amsterdam court order on Meta feeds told Meta to make a non-profiled choice persist, and to put a direct switch on Instagram and Facebook surfaces that had been missing one, including Reels. Meta asked for more time. The deadline moved to 31 December 2025, with an appeal hearing set for 26 January 2026.

That history is the warning label on My Feed, My Way. A notification can satisfy a press conference and still fail as a product if the follows-only path is slower, emptier, or quietly reset. Wells’s phrase about respecting the choice is the entire enforcement problem in six words. Australia’s eSafety Commissioner, in a May 2026 position statement, already told industry to give people control over algorithm settings and to treat safety as a design duty, not a takedown queue. The same paper notes that ranking systems chase engagement and rarely separate a like that means joy from a like that means outrage.

Why Chanel Contos Wanted the Algorithm Off First

Six days before the draft landed, Chanel Contos, chief executive of Teach Us Consent, told the National Press Club that ranking should be opt-in. Her Fix Our Feeds campaign, running since 2025, wants the old follows model as the starting point, with personalised recommendations only after a clear yes. She tied the design to sexual violence and to “manosphere” material being pushed at young men, and she treated an opt-out as a first step that was not enough.

I think political will is the only thing stopping us.

Chanel Contos, CEO, Teach Us Consent, National Press Club, 2 September 2026

She also said opt-in ranking would make the jump onto social media safer for 16-year-olds and would “bring the principle of affirmative consent to our screens.” That is a different bill from the one Albanese issued. Fix Our Feeds wants the algorithm to earn its place. My Feed, My Way asks you, once, which product you want, while the ranked product remains fully built and fully marketed.

The age lines in Canberra’s package make that gap sharper. The feed prompt is for people over 16, the same threshold as the social media minimum age that took effect on 10 December 2025. Extra duties on addictive design and listed harms are aimed at people under 18 on games, apps, chatbots, and messaging. Under-16s are, on paper, already locked out of the big social apps. Meta said in August it had removed access to more than 750,000 Facebook and Instagram accounts in Australia it assessed as under 16, as of 30 June 2026, a tally that includes over 500,000 cut off before the ban date. The new draft is the adult-and-older-teen chapter of the same fight.

Five Harms, Nudify Apps, and a $109.2 Million Cap

My Feed, My Way is the slogan. The Digital Duty of Care is the wider machine. Online services would have to document how they find and cut risks to Australian users, and keep those measures working as the product changes. eSafety would enforce. Failure to comply could bring penalties of up to $109.2 million.

For people under 18, the public summary lists five content duties on digital services, including games, apps, and AI chatbots, plus a separate attack on design features that push addictive use or hit self-esteem.

HARMS THE DRAFT NAMES FOR UNDER 18S

• Eating disorders: Content that promotes, encourages, or accelerates eating disorders.
• Hostility to women: Content that promotes hostile ideas about women and gender equality.
• Pornography: Pornography as a listed harm for under 18s on those services.
• Crime and stunts: Content that glorifies crime or life-endangering stunts.
• Serious distress: Content that causes serious mental health distress, including abuse and bullying.

eSafety would also get removal-notice powers aimed at nudify apps and websites, and a faster track through child cyber-bullying and adult cyber-abuse schemes. Albanese’s office says the work was led by parents and advocates. Wells compared the duty to basic safety standards for cars, toys, or food. Opposition Leader Angus Taylor has called the package a censorship risk and said he is highly sceptical. Albanese’s reply sits on the release: people should control what they see.

The Draft Goes to Targeted Consultation Before Parliament

The government is asking digital platforms, industry bodies, civil society groups, and advocates for feedback now, and says a bill will go to Parliament later in 2026. Passage is not a given. The duty of care idea was floated, then parked, in 2024 while ministers pushed the age ban. A May 2026 duty of care issues paper set out the framework after an earlier public survey, and a May-June 2026 round ran more than 40 stakeholder meetings. Industry, in that round, wanted a long runway, including a transition of at least 12 months after a law passes. Tuesday’s political release does not lock that timetable in.

WHAT WE KNOW

• The prompt: New and existing users over 16 would be asked to choose a default feed of ranked content or follows-only.
• The fine: The published cap for a duty-of-care breach is $109.2 million, with eSafety as the enforcer.
• The rest of the package: Under-18 harm duties, nudify-app notices, and faster abuse schemes sit in the same draft.

WHAT IS UNCONFIRMED

• The default inside the box: The summary does not say which option is pre-selected, or how often the prompt returns.
• The surfaces: It is not yet public whether Stories, Reels, comments, and search must follow the same choice.
• The start date: Consultation is open; a commencement date is not in the Tuesday release.

FROM THE AGE BAN TO THE FEED PROMPT

1. 2024: Ministers plan a digital duty of care, then park it to pass the under-16 social media ban.
2. 10 December 2025: The minimum age takes effect on designated social platforms.
3. 26 May 2026: An issues paper on the duty-of-care framework goes out for design talks.
4. 2 September 2026: Contos asks the Press Club for opt-in ranking, not a buried exit.
5. 8 September 2026: The exposure draft, including My Feed, My Way, is released for targeted feedback.

The honest product question is still the one people already mutter when they hunt for Following: can you find the other feed, and does the app still honour it after you lock the phone. Until the bill text and the interface rules say so in public, Australia has a slogan, a fine, and a pop-up. Ranking remains one tap away from staying in charge.

Disclaimer: This article is news reporting and analysis of a draft Australian law and related platform rules. It is for information only and is not legal advice, compliance advice, or guidance on how any company or person should design a product or respond to the consultation. Readers who need to act on the draft, including platform operators, publishers, and users with a dispute, should speak to a qualified Australian solicitor or a regulated adviser before making decisions. Figures, quotes, and process details reflect the official papers and public statements available on 8 September 2026 and may change as the exposure draft is revised, introduced, or voted on.