Things are different in Australia. Being south of the equator, people there walk on the ceiling and drive their cars upside down. But instead of relying on courts and litigation to establish social norms, the country prefers active governance to protect its citizens from harm. In the latest example, the Australian government, headed by prime minister Anthony Albanese, is proposing legislation entitled My Feed, My Way that will allow social media account holders to opt out of the powerful algorithms that push dangerous and divisive content into their feeds. Users over 16 years of age will be given new tools to turn off algorithm-driven content, with platforms facing fines of more than A$100 million for non-compliance. Those who opt out of the algorithm will only see content from individuals and groups they have actively chosen to follow. Users would be asked what they want their default feed to be via a pop-up message provided on their platform of choice. This, of course, is the way the internet was supposed to work before the jackals at Google, Meta, Amazon, and X figured out they could expand their wealth exponentially by targeting users with algorithms that lead them down rabbit holes filled with misogyny, sexual abuse, and hate. Last week, a judge in Arizona awarded those harmed by Meta more than $900 million in damages, which seems like a minimal sum considering the actions of the company over many years. A Digital Duty Of Care According to The Guardian, the new law is designed to provide a digital duty of care for social media users under 18. It will also require services such as online games, apps, and AI chatbots to protect children from specific harms, specifically pornography; content that promotes; encourages or accelerates eating disorders; misogynistic content; content that glorifies crime or life-endangering stunts; and content that causes serious mental health distress, including abuse and bullying. Australia’s eSafety commission will have the power to issue removal notices to social media companies, with platform operators required to document measures taken to address online harms. Prime minister Albanese is expected to highlight the provisions of the new law at the United Nations general assembly in New York later this month. “This is not about giving government control, it is about giving people control,” he said. “Of course there will be opponents, because what this is about is changing the power relationship. We’re taking power from big global tech companies and giving it to ordinary people.” Communications Minister Anika Wells said tech companies have been allowed to run real-time, unregulated product testing on Australian users for far too long. “There is a global reckoning coming for big tech, and it started here in Australia with the introduction of our world-leading social media minimum age laws.” Conservatives Hate This Conservatives, of course, are losing their minds over this government initiative. Matt Canavan, leader of the Nationals Party, said Labor could not be trusted with “censorship powers.” He said: “Rather than trying to rig the algorithm, the government should focus on fixing the problems of too high prices, too much tax, and too much migration.” How interesting that white male Australians who violently subjugated the Indigenous population are so worried about immigration. Perhaps they should ask the Aboriginals about that? There is a memorial in Darling Harbor in Sydney that celebrates all the immigrants who crossed oceans to populate the country. They came from every nation on Earth and made Australia the most culturally diverse nation in the world, but that was then, this is now. Today we have to keep those accursed foreigners out so white males can rule in perpetuity. Of course, the conservatives depend on social media to promote their message. If this all sounds to you like an echo of the drivel being spouted daily by the president of a country located on the eastern edge of the American Ocean, you are not wrong. Most of the big tech companies have willingly — even enthusiastically — supported America’s new king. A spokesperson for DIGI — the lobby group representing tech companies including Meta, Snapchat and Google — defended algorithms as helpful to users seeking diverse content. “We also recognize there is community concern about how these systems work and DIGI welcomes the discussion on the role of recommender systems in online safety. We support an approach that gives people meaningful choice and control over the content they see, while managing safety risks.” Greens Needed To Advance New Policy The Labor government will need the support of the Greens to advance the proposed legislation through parliament. The legislation is expected to be introduced before Christmas, but will likely face lengthy public inquiries and negotiations. The Greens communications spokesperson, Sarah Hanson-Young, warned the draft legislation should have a lower threshold for harm, and penalties for platforms should be a percentage of their global revenue. “Opt out is not acceptable,” she said. “Opt out is a recipe for big tech to manipulate and to get around it. They’ve got a lot of money, and we know that big tech will be looking for every crack, every possible workaround. So we need to tighten this up and make sure it is watertight.” Campaigner Chanel Contos, founder of Teach Us Consent, called the draft laws a good first step by the government. “This reform sends the right message to Big Tech,” she said. “You cannot introduce harmful features into our digital lives without asking for our consent first.” Tom Mooney, campaign director for Democracy Counts, an alliance of organizations concerned about the function of democratic institutions in Australia, said common facts and diversity of opinion was essential. “Social media is where the majority of Australians get their news, where many people spend hours each day,” he said. “It is common sense to require platforms to give users a choice over those experiences.” New Age Protection Measures The new duty of care legislation will take months to work its way through the parliamentary process. But last year, Australia rolled out new social media restrictions designed to protect young people under the age of 16. Now it appears those restrictions are not working quite the way they were intended. Remember the government spokesperson who said, “Opt out is a recipe for big tech to manipulate and to get around it?” That’s exactly what has happened with the age restrictions introduced last year. The companies simply farm out age verification to third party contractors. If they fail to perform their duty properly, “Oh, well. What did you expect? Good help is hard to find these days.” The rules require the tech companies to take “reasonable steps” to stop Australians under 16 from opening accounts. According to The Conversation, this week the government will move an amendment through parliament to give the eSafety Commissioner stronger powers to investigate whether social media platforms are complying with the minimum age rules. A recent study followed more than 400 Australian teenagers before and after the restrictions took effect. Three months later, more than 85 percent of those under 16 were still using social media platforms covered by the law and most were accessing them through their own accounts. Between 15 and 19 percent reported using a fake account, while 6 to 11 percent said they accessed social media through a private browser. A third of the under-16 year olds said they encountered no significant age check at all. Common approaches included simply asking users to state their age or upload a selfie. The researchers found little evidence that the legislation had produced a substantial immediate reduction in social media use among under-16 year olds, which suggests a significant difference between passing an age restriction and actually enforcing one. This is the gap the new Online Safety Amendment Bill is trying to address. Information Gathering Powers Expanded The most significant change is to eSafety’s information-gathering powers. The amendment will empower the commissioner to demand documents — not just information — from social media companies which show what they’ve done (or failed to do) to enforce age restrictions. It will also empower eSafety to gather information or documents from other people and organisations where it reasonably believes they have evidence relevant to an investigation. This matters because social media platforms don’t operate in isolation. They sit within a much larger digital ecosystem of app stores, technology vendors, advertising companies, and specialist age-assurance providers. A platform may be legally responsible for keeping under-16 year olds from holding accounts, but the systems it relies on to do that may be designed or operated by other companies. Effective regulation cannot depend entirely on asking a company whether it thinks it is complying with the rules. If responsibility is spread across an ecosystem of different technologies and providers, regulators need to be able to follow the evidence across that ecosystem, The Conversation suggests. The bill also doubles the fines that companies may be ordered to pay if they are found to have breached the age restrictions, bringing it up to a maximum of A$99 million. This brings the financial penalties in line with other corporate regulation in Australia. However, the 2024 Rickard Review of the Online Safety Act recommended that courts should be able to impose penalties in an amount that reflects a percentage of global turnove — 5 percent if that is greater. Other countries do this in their online safety laws. It is also in Australia’s competition and consumer law and privacy law. The amendment will give the regulator expanded access to important evidence, and a bigger stick when companies don’t comply. And it will bring the powers for enforcing the social media minimum age restriction into line with the other powers the eSafety Commissioner already has. Age restrictions essentially ask, “How do we keep young people out of potentially harmful digital environments?” A duty of care asks, “How do we make all digital environments safer for everyone?” That is why the digital duty of care may ultimately prove to be the better and more important reform. It puts responsibility back where much of it belongs:– on platforms to identify and reduce foreseeable harms created by their services, according to The Conversation. “The difficulties enforcing the age ban only strengthen the case for getting that broader reform right.”, and of course the Big Guy in Washington will weigh in on the side of the companies just as he interfered in the World Cup. Then he will threaten 200 percent tariffs on Vegemite and a ban on imports of Australian wool. The Nationals and their admirers will lose their shit over this gross intrusion on the freedom of action of private corporations and loudly defend the right of young Australians to view the sexual indignities inflicted on young girls and boys by those who seek to profit from purveying such filth. The US will be behind the eight ball on this issue, but pressure is building in the capitols of many nations to end the exploitation of minors. Anthony Albanese and his government are on the right side of this issue. With luck and perseverance, they may be able to move the needle on internet safety for all, which would be a most welcome result for all of us who are beaten over the head with algorithm driven drivel online each and every day. These tech bros deserve no mercy. They are jackals who pray on the weak for profit. They need to be made to understand that what they do has serious consequences, especially for younger web users. Good for Anthony Albanese for taking the fight to the enemy.