4 ms·

My Feed, My Way

185 points by dotcoma 26d ago

petesergeant 26d ago
I think this is a nice idea, but three koala dollars says that in a year we find out most Australians switched back to the dopamine feed after a day or two. Nice to have the choice, though.
- protocolture 26d ago
  I have been trying to trick it into turning off for ages. I wouldnt be surprised if most people opt back in. But its better than an outright ban.
  - petesergeant 26d ago
    I would probably start using Facebook again if I could get a consistent, strictly chronological feed of friends’ updates.
    - aprilthird2021 26d ago
      You can. There's a friends tab
demibabs 26d ago
Right direction to move in, but probably won’t do much. “Drug dealers are now required to give their customers the option to purchase salad instead of cocaine”.
- Towaway69 26d ago
  That’s at least a choice. The USA has a choice between two parties - democrat or republican. China only has one party, Russian has (in principle) one party and North Korea only has one dictator. So if these places got a second party or dictator, it would be a 50% improvement.
- armchairhacker 26d ago
  The war on drugs was a failure, and the most successful cases (other than harsh punishments while avoiding massive drug use in the first place, like Singapore) involve legalization.
  - latexr 26d ago
    > The war on drugs was a failure Continues to be. It’s not over; it has been going on for over half a century, and counting. How was it that Toby Ziegler (The West Wing) put it? “Since it never ends and no one ever wins, maybe we should stop calling it a war”?
agnishom 26d ago
I read the first sentence and thought: what is the government of Albania doing in Australia?
- oriettaxx 26d ago
  OMG, I've got it now "Albanese" is the second name of the Australian Prime Minister
- swiftcoder 26d ago
  Yep, I spent a hot minute puzzling over that sentence
- fsckboy 26d ago
  Albanese is an Italian name, for the record In Albania, Albania is called Shqipëria.
  - brospars 26d ago
    I was thinking albanese were the people of Albania (I know it's albanian, but got confuse for a moment)
- brospars 26d ago
  LOL, I was wondering too what Albania had to do with all this, not being familiar with the australian prime minister name.
pknerd 26d ago
for a moment, I thought the Albanese Administration was promoting RSS feeds.
shubhamjain 26d ago
I talked about this in my blog post [1]. I didn't expect regulators to pay attention to the issue anytime soon—let alone move against it. So kudos to the Australian government. Enough with the free-speech and free-market rhetoric: algorithmic feeds are actively poisoning our minds and should be regulated as strictly as possible. > The issue is that much of the problematic content doesn’t violate any law but still is poison that shouldn’t be on anyone’s feed. The easiest example is painting feminism as some evil propaganda against men, and how women’s place in the kitchen is natural order of things. Such views have gained steam in the recent times purely because of social media (algorithms). > The ideal regulation would be to ban or heavily regulate algorithmic feeds. If you don’t follow someone, or a page, or an interest, there’s no reason for you to get that stuff on your timeline. Only things that should be shown is what you explicitly choose. And if it does, it should be easy enough to nuke it from your timeline. [1]: https://shubhamjain.co/2026/02/25/algorithmic-feeds-need-to-be-banned/ https://shubhamjain.co/2026/02/25/algorithmic-feeds-need-to-...
repeekad 26d ago
This reminds me of the YouTube creator Technology Connections trying to engage with people on bluesky, which already provides feed customization and even lets you write code to build your own feed algorithms. He loosely coined the term "algorithmic complacency" to explain how users didn't like bluesky specifically because they had to explicitly choose who or what they wanted to follow, his fear being that especially young people would rather be served slop than decide for themselves what content they want to see. https://youtu.be/QEJpZjg8GuA https://youtu.be/QEJpZjg8GuA
- cyberrock 26d ago
  Maybe he's right, but there are way more issues with Bluesky that affect user retention. For example the app seems to love logging users out if they have intermittent Internet or are using a VPN, or just because the app feels like it. It's an insane bug or security stance. Meanwhile, Setlog is gaining popularity in east Asia, which definitely indicates there is some demand for friend-only social media. I think many Discord users are basically using Discord like that too. Giving users the choice is the right move.
tshapedrob 26d ago
Brilliant! I really hope they get it through, and I’ll be interested to see what impact it has on screen time app sales in the region.
armchairhacker 26d ago
I’d prefer similar to Doctorow, that governments simply make scraping and republishing (anything that anyone who consents can access) explicitly legal, then alternate frontends may appear with their own algorithms.
- protocolture 26d ago
  Bingo. This is the path forward and solution to so many ills. IP needs a big rethink for the internet.
- xtiansimon 26d ago
  Does that include the social networks themselves? Essentially forcing APIs again?
  - armchairhacker 25d ago
    Forcing APIs maybe wouldn't be bad, but shouldn't be necessary. It would be hard to enforce and the company could release convoluted APIs, which would be harder to regulate. Meanwhile, scrapers can publish a decent API.
- slopinthebag 25d ago
  Yes this is the way, not another law to paper over the issues of prior law.
RobotToaster 26d ago
The feed options sound good in principle, although I expect the implementation to be deliberately hobbled. I've tried Facebook's existing (well hidden) chronological feed and it turns out there's so much spam in local groups that I found it unusable. The bigger issue is the toxic "papers please" identity verification will result in a lot fewer "Australians" on the internet, who will now show up from various VPN endpoint countries, so presumably won't get the algorithm option.
- zlokki 25d ago
  Nowadays you can filter out spam from your feed if you can roughly formulate what you want to see there (or DON'T want to see) E.g I filter my RSS feed using a small tool I built for myself. It doesn't support Facebook, but maybe you can find it useful: https://knoless.app https://knoless.app
ricardobayes 26d ago
That's great however after seeing their feed being empty people will switch back. You can already do this on youtube by not allowing history.
- deleted 26d ago
  [deleted]
- denismi 26d ago
  No you can't, I just tried it. I deleted all of my history and "paused" history tracking. Then I reloaded https://www.youtube.com https://www.youtube.com. My expectation: A feed of the pages I'm subscribed to. My experience: A blank page which just says "Your watch history is off / You can change your setting at any time to get the latest videos tailored to you. [Learn more] / [Update Settings]". Hilariously, it is exactly the same - in glorious 4K - on the YouTube app on my TV. This is deliberately fucked in order force users into the algorithm.
- latexr 26d ago
  > You can already do this on youtube by not allowing history. And what a bliss that is! I love it how YouTube thinks it’s punishing me by turning off the home page recommendations if you disable history (it didn’t always do that) while it’s in fact a favour. In my country (and I assume most/every country), the default home feed is such a cesspool of vomit-inducing clickbait garbage that it boils my blood to even glance at it. > That's great however after seeing their feed being empty people will switch back. But yes, I have no illusion that everyone shares my aversion. Removing control from the companies will hopefully have some impact, though.
aussieguy1234 26d ago
I reckon a good idea would be to force Bluesky levels of feed customization, with a choice of blocklists. Theres alot of stuff turning up in my feeds lately that i'd rather not see.
- zlokki 25d ago
  What is the problem to filter your feed without Bluesky?
  - aussieguy1234 24d ago
    Bluesky has blocklists out of the box. You can block hate speech and other problematic content. No such feature in the other socials. Open the feed, you could see toxic content from an account you never followed thanks to the algorithm...
blfr 26d ago
Why do people (or at least politicians pretend to) believe that social networks are popular despite the content algos and not because of them? The reason Tik Tok blew up is because it shows you what you want to see without you twiddling with a dozen dials. Maybe giving people what they want is not great for them. I am ok with this argument. But then "giving people control" won't change anything. Vast majority of users would rather put up with shocking (to me) levels of annoyance and expense just not to configure/fix anything themselves.
- tene80i 26d ago
  Why not give people the option? They don’t all have to use it, but it means some can.
  - King-Aaron 26d ago
    Because the people most severely impacted don't understand that they are being severely impacted.
    - tene80i 26d ago
      Sure, there’s an argument for improving the default too. I was just replying to what I thought was someone saying “it doesn’t matter, most people won’t use it, give up”
      - King-Aaron 26d ago
        Fair enough. I legitimately hate people who do that - gaslighting people into not wanting change. I don't even understand what drives that mentality half the time.
    - slopinthebag 25d ago
      that doesn't seem correct. it's equivalent to saying nobody should be allowed to drink because a small minority of ppl cannot control themslves
- 26d ago
wyager 26d ago
Interesting scenarios that could happen in next few years * American internet companies start to make the judgement that supporting EU/ANZ countries with difficult legal/tax requirements is a net cost and stop doing it, just IP-blocking those countries for the lowest legal risk * Alternatively, American govt takes the position of "American companies don't have to follow the laws of random countries just because they accept IP packets from those countries". American companies eliminate their official business presence in onerous legal regimes but keep serving users there * If above happens, this forces the resolution of the question "how does internet jurisdiction work across borders if USA doesn't play along", and a plausible answer is that internet messages start to be treated like physical imports and nation-level internet censorship moves under the purview of customs agencies The globally routable internet is a very special and valuable thing, but it's a historical aberration and I suspect not very stable long-term. Even today, with the internet way more locked down than 20 years ago, it's still extremely libertarian compared to almost any other economically significant venue. In equilibrium, the state will demand its cut
- Nursie 26d ago
  > American internet companies start to make the judgement that supporting EU/ANZ countries with difficult legal/tax requirements is a net cost and stop doing it, just IP-blocking those countries for the lowest legal risk Productivity spikes, youth mental health issues trend downwards and the nutcase right-wing parties struggle to maintain momentum. Can we have this please? Pretty please?
- XorNot 26d ago
  > * Alternatively, American govt takes the position of "American companies don't have to follow the laws of random countries just because they accept IP packets from those countries". American companies eliminate their official business presence in onerous legal regimes but keep serving users there Why would they do that? If they can't have a local business presence then they can't book local advertisers. Which directly cuts any revenue they would get from the enterprise. None of these companies need to have local business presences: they do because otherwise you can't get revenue from users in that nationality.
King-Aaron 26d ago
I don't think this goes nearly far enough, and is another example of our government latching onto a juicy trending topic and doing the bare minimum to make a positive sounding news byte out of. This should be an opt-in model for algorithmically driven content, infinite scrolling, etc. An opt out model just feels like they're compromising for the benefit of industry lobbyists on the issue.
- Nursie 26d ago
  > another example of our government latching onto a juicy trending topic and doing the bare minimum Say it ain't so! For those not following Australian politics, this is the theme of our times. Find a big issue that people want something done about, half-arse it and bow to corporate interests instead of taking decisive action. The big one recently has been gambling advertising. The government commissioned a report that came to the well-argued conclusion that, as the biggest gamblers in the world per capita, Australia really should ban gambling advertising. It's pervasive, offensive and way too normalised. There appeared to be cross party support for the proposal, and widespread public support. Easy win for the party in power. The current government sat on it for a couple of years and then came back with a watered down proposal to cap the amount it could be on tv and try to restrict it during times kids might be watching. Way to miss an open goal Albo.
  - King-Aaron 26d ago
    The whole political charade is just getting me so angry, the thin veil of "government working for the people" rhetoric has completely fallen away to expose how directly corporate interests translate into Australian government policy. Majority of Australians supported changes in how the resource sector is taxed - the government openly met with industry lobbyists right before the budget and just said lol no. They went to a local byelection and their candidate was a gas lobbyist they parachuted in from a different electorate. The gambling thing, what a joke. The social media ban for kids that immediately turned out to be pushed by pro media lobbyists. The military spending. My word. They don't even try to hide it anymore, and Labor were meant to be the quasi-progressive-left option in the uniparty system. Now I view them to be equally as corrupt as the Liberal party, leaving the Greens as the only viable option in politics here. And they can never get anywhere due to the way political donations/funding is set up, along with the vested interests owning the media narrative. No one even bothers to read their policy documents because old Rupert Murdoch has their opinion covered for them. Gah. It's nearly beer time I think.
Cider9986 26d ago
This is a pro-consumer action. Good for Australia. Identity verification is anti-consumer. Instagram in Australia offers either ID or video selfie to prove you are over 16.
alex1138 26d ago
With Facebook, people reported not being able to see their spouses' posts. They were "Married" on Facebook, but the feed just shoved things into their faces they didn't want. It would even edit posts when you went to their pages (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14147719 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14147719)
- brainwad 26d ago
  Facebook already has a "friends only" feed - https://www.facebook.com/?filter=friends&sk=h_chr https://www.facebook.com/?filter=friends&sk=h_chr. It's the only thing I still use, and unfortunately it's cluttered with events that people I knew 15 years ago are going to this weekend, but it's waaaay better than the default feed which is just a slop cannon.
8by3 26d ago
Or just use https://tuhat.net https://tuhat.net, >> 1K organic users in the last three months, ,with no marketing budget, and no VC funding. - Chronological feed of local posts + external RSS feeds in one place - Email newsletters / RSS - Journaling feature - Book log / reviews - No Algorithms - No like button Opensource if you want to spin up your own instance.
- colesantiago 26d ago
  I don't know what I am looking at here?
  - 8by3 26d ago
    Ha, fair. The home page is a global feed of all users, limited to one post per day per user. One of many potential solutions to an alternative to todays social media – like substack, but without the shitty sides of social media.
wewewedxfgdf 26d ago
In 2023 the Australian Prime Minister Albanese was asked by Neil Mitchell on 3AW radio what he would do if he was "Dictator for a Day". Albanese replied: "Ban social media". Indeed. ref: https://www.reddit.com/r/australian/comments/1gmakhz/anthony_albanese_reveals_he_would_ban_social/ https://www.reddit.com/r/australian/comments/1gmakhz/anthony...
- florkbork 26d ago
  Red herring, you've linked to a conservative leaning sub community posting a source that is known to be generally inaccurate. This is about legislation penalizing social media companies for shoving algorithmic slop down the throats of consumers. But if we want to introduce political figures and their thoughts on social media; the traditional opposition party is lead by this man - someone willing to manipulate the public with social media. https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2026/feb/12/fantastic-great-move-well-done-angus-taylor-meme https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2026/feb/12/fantastic-gr... And the newer wonderkid of the media is engaged in widespread slopaganda: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-03-11/foreign-fake-news-pauline-hanson-one-nation/106436702 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-03-11/foreign-fake-news-pau...
  - wewewedxfgdf 26d ago
    But he DID say it, right? Or are you saying that because it's Reddit/The Daily Mail, he DIDN'T say it? What are you talking about? It's widely quoted and well known he said it so where are you coming from.
    - florkbork 26d ago
      No, it's your source; you prove your claims. I'll give you a hint though - the article doesn't even quote him, it just puts out a spicy headline. What he actually said and the context: "Ban social media. Keyboard warriors can anonymously say anything at all. Without any fear.", with regard to a misinformation bill. Considering the sources deliberately stripped everything of context and you've repeated it without checking, would you say we have a misinformation problem with media in general, or social media?
Vishal_Max 26d ago
The damage is already done for most people who already use it. Whenever I go to a restaurant and see friends, families, and couples together, I feel sad that instead of talking to each other, they’re all watching TikToks or reels. On a bus or train, barely one or two people are actually doing something other than watching something online. At least, hopefully, this rule helps future generations. People’s brains are so addicted that they can’t even focus for 10 minutes straight. On top of that, I see moms giving their toddlers mobile phones while they eat or whenever they need to get something done. People should really start considering how social media affects us in the long term.
- f6v 26d ago
  > On a bus or train, barely one or two people are actually doing something other than watching something online. I mean, what else should I be doing? Self-analyzing and staring in the window?
  - cryptoz 26d ago
    I treasure my memories of being on subways and busses and getting lost in thought while staring out the windows, yeah. I mean, people have done this for basically all of human history (okay walking or something, not on a train, but, yeah). It's not a bad thing to have some time with just your senses existing in the world.
    - greggsy 26d ago
      Let people enjoy things.
      - edu 26d ago
        The problem with being always online is not “not-enjoying” but stopping to think. People are getting used to be feed what they need to think constantly (from politics to product reviews) and then their critical thinking skills atrophy. Moreover, I’m not sure if being on social media is something “enjoyable” anymore, and it’s more like smoking tobacco where it becomes necessary but is not enjoyed.
gitowiec 26d ago
"The Albanese Government is taking the next step following its world leading social media age ban to ensure Australians have more choice online...." - Me thinking "What the heck? What Albanese government has to do with Australians? Are they under the occupation? Albanian occupation?!"
Prophet6-0091 26d ago
[dead]
rambambram 26d ago
With RSS I already do feeds my way.
- 8by3 26d ago
  Indeed, Thats part of the premise, we don't need to invent new technologies when email/rss are already self curated / federated. The missing piece is discovery. Which is why in addition to allowing you to aggregate internal/external feeds into one place, each instance also shares each external feed its users have subscribed too, and each user can share who they read (like a blog roll).
ChaoStatiX 26d ago
[dead]
pizzly 26d ago
Wouldn't the better way be is to make social media open? i.e. anyone can generate their own algorithm or chose from others who created them. I see that the social media companies could implement these requirements in the worse possible way to ensure that they opt right back in to "choose to opt in to having their default feed include personalised content recommended by the algorithm"
fmajid 26d ago
It's unclear whether this legislation will require giving users the choice of the sort order. That's one of the tricks exploitative social networks use, selective prioritization of ragebait and other content that encourages "engagement". If you have the choice of strict chronological order, that removes a lot of the hold the networks have over you.
latexr 26d ago
> Users can choose to opt in to having their default feed include personalised content recommended by the algorithm. Alternatively, users can opt out of personally recommended content in their default feed and see the friends and creators they choose to follow. Does that mean they are giving platforms the choice of what’s going to be the default? That doesn’t seem like a wise plan.
jiaosdjf 26d ago
4chan doesn't use any manipulative algorithms and all its feeds are time based, just saying. Oddly, 4chan is also the only place where 2 extremely opposed sides can and regularly do interact and debate - even if a large proportion of that traffic is bot farms.
quotemstr 26d ago
This is going to get about 0% uptake. People's preferences, as revealed by their behavior, align with the algorithmic feeds. That's the whole point of an algorithmic feed.
vintagedave 26d ago
> Just as we have basic safety standards for cars, toys or food, the duty of care applies basic standards for the online products we use every day. Aussie here. Great to see this. I don't think this goes far enough: I'd like to see addictive algorithms, content, and doomscrolling banned entirely. Not an option to see a different feed. Illegal. It's manipulative, hurts people, hurts children: make it illegal.
- achenet 26d ago
  Please don't start randomly prohibiting things because you dis-approve of those things. We have, at this point, over a 100 years of evidence showing that prohibition of psychoactive substances (alcohol, cannabis, cocaine, etc) doesn't actually do much to reduce consumption but do create an immense amount of suffering not just for anyone participating in the trade or consumption of those substances, but also anyone remotely connected to them - cf the immense violence perpetrated by drug cartels in the Americas, mostly because people living in the US seem to be in denial about their appetite for drugs. So please, stop banning things you don't like, tax and regulate them instead. Use the tax proceeds to fund "social media rehab" clinics if you'd like. Draconian "I don't like it, it gets banned" government wasn't a good idea in 15th century Spain, it's still not a good idea now. Let your fellow citizens make bad decisions, just ensure that the government is poised to profit from them.
  - suddenlybananas 26d ago
    Is there anything you think would be appropriate to prohibit?
    - achenet 26d ago
      things that directly harm other taxpayers - murder, physical violence, theft, false slander/reputational attacks... prohibiting things that harm the individual should not be the role of government, IMO. Government, in the liberal/Enlightenment tradition, is there as a protector of your 'rights' to life, liberty, and property. While it has a duty to protect you from things which could harm you (eg junk food/sugary drinks), it also has a duty to let you do what you choose to do, even if it's 'bad' for you (eg eat junk food and drink sugary drinks). Hence the compromise - you can smoke cigarettes and drink Coca-Cola, but the makers of cigarettes and soft drinks have to warn you beforehand, and the transaction may be more taxed than things like basic foods.
alfiedotwtf 26d ago
> with draft legislation for the Digital Duty of Care released today for targeted consultation. I hope it won’t be “community consultation” like they did with the AABill… that time where the Australian government ignored everyone in the community except for a handful of lobby groups. You know… that time where people filed FOI Requests about the AABill and not a single request was responded to. Forget politics people… you all have zero sway. The laws have already been written by The Inner Party, and they’re just drip feeding them to us over time so that we don’t notice the sudden shifting of the Overton Window to serfdom
xtiansimon 26d ago
I imagine we’re talking about air and water pollution. So my question is, How is the social feed going to be tested for these standards? I can’t imagine it.
MarceliusK 26d ago
The first rule reduces platform power. The second potentially requires platforms to build even larger classification and moderation systems. I'm very much in favor of the first, but I don't think they belong under the same conceptual umbrella.
- jackb4040 26d ago
  I read the article but I don't understand the two "rules" you're referring to? Can you state them?
  - stewx 26d ago
    1) Force platforms to let you turn off algorithmic feeds 2) Keep undesirable content out of feeds entirely for under-18s
oliwarner 25d ago
> users can opt out of personally recommended content in their default feed and see the friends and creators they choose to follow. This is huge. This would put turn (eg) Facebook back into what it used to be: a social network where you just see the people you know and follow. Can't imagine Meta et al will accommodate this willingly.
1vuio0pswjnm7 25d ago
What about the option for a chronological feed for _all_ users regardless of age The state AGs' settlement with Meta requires the company to provide users under a certain age with an option to choose a chronological feed https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cand.419868/gov.uscourts.cand.419868.576.1.pdf https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cand.41... Social media companies cannot claim it is more work to provide this option unless they can prove their time-wasting algorithms require less CPU and memory than standard UNIX logging or sort The information these companies publish does not even belong to them They rearrange it in manipulative ways that waste everyone's time, or worse (measurable harm)
qgin 25d ago
Heavy handed regulation that I 100% support. The externalities are too big to hand wave away.

185 points by dotcoma 26d ago

I think this is a nice idea, but three koala dollars says that in a year we find out most Australians switched back to the dopamine feed after a day or two. Nice to have the choice, though.

protocolture 26d ago
I have been trying to trick it into turning off for ages. I wouldnt be surprised if most people opt back in. But its better than an outright ban.
- petesergeant 26d ago
  I would probably start using Facebook again if I could get a consistent, strictly chronological feed of friends’ updates.
  - aprilthird2021 26d ago
    You can. There's a friends tab

demibabs 26d ago

Right direction to move in, but probably won’t do much. “Drug dealers are now required to give their customers the option to purchase salad instead of cocaine”.

Towaway69 26d ago
That’s at least a choice. The USA has a choice between two parties - democrat or republican. China only has one party, Russian has (in principle) one party and North Korea only has one dictator. So if these places got a second party or dictator, it would be a 50% improvement.
armchairhacker 26d ago
The war on drugs was a failure, and the most successful cases (other than harsh punishments while avoiding massive drug use in the first place, like Singapore) involve legalization.
- latexr 26d ago
  > The war on drugs was a failure Continues to be. It’s not over; it has been going on for over half a century, and counting. How was it that Toby Ziegler (The West Wing) put it? “Since it never ends and no one ever wins, maybe we should stop calling it a war”?

agnishom 26d ago

I read the first sentence and thought: what is the government of Albania doing in Australia?

oriettaxx 26d ago
OMG, I've got it now "Albanese" is the second name of the Australian Prime Minister
swiftcoder 26d ago
Yep, I spent a hot minute puzzling over that sentence
fsckboy 26d ago
Albanese is an Italian name, for the record In Albania, Albania is called Shqipëria.
- brospars 26d ago
  I was thinking albanese were the people of Albania (I know it's albanian, but got confuse for a moment)
brospars 26d ago
LOL, I was wondering too what Albania had to do with all this, not being familiar with the australian prime minister name.

pknerd 26d ago

for a moment, I thought the Albanese Administration was promoting RSS feeds.

shubhamjain 26d ago

I talked about this in my blog post [1]. I didn't expect regulators to pay attention to the issue anytime soon—let alone move against it. So kudos to the Australian government. Enough with the free-speech and free-market rhetoric: algorithmic feeds are actively poisoning our minds and should be regulated as strictly as possible. > The issue is that much of the problematic content doesn’t violate any law but still is poison that shouldn’t be on anyone’s feed. The easiest example is painting feminism as some evil propaganda against men, and how women’s place in the kitchen is natural order of things. Such views have gained steam in the recent times purely because of social media (algorithms). > The ideal regulation would be to ban or heavily regulate algorithmic feeds. If you don’t follow someone, or a page, or an interest, there’s no reason for you to get that stuff on your timeline. Only things that should be shown is what you explicitly choose. And if it does, it should be easy enough to nuke it from your timeline. [1]: https://shubhamjain.co/2026/02/25/algorithmic-feeds-need-to-be-banned/ https://shubhamjain.co/2026/02/25/algorithmic-feeds-need-to-...

repeekad 26d ago

This reminds me of the YouTube creator Technology Connections trying to engage with people on bluesky, which already provides feed customization and even lets you write code to build your own feed algorithms. He loosely coined the term "algorithmic complacency" to explain how users didn't like bluesky specifically because they had to explicitly choose who or what they wanted to follow, his fear being that especially young people would rather be served slop than decide for themselves what content they want to see. https://youtu.be/QEJpZjg8GuA https://youtu.be/QEJpZjg8GuA

cyberrock 26d ago
Maybe he's right, but there are way more issues with Bluesky that affect user retention. For example the app seems to love logging users out if they have intermittent Internet or are using a VPN, or just because the app feels like it. It's an insane bug or security stance. Meanwhile, Setlog is gaining popularity in east Asia, which definitely indicates there is some demand for friend-only social media. I think many Discord users are basically using Discord like that too. Giving users the choice is the right move.

tshapedrob 26d ago

Brilliant! I really hope they get it through, and I’ll be interested to see what impact it has on screen time app sales in the region.

armchairhacker 26d ago

I’d prefer similar to Doctorow, that governments simply make scraping and republishing (anything that anyone who consents can access) explicitly legal, then alternate frontends may appear with their own algorithms.

protocolture 26d ago
Bingo. This is the path forward and solution to so many ills. IP needs a big rethink for the internet.
xtiansimon 26d ago
Does that include the social networks themselves? Essentially forcing APIs again?
- armchairhacker 25d ago
  Forcing APIs maybe wouldn't be bad, but shouldn't be necessary. It would be hard to enforce and the company could release convoluted APIs, which would be harder to regulate. Meanwhile, scrapers can publish a decent API.
slopinthebag 25d ago
Yes this is the way, not another law to paper over the issues of prior law.

RobotToaster 26d ago

The feed options sound good in principle, although I expect the implementation to be deliberately hobbled. I've tried Facebook's existing (well hidden) chronological feed and it turns out there's so much spam in local groups that I found it unusable. The bigger issue is the toxic "papers please" identity verification will result in a lot fewer "Australians" on the internet, who will now show up from various VPN endpoint countries, so presumably won't get the algorithm option.

zlokki 25d ago
Nowadays you can filter out spam from your feed if you can roughly formulate what you want to see there (or DON'T want to see) E.g I filter my RSS feed using a small tool I built for myself. It doesn't support Facebook, but maybe you can find it useful: https://knoless.app https://knoless.app

ricardobayes 26d ago

That's great however after seeing their feed being empty people will switch back. You can already do this on youtube by not allowing history.

deleted 26d ago
[deleted]
denismi 26d ago
No you can't, I just tried it. I deleted all of my history and "paused" history tracking. Then I reloaded https://www.youtube.com https://www.youtube.com. My expectation: A feed of the pages I'm subscribed to. My experience: A blank page which just says "Your watch history is off / You can change your setting at any time to get the latest videos tailored to you. [Learn more] / [Update Settings]". Hilariously, it is exactly the same - in glorious 4K - on the YouTube app on my TV. This is deliberately fucked in order force users into the algorithm.
latexr 26d ago
> You can already do this on youtube by not allowing history. And what a bliss that is! I love it how YouTube thinks it’s punishing me by turning off the home page recommendations if you disable history (it didn’t always do that) while it’s in fact a favour. In my country (and I assume most/every country), the default home feed is such a cesspool of vomit-inducing clickbait garbage that it boils my blood to even glance at it. > That's great however after seeing their feed being empty people will switch back. But yes, I have no illusion that everyone shares my aversion. Removing control from the companies will hopefully have some impact, though.

aussieguy1234 26d ago

I reckon a good idea would be to force Bluesky levels of feed customization, with a choice of blocklists. Theres alot of stuff turning up in my feeds lately that i'd rather not see.

zlokki 25d ago
What is the problem to filter your feed without Bluesky?
- aussieguy1234 24d ago
  Bluesky has blocklists out of the box. You can block hate speech and other problematic content. No such feature in the other socials. Open the feed, you could see toxic content from an account you never followed thanks to the algorithm...

blfr 26d ago

Why do people (or at least politicians pretend to) believe that social networks are popular despite the content algos and not because of them? The reason Tik Tok blew up is because it shows you what you want to see without you twiddling with a dozen dials. Maybe giving people what they want is not great for them. I am ok with this argument. But then "giving people control" won't change anything. Vast majority of users would rather put up with shocking (to me) levels of annoyance and expense just not to configure/fix anything themselves.

tene80i 26d ago
Why not give people the option? They don’t all have to use it, but it means some can.
- King-Aaron 26d ago
  Because the people most severely impacted don't understand that they are being severely impacted.
  - tene80i 26d ago
    Sure, there’s an argument for improving the default too. I was just replying to what I thought was someone saying “it doesn’t matter, most people won’t use it, give up”
    - King-Aaron 26d ago
      Fair enough. I legitimately hate people who do that - gaslighting people into not wanting change. I don't even understand what drives that mentality half the time.
  - slopinthebag 25d ago
    that doesn't seem correct. it's equivalent to saying nobody should be allowed to drink because a small minority of ppl cannot control themslves
26d ago

wyager 26d ago

Interesting scenarios that could happen in next few years * American internet companies start to make the judgement that supporting EU/ANZ countries with difficult legal/tax requirements is a net cost and stop doing it, just IP-blocking those countries for the lowest legal risk * Alternatively, American govt takes the position of "American companies don't have to follow the laws of random countries just because they accept IP packets from those countries". American companies eliminate their official business presence in onerous legal regimes but keep serving users there * If above happens, this forces the resolution of the question "how does internet jurisdiction work across borders if USA doesn't play along", and a plausible answer is that internet messages start to be treated like physical imports and nation-level internet censorship moves under the purview of customs agencies The globally routable internet is a very special and valuable thing, but it's a historical aberration and I suspect not very stable long-term. Even today, with the internet way more locked down than 20 years ago, it's still extremely libertarian compared to almost any other economically significant venue. In equilibrium, the state will demand its cut

Nursie 26d ago
> American internet companies start to make the judgement that supporting EU/ANZ countries with difficult legal/tax requirements is a net cost and stop doing it, just IP-blocking those countries for the lowest legal risk Productivity spikes, youth mental health issues trend downwards and the nutcase right-wing parties struggle to maintain momentum. Can we have this please? Pretty please?
XorNot 26d ago
> * Alternatively, American govt takes the position of "American companies don't have to follow the laws of random countries just because they accept IP packets from those countries". American companies eliminate their official business presence in onerous legal regimes but keep serving users there Why would they do that? If they can't have a local business presence then they can't book local advertisers. Which directly cuts any revenue they would get from the enterprise. None of these companies need to have local business presences: they do because otherwise you can't get revenue from users in that nationality.

King-Aaron 26d ago

I don't think this goes nearly far enough, and is another example of our government latching onto a juicy trending topic and doing the bare minimum to make a positive sounding news byte out of. This should be an opt-in model for algorithmically driven content, infinite scrolling, etc. An opt out model just feels like they're compromising for the benefit of industry lobbyists on the issue.

Nursie 26d ago
> another example of our government latching onto a juicy trending topic and doing the bare minimum Say it ain't so! For those not following Australian politics, this is the theme of our times. Find a big issue that people want something done about, half-arse it and bow to corporate interests instead of taking decisive action. The big one recently has been gambling advertising. The government commissioned a report that came to the well-argued conclusion that, as the biggest gamblers in the world per capita, Australia really should ban gambling advertising. It's pervasive, offensive and way too normalised. There appeared to be cross party support for the proposal, and widespread public support. Easy win for the party in power. The current government sat on it for a couple of years and then came back with a watered down proposal to cap the amount it could be on tv and try to restrict it during times kids might be watching. Way to miss an open goal Albo.
- King-Aaron 26d ago
  The whole political charade is just getting me so angry, the thin veil of "government working for the people" rhetoric has completely fallen away to expose how directly corporate interests translate into Australian government policy. Majority of Australians supported changes in how the resource sector is taxed - the government openly met with industry lobbyists right before the budget and just said lol no. They went to a local byelection and their candidate was a gas lobbyist they parachuted in from a different electorate. The gambling thing, what a joke. The social media ban for kids that immediately turned out to be pushed by pro media lobbyists. The military spending. My word. They don't even try to hide it anymore, and Labor were meant to be the quasi-progressive-left option in the uniparty system. Now I view them to be equally as corrupt as the Liberal party, leaving the Greens as the only viable option in politics here. And they can never get anywhere due to the way political donations/funding is set up, along with the vested interests owning the media narrative. No one even bothers to read their policy documents because old Rupert Murdoch has their opinion covered for them. Gah. It's nearly beer time I think.

Cider9986 26d ago

This is a pro-consumer action. Good for Australia. Identity verification is anti-consumer. Instagram in Australia offers either ID or video selfie to prove you are over 16.

alex1138 26d ago

With Facebook, people reported not being able to see their spouses' posts. They were "Married" on Facebook, but the feed just shoved things into their faces they didn't want. It would even edit posts when you went to their pages (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14147719 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14147719)

brainwad 26d ago
Facebook already has a "friends only" feed - https://www.facebook.com/?filter=friends&sk=h_chr https://www.facebook.com/?filter=friends&sk=h_chr. It's the only thing I still use, and unfortunately it's cluttered with events that people I knew 15 years ago are going to this weekend, but it's waaaay better than the default feed which is just a slop cannon.

8by3 26d ago

Or just use https://tuhat.net https://tuhat.net, >> 1K organic users in the last three months, ,with no marketing budget, and no VC funding. - Chronological feed of local posts + external RSS feeds in one place - Email newsletters / RSS - Journaling feature - Book log / reviews - No Algorithms - No like button Opensource if you want to spin up your own instance.

colesantiago 26d ago
I don't know what I am looking at here?
- 8by3 26d ago
  Ha, fair. The home page is a global feed of all users, limited to one post per day per user. One of many potential solutions to an alternative to todays social media – like substack, but without the shitty sides of social media.

wewewedxfgdf 26d ago

In 2023 the Australian Prime Minister Albanese was asked by Neil Mitchell on 3AW radio what he would do if he was "Dictator for a Day". Albanese replied: "Ban social media". Indeed. ref: https://www.reddit.com/r/australian/comments/1gmakhz/anthony_albanese_reveals_he_would_ban_social/ https://www.reddit.com/r/australian/comments/1gmakhz/anthony...

florkbork 26d ago
Red herring, you've linked to a conservative leaning sub community posting a source that is known to be generally inaccurate. This is about legislation penalizing social media companies for shoving algorithmic slop down the throats of consumers. But if we want to introduce political figures and their thoughts on social media; the traditional opposition party is lead by this man - someone willing to manipulate the public with social media. https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2026/feb/12/fantastic-great-move-well-done-angus-taylor-meme https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2026/feb/12/fantastic-gr... And the newer wonderkid of the media is engaged in widespread slopaganda: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-03-11/foreign-fake-news-pauline-hanson-one-nation/106436702 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-03-11/foreign-fake-news-pau...
- wewewedxfgdf 26d ago
  But he DID say it, right? Or are you saying that because it's Reddit/The Daily Mail, he DIDN'T say it? What are you talking about? It's widely quoted and well known he said it so where are you coming from.
  - florkbork 26d ago
    No, it's your source; you prove your claims. I'll give you a hint though - the article doesn't even quote him, it just puts out a spicy headline. What he actually said and the context: "Ban social media. Keyboard warriors can anonymously say anything at all. Without any fear.", with regard to a misinformation bill. Considering the sources deliberately stripped everything of context and you've repeated it without checking, would you say we have a misinformation problem with media in general, or social media?

Vishal_Max 26d ago

The damage is already done for most people who already use it. Whenever I go to a restaurant and see friends, families, and couples together, I feel sad that instead of talking to each other, they’re all watching TikToks or reels. On a bus or train, barely one or two people are actually doing something other than watching something online. At least, hopefully, this rule helps future generations. People’s brains are so addicted that they can’t even focus for 10 minutes straight. On top of that, I see moms giving their toddlers mobile phones while they eat or whenever they need to get something done. People should really start considering how social media affects us in the long term.

f6v 26d ago
> On a bus or train, barely one or two people are actually doing something other than watching something online. I mean, what else should I be doing? Self-analyzing and staring in the window?
- cryptoz 26d ago
  I treasure my memories of being on subways and busses and getting lost in thought while staring out the windows, yeah. I mean, people have done this for basically all of human history (okay walking or something, not on a train, but, yeah). It's not a bad thing to have some time with just your senses existing in the world.
  - greggsy 26d ago
    Let people enjoy things.
    - edu 26d ago
      The problem with being always online is not “not-enjoying” but stopping to think. People are getting used to be feed what they need to think constantly (from politics to product reviews) and then their critical thinking skills atrophy. Moreover, I’m not sure if being on social media is something “enjoyable” anymore, and it’s more like smoking tobacco where it becomes necessary but is not enjoyed.

gitowiec 26d ago

"The Albanese Government is taking the next step following its world leading social media age ban to ensure Australians have more choice online...." - Me thinking "What the heck? What Albanese government has to do with Australians? Are they under the occupation? Albanian occupation?!"

Prophet6-0091 26d ago

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rambambram 26d ago

With RSS I already do feeds my way.

8by3 26d ago
Indeed, Thats part of the premise, we don't need to invent new technologies when email/rss are already self curated / federated. The missing piece is discovery. Which is why in addition to allowing you to aggregate internal/external feeds into one place, each instance also shares each external feed its users have subscribed too, and each user can share who they read (like a blog roll).

ChaoStatiX 26d ago

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pizzly 26d ago

Wouldn't the better way be is to make social media open? i.e. anyone can generate their own algorithm or chose from others who created them. I see that the social media companies could implement these requirements in the worse possible way to ensure that they opt right back in to "choose to opt in to having their default feed include personalised content recommended by the algorithm"

fmajid 26d ago

It's unclear whether this legislation will require giving users the choice of the sort order. That's one of the tricks exploitative social networks use, selective prioritization of ragebait and other content that encourages "engagement". If you have the choice of strict chronological order, that removes a lot of the hold the networks have over you.

latexr 26d ago

> Users can choose to opt in to having their default feed include personalised content recommended by the algorithm. Alternatively, users can opt out of personally recommended content in their default feed and see the friends and creators they choose to follow. Does that mean they are giving platforms the choice of what’s going to be the default? That doesn’t seem like a wise plan.

jiaosdjf 26d ago

4chan doesn't use any manipulative algorithms and all its feeds are time based, just saying. Oddly, 4chan is also the only place where 2 extremely opposed sides can and regularly do interact and debate - even if a large proportion of that traffic is bot farms.

quotemstr 26d ago

This is going to get about 0% uptake. People's preferences, as revealed by their behavior, align with the algorithmic feeds. That's the whole point of an algorithmic feed.

vintagedave 26d ago

> Just as we have basic safety standards for cars, toys or food, the duty of care applies basic standards for the online products we use every day. Aussie here. Great to see this. I don't think this goes far enough: I'd like to see addictive algorithms, content, and doomscrolling banned entirely. Not an option to see a different feed. Illegal. It's manipulative, hurts people, hurts children: make it illegal.

achenet 26d ago
Please don't start randomly prohibiting things because you dis-approve of those things. We have, at this point, over a 100 years of evidence showing that prohibition of psychoactive substances (alcohol, cannabis, cocaine, etc) doesn't actually do much to reduce consumption but do create an immense amount of suffering not just for anyone participating in the trade or consumption of those substances, but also anyone remotely connected to them - cf the immense violence perpetrated by drug cartels in the Americas, mostly because people living in the US seem to be in denial about their appetite for drugs. So please, stop banning things you don't like, tax and regulate them instead. Use the tax proceeds to fund "social media rehab" clinics if you'd like. Draconian "I don't like it, it gets banned" government wasn't a good idea in 15th century Spain, it's still not a good idea now. Let your fellow citizens make bad decisions, just ensure that the government is poised to profit from them.
- suddenlybananas 26d ago
  Is there anything you think would be appropriate to prohibit?
  - achenet 26d ago
    things that directly harm other taxpayers - murder, physical violence, theft, false slander/reputational attacks... prohibiting things that harm the individual should not be the role of government, IMO. Government, in the liberal/Enlightenment tradition, is there as a protector of your 'rights' to life, liberty, and property. While it has a duty to protect you from things which could harm you (eg junk food/sugary drinks), it also has a duty to let you do what you choose to do, even if it's 'bad' for you (eg eat junk food and drink sugary drinks). Hence the compromise - you can smoke cigarettes and drink Coca-Cola, but the makers of cigarettes and soft drinks have to warn you beforehand, and the transaction may be more taxed than things like basic foods.

alfiedotwtf 26d ago

> with draft legislation for the Digital Duty of Care released today for targeted consultation. I hope it won’t be “community consultation” like they did with the AABill… that time where the Australian government ignored everyone in the community except for a handful of lobby groups. You know… that time where people filed FOI Requests about the AABill and not a single request was responded to. Forget politics people… you all have zero sway. The laws have already been written by The Inner Party, and they’re just drip feeding them to us over time so that we don’t notice the sudden shifting of the Overton Window to serfdom

xtiansimon 26d ago

I imagine we’re talking about air and water pollution. So my question is, How is the social feed going to be tested for these standards? I can’t imagine it.

MarceliusK 26d ago

The first rule reduces platform power. The second potentially requires platforms to build even larger classification and moderation systems. I'm very much in favor of the first, but I don't think they belong under the same conceptual umbrella.

jackb4040 26d ago
I read the article but I don't understand the two "rules" you're referring to? Can you state them?
- stewx 26d ago
  1) Force platforms to let you turn off algorithmic feeds 2) Keep undesirable content out of feeds entirely for under-18s

oliwarner 25d ago

> users can opt out of personally recommended content in their default feed and see the friends and creators they choose to follow. This is huge. This would put turn (eg) Facebook back into what it used to be: a social network where you just see the people you know and follow. Can't imagine Meta et al will accommodate this willingly.

1vuio0pswjnm7 25d ago

What about the option for a chronological feed for _all_ users regardless of age The state AGs' settlement with Meta requires the company to provide users under a certain age with an option to choose a chronological feed https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cand.419868/gov.uscourts.cand.419868.576.1.pdf https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cand.41... Social media companies cannot claim it is more work to provide this option unless they can prove their time-wasting algorithms require less CPU and memory than standard UNIX logging or sort The information these companies publish does not even belong to them They rearrange it in manipulative ways that waste everyone's time, or worse (measurable harm)

qgin 25d ago

Heavy handed regulation that I 100% support. The externalities are too big to hand wave away.