Australia To Let Social Media Users 'Opt Out' of Algorithm-Based Feeds (cnbc.com) 87
Australia is proposing the "My Feed, My Way" initiative that would force social media platforms to let users over 16 turn off algorithmic recommendations and instead see only posts from people and creators they follow. Platforms that fail to comply could face fines of up to $79 million. CNBC reports: The legislation, which is being drafted and released Tuesday for targeted consultation, would require platforms to send notifications to new and existing users so they can choose their default feed. [...] The measures, set to be introduced to the Parliament of Australia this year, will also require AI chatbots, online games and other digital services to take action to protect under-18s from addictive design features. "This is not about giving government control. It's about giving people control. It's about putting choice back into the hands of Australians online," said Prime Minister Anthony at a press conference on Tuesday.
"This is sensible, pragmatic, practical reform. It gives users choice, and it will hold the big tech companies responsible for inaction."
"This is sensible, pragmatic, practical reform. It gives users choice, and it will hold the big tech companies responsible for inaction."
clueless (Score:5, Insightful)
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If you are fined $AUD 0.003 each time you speed with no increase in fine or limitations on driving, do you care if you are charged with speeding?
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If you are fined $AUD 0.003 each time you speed with no increase in fine or limitations on driving, do you care if you are charged with speeding?
Why would I be fined $0.003AUD? You're making numbers up. Let's do some actual math. Facebook Australia earns $61 million / year net profit. The fine proposed is $107million which is 170% of yearly revenue.
For me that would be the equivalent of a $255,000 speeding fine. You can bet your testicles that not only am I not speeding, but I'm driving 15km under the limit in the slow lane.
But even if you want to go on something like "revenue" alone instead of profit. After all tax write-offs are a thing. The fine
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You have an implied yearly revenue of 150k? I'm going to pretend I didn't read that. Carry on!
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Ooopse I meant the word profit. Yes I implied a yearly profit of $150k (i.e. net earnings after tax), at least from my salary. No need to pretend you didn't read it.
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The 79 million isn't the sting in the tail. Its the heavily armed men turning up to arrest the CEO when the company keeps ignoring the court order.
Re:clueless (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, the CEO won't be in Australia, so they're going to have to operate through extradition proceedings. Good Luck.
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FB has an office on Barangaroo Avenue in Sydney, X closed its offices but has people working at home in Australia, Google has offices in Pyrmont NSW.
If these major companies don't have people who can be held accountable in the country and are working outside the law, the Government starts working on banning their services in the country, potentially losing major revenue and taki
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Yeah, they'll be able to get fall-guys. They won't be able to get the decision makers.
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The registered CEO of Facebook Australia Pty Ltd, William Easton, very much does live in Australia.
And I'm sure the Managing Director & Vice President, Australia and New Zealand (ANZ) may have something to say about his company if Zuckerberg throws him under the bus.
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Well, the CEO won't be in Australia, so they're going to have to operate through extradition proceedings. Good Luck.
The location of CEO of the parent company is not relevant. You need a legal representative (with enough decision power, such as the CEO of the local branch) to do any significant business in any country. That person can and will be jailed if necessary.
Oh, and don't try to avoid this like X did in Brazil in 2024. It cost them a lot of money: some fines, a ban, and another fine because they tried to circumvent the ban. Now, I don't think the fines amounted to much given their (global) revenue, but the ban cer
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That's just the initial fine. If they don't comply, it will dramatically increase. Generally speaking the initial fine is restitution, and punitive fines come later for non-compliance.
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When will politicians realize that fines like $79 million are rounding errors to these companies?
Well at least they are contributing something to the local economy and if it's not enough, you can fine them again, of fine them even more for contempt.
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shouldn't the customers decide what they want by voting with their $$$/Presence ?
Competition would work so much better if people actually did this. But through some bizarre quirk of human behavior, people are willing to tolerate quite a bit of enshittification before they'll jump ship.
It's like that scene where Data gets an emotion drink and asks for more of a drink, despite finding it to be revolting.
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Re: It's a for profit business (Score:2)
The network effect is the real problem â" not how feeds work.
They need to mandate that social networks are interoperable, like they did with phones and TVs. Imagine if AT&T customers couldn't call Verizon customers, or LG TVs couldn't get NBC.
If you could use Bluesky and see all your friends' Instagram posts, you wouldn't care what algorithm Instagram used, and if Bluesky started to suck you'd switch again and your friends wouldn't need to know.
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how much control can even the Aussie Nannie state want
None. The law literally doesn't give the government any control nor mandate the government control anything.
shouldn't the customers decide
That's the poin.... did you even read what this story is about?
by voting with their $$$/Presence
Ahh yes the "if they don't like it they should just leave" approach to problem solving. Don't bother solving any problems, just burn the entire thing to the ground.
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Ahh yes the "if they don't like it they should just leave" approach to problem solving. Don't bother solving any problems, just burn the entire thing to the ground.
You say that like it's a bad thing. I miss the days when social media companies weren't too big to fail, and someone else came along to build something better.
Re:It's a for profit business (Score:4, Insightful)
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No I'm saying this as if it is a proven pointless solution that doesn't work. Telling people to just do without has never worked in history for any product or service.
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If a business you are using DOESN'T provide the service you think you should get, you go elsewhere, seems simple. At what point is social media necessary anyways ? It sad that a superficial useless service is considered so important by the most F'd up generation yet. You are entitled in a manner I can barely comprehend. Solve the problem...You want to tell the company what they can and can't do you control freak. If you don't like it don't use it. It is NOT REQUIRED .
Re:It's a for profit business (Score:4, Insightful)
If a business you are using DOESN'T provide the service you think you should get, you go elsewhere, seems simple.
Except is is providing the service people want along with some negative problems associated with it. And where else do you go when every competitor has the same problem?
You are entitled in a manner I can barely comprehend. Solve the problem...You want to tell the company what they can and can't do you control freak.
Yes. We need to be control freaks. Companies are not your friend, they do nothing with your interest in mind. If given the choice they will outright kill you for profit. The entire world seems to have recognised that protective regulation, both in terms of protecting consumers, and protecting competition is a good thing. But for some reason a few weirdos like you are holdouts. Please open an economics textbook and read the first few chapters. You'll learn very quickly that unchecked, unregulated capitalism does not in any way work out in your best interest. The market you enjoy is literally a mathematically unstable condition, and the only stable end solution is when corporations retain full control.
Regulations exist to prevent that. But sure I can understand if you simp for mega corps that everyone else would appear "entitled" in your eyes.
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At what point is social media necessary anyways ? It sad that a superficial useless service is considered so important by the most F'd up generation yet. You are entitled in a manner I can barely comprehend. Solve the problem...You want to tell the company what they can and can't do you control freak. If you don't like it don't use it. It is NOT REQUIRED .
It's a network effect. You might find that your local cafe doesn't have a website but they are on social media. Is the shop open? You can't check their hours online without using social media (or hoping that the "AI" in your web search scrapes and summarizes the information properly.) You could phone, but was the phone unanswered because they are closed, or because they are open but too busy making coffees to answer the phone? Sure, it's not a critical life-support application, but it's part of participatin
Re:It's a for profit business (Score:5, Insightful)
You have fallen victim to several errors associated with Laissez-faire capitalism. I am a strong proponent of Capitalism but the issues you describe are inherently incorrect.
1) They do not need to prove it is harmful, capitalism routinely engages in preventative regulations. There are legal rules on things like the width of roads, medication use by dates, ingredients in food, etc. It is up to the business to show that their practices do no harm, not the other way around.
2) The client cannot easily vote with their presence/$$$ or presence because the social Media industries have no direct competition and MASSIVE problems 'transferring' accounts - problems the companies create.
3) If their business hinges on algorithms is irrelevant. No one is entitled to a profit. You must earn the profit by winning the competition within the rules the country creates. If one country handicaps the industry, so what? 90% of the profit will still be there - to be earned by the company that best competes within the rules the government . Sure, they may make 10% less compared to social media in other countries, but they will still make a profit and the loss is a small price to pay for the benefit of society.
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you imply some importance to social media that I just don't understand. It is a service, if you don't like it go else where or do without. I don't see anywhere a right to Facebook and endless selfies. I don't see FB entitled to anything, they are earning their profit hand over foot because morons just seem to want to give them money and tell them everything about themselves. We're at a point where we need to decide some personal responsibility. Sadly most of our race needs a guardian entity looking out for
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It is a service, if you don't like it go else where or do without.
And where elsewhere do you propose people go that isn't run by an algorithmic feed? That's sort of the point here. There is no consumer choice other than complete abstinence.
While that may sound fun in theory "social media" is more than just Facebook. And while most of social media is pointless slop, a subset of it is in fact business interactions, proper communication, market transactions, etc.
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Well you cant have anything without an algorithmic feed. Even sorting things by date is an algorithm. I think they feel that what they are doing will improve things.... but I believe what it will do is end up doing is putting people even more into separate silos - where people with people different views don't communicate with each other thereby creating even more division which they were trying to prevent.
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You don't know what you are talking about. First of all, there is no such thing as "capitalism", see here for details https://dagens-fel.livejournal... [livejournal.com]
1. Your point is completely wrong. Who's responsible to show that something causes harm is a matter of contract. It could be the seller's responsibility, but it could also be the buyer's responsibility. It all depends on what was agreed upon.
2. So what? No one is forcing you to use social media.
3. Government regulations violates the basic human right of freed
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Your link is inane pedantry. Capitalism is the word we use to refer to a free market society. The origin of the word is irrelevant.
1) Nope. Companies to not get to decide the law. Nations get to do it. Yes, a moronic nation may leave it up to the contract, but in that case slavery would be legal. He who has the power of police makes the rules.
2) I do not use social media (unless you consider slashdot to be one). But others do, and people believe it has negative influences, mainly by spreading lies,
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You haven't thought that through very well. "Free market society" is not an ideology. Classic liberalism, which typically leads to a market economy, is an ideology. If capitalism is a synonym to "free market society" it is therefore not an ideology. You can't mix terms like that.
1. Not in a free society. Duh! Why should slavery be banned? If an adult voluntarily enters a contract you consider slavery, who are you to overrule that person's choice. The only thing that should be banned is being born into slave
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It's a for profit business, how much control can even the Aussie Nannie state want. Unless they can prove that curating the feed is "harmful" shouldn't the customers decide what they want by voting with their $$$/Presence?
Here's the flaw in your logic. The vast majority of their customers WANT to turn this s**t off. But they put up with it up to a point or they don't. Either way, it doesn't matter as long as there are enough people who are engagement junkies who eat it up and therefore drive up ad impressions. They could lose 90% of their users, and if the other 10% increase their usage 10x, they're still ahead...
... but while the company may be ahead in that situation, society is still harmed by the other 90% not having
Mixed feelings (Score:4, Insightful)
On one hand, this feels like government overreach.
On the other hand, don't threaten me with a good time.
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I have zero voting rights in US social media. Even if I do not use them, they still track me.
Personally I am more in favour of the government being in control than Zuckerberg etc.
Could get them users back (Score:2)
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FWIW, Linkedin is *much* better/less bad when set to "recent posts" rather than "most relevant":
1) You see posts in time order, so older stuff is lower down. If there's a reaction to something, this (sort of) makes sense (or at least, you can make sense of it, even if it's upside down)
2) You don't see bullshit from people you have no interest in, just because other people seem to like their stuff
3) If you visit twice in a short time, there's not much new stuff to look at - that's a natural self-limiter to t
Isn't that backwards? (Score:4, Insightful)
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I'd be happy if the opt-out actually did its job. It never will though. What you'll get is tracking that is slightly less in your face.
Governments need to ban user tracking entirely. No opt-ins or opt-outs.
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Australia requires social media platforms to take measures to prevent under-16s from having accounts. So, theoretically, Facebook doesn't have any Australian accounts belonging to under-16s, so all Australian accounts can opt out.
What about new creators (Score:1)
Iâ(TM)ve discovered a lot of new channels on YouTube thanks to the dreaded âoealgorithmâ. I wouldnâ(TM)t turn it off just because of that but if many people did then itâ(TM)s just another regulatory lock in for already established channels. As in so many industries. Perhaps that is the intention.
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In the case of Facebook I would turn off algorithm feeds, but since this is not an options I simply don't use Facebook. I wanted Facebook to see what friends and family where up to, which the introduction algorithm feeds made impossible.
In the case of YouTube I would leave the algorithm feeds on as I do use it to discover new stuff. I do wond
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How will this be enforced? (Score:2)
Everything that runs on a computer is an algorithm. This law makes it sound like the Australian goverment doesn't understand what they've proposed, voted on, and signed into law.
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It won't be. Facebook will just cut a check for $79 million and go on with life.
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The common argument that a linear feed from people you explicitly chose to follow is not algorithm based. This was how Facebook worked in the early days. This is the intent of the law.
If you think of "algorithm-based feeds" as common description of a way to chose content for social media users, vs a linear subscription feed, then the intent of the law is clear. If you work with software then you ar
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Follow up question: Why do you stop getting your benefits if it is an opt-out choice? As I read it you can chose to continue to use social media exactly they way you do now, nothing changes unless you opt out.
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With "tracking" I mean recording your interests. What should be required to build a feed.
Every second entry in my timeline is Ad (Score:2)
Currently I am experiencing FB from hell. Do not mind occasional ad, but every other is overly excessive. Hopefully, we can ask for more sanity, or we gonna be fundamentally gone. Quite serious.
Opt out ... to what? (Score:2)
My various social media feeds seem to ordered by a mix of chronology, interest, and personal connection.
If I opt out of that, what sorting algorithm replaces it? Pure chronological? Random? Government-mandated political correctness?
It's sound-bite legislation. Pointless.
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Up to your social media provider.
They'd presumably make it as terrible as possible so you choose to opt in. But not quite so terrible as to make you leave.
They have a lot of data about you, so expect it to be as shitty as you'd put up with.
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The first sentence of TFS says
It's not about sorting but about filtering.
Too little too late to be honest... (Score:2)
Why not just ban the algorithms?
Why not just give the user the option to opt out of algorithmically generated news feeds?
Why doesn't Facebook just go back to a previous paradigm where the content on its feed was generated by the users and pages that you followed?
Why not just ban endlessly scrolli
Why do people need the tech bros and gov (Score:2)
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Re: Why do people need the tech bros and gov (Score:2)
Disappointing (Score:2)
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Are you being paid to post this crap? I'm in the US, and I'd opt-out of the algorithm in a heartbeat, and I'm no child.