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Australia moves to let users switch off algorithms
September 9, 2026
Australia's government announced proposed laws Tuesday requiring social media platforms to offer users a choice over their default feed.
Australia polices social media through a national online safety regulator, which in April weighed taking five large platforms to court over children under 16 holding accounts on them.
Key facts
- Fines under the Digital Duty of Care bill could reach 109.2 million Australian dollars, or $78.6 million.
- The country's online safety regulator announced in April that it was weighing legal proceedings against YouTube, TikTok, Snapchat, Instagram and Facebook over claims the services fall short in blocking Australian children under 16 from signing up.
- Kush Desai, a spokesperson for the White House, said the US administration would take its objections up with "trading partners", speaking in a statement that came out within a day of Tuesday's announcement from Australia.
- Breaches of the proposed legislation would cost major technology firms upwards of $100m in fines, and the government in Australia faces calls to push those penalties higher still.
- A request has gone to the government from the Council of Small Business Organisations Australia to model what the change would cost small businesses and how visible they would remain in feeds.
Reuters reports Canberra sees no danger to its relationship with Washington after the White House objected to the new platform rules. NPR reports the government set out the plan in Canberra on Tuesday, and that every platform would have to put a notice in front of each user, new or existing, asking which feed that person wants switched on by default. Anyone who prefers machine-picked recommendations can say so and keep them. NPR reports the penalty ceiling written into the proposed Digital Duty of Care legislation reaches 109.2 million Australian dollars, or $78.6 million.
The Guardian reports the same duty with more of the mechanism attached. The alert arrives as a pop-up offering two settings. One draws tailored posts from across the whole service, the other carries only what the people a user connects with have shared. The Guardian also reports the communications minister would gain authority to write fresh definitions of the harmful material platforms must remove, and that the Trump administration intends to press Australia on both halves of the plan. Kush Desai, a White House spokesperson, said the administration would raise its concerns with "trading partners", in a statement issued within a day of the Tuesday announcement. The New York Times and WSJ carry the account on the same terms, the Times saying users would gain the ability to turn the ranking off and WSJ that the government intends to permit exactly that.
The commercial objection sits in the record as well. The Guardian reports Australian firms warn their takings could suffer, since customers who switch the ranking off may stop encountering advertisements and stop buying from sellers who trade through the platforms. The Council of Small Business Organisations Australia has asked the government to work out what the change would cost smaller firms and how far it would sink them in feeds. The Guardian reports OpenAI, which owns ChatGPT, intends to talk with the government about the legislation. NPR reports the country's online safety regulator weighed court action in April against YouTube, TikTok, Snapchat, Instagram and Facebook, arguing they were doing too little to keep children under 16 away. The notice requirement, the ability to decline algorithmic ranking and the penalty ceiling hold across every account, and nothing runs against them. The fine level is not fixed, since The Guardian reports the government faces pressure to lift penalties already above $100m.
Still developing
The record holds nothing unresolved on the proposed social media laws at the time of draft, and no account offers a different figure or framing.
How settled the reporting is
Sources
- NPR — Australian social media users to be offered choice to opt out of algorithms
- The Guardian — Trump administration to confront Australia over Labor’s social media algorithm plan