On September 8, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese released his government’s new “My Feed, My Way” campaign, which would set new minimum standards for the tools that Australian minors use on social media. This comes at a time when Australia has been one of the leading countries on social media regulations for minors, being the first country to have a nationwide ban on social media for people under 16 years of age. As a result, dozens of other countries have followed suit with similar policy actions.
So, what will the “My Feed, My Way” campaign bring to Australians? The campaign states that social media companies will be required to notify all users, whether new or existing, of choices about their default feed. Additionally, users can choose to opt in or opt out of personalized content and choose whether to allow the algorithm to boost videos liked by friends, family, and people they follow. Minister for Communications Anika Wells stated that “It will also give parents the tools they need to keep their family safe online.”
However, not all responses to the new initiatives were met with praise. The U.S. government, through its embassy in Canberra, along with a coalition of free speech organizations, responded with criticism, citing free speech concerns and the potential geopolitical effect that feed regulation can have in the region. Both the Liberals and the National Party of Australia have signaled that they will be against voting for the policy under a larger bill for social media regulation. This means that the Labor Party would have to go to the Green Party of Australia to pass “My Feed, My Way,” which they have signaled that an opt-out approach does not go far enough for social media regulation.
While the details of the final bill will be debated, and Prime Minister Albanese is expected to discuss his proposal to the United Nations during the General Assembly meeting, the main question is this: Will it be effective? Experts’ responses to the opt-out are mixed. Dr. Marian-Andrei Rizoiu, AI and Behavioral Data Science professor at the University of Technology Sydney, stated that although the idea is overdue, he has concerns that social media companies might rely on and strategize around users’ tendency to actually not change their settings, defeating the policy’s purpose. However, Dr. Brooke Nicole, Senior Research Fellow at the University of Sydney, showed more optimism: “Giving the public greater control over what algorithmic content they see is an important public health intervention.”
Nonetheless, it will take a while for the bill to make it through the Australian Parliament, and what the ultimate end result will be—whether the idea becomes law or dies in Parliament—will have to be seen and tested.
