Labor’s Algorithm Laws Sound Good on Paper – Until You Read the Fine Print

Nicole Yap

16 October 2026

3.4 MINS

Australia’s proposed digital duty of care laws promise greater online safety, but critics warn they could give ministers sweeping powers to restrict lawful content and threaten free speech.

Since Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s under-16s social media ban went viral worldwide, his Government has proposed legislation to take it a step further — to allow users to “switch off the algorithm”.

On the surface, it’s a noble idea. “This is not about giving government control, it is about giving people control,” Albanese said of his new “My Feed, My Way” initiative under “digital duty of care” draft laws released on 8 September for consultation.

Platforms will be required to send users a notification that offers them a choice to opt in or opt out of seeing personalised, algorithmically driven content on their default feed. If users opt out, their feed will look much like it did before 2016 – they will see posts only from profiles and pages that they follow in reverse chronological order.

The proposed bill to amend the Online Safety Act 2021 will also require online service providers – including social media, online gaming and AI chatbots — to protect under-18s from harmful content promoting eating disorders, “hostile” ideas on women and gender equality, pornography, glorification of crime, abuse and bullying, and other material considered to be harmful. Platforms that don’t comply will face a fine of up to $109 million.

Broad Powers to Define and Restrict Harmful Content

Albanese continues to tout Australia’s pioneer status in online safety, but beneath the attractive language of “giving people choice” lies a catch. The broader proposed laws will give discretionary powers to the Minister for Communications and the eSafety Commissioner to control what content Australians can see online.

The eSafety Commissioner will have the power to enforce the digital duty of care and specify compliance requirements for platforms, and the Minister needs only to be “satisfied” that certain content may cause “serious harm”. The Minister can expand the categories of “material or conduct harmful to children” and “seriously harmful material and conduct” (which applies to all users).

There is no doubt that there is seriously harmful online content that children – and all users – should be shielded from. But the scope of content that constitutes “harm” is not clearly defined because the Minister is able to determine foreseeable harms and add to the list over time. For example, do “hostile attitudes towards women or gender equality” include traditional views on sex, gender and family that are based on religious belief?

The Coalition opposes the exposure draft in its current form, claiming it threatens free speech and gives “unfettered powers” to the Minister. Opposition Leader Angus Taylor said the draft hands Labor “a blank cheque for political censorship”.

Opposition shadow communications minister Sarah Henderson said while there are serious harms that Australians should be protected from, any known harm should be specific and “a matter for the Parliament, not a matter for the Minister”.

Misinformation

In a submission to the consultation, the Institute of Public Affairs (IPA) wrote that the digital duty of care’s vague definitions of “harm” will bring the failed 2024 misinformation bill “through the backdoor”, noting that the misinformation bill also broadly defined “harm” to include “hatred against protected groups; disruption of public order or society; harm to Australian democratic processes” and so on. Under that bill, content that was only “reasonably likely to cause or contribute to serious harm” was considered misinformation.

The IPA also argued that the duty of care legislation will increase user surveillance and incentivise platforms to over-moderate, further limiting protected speech.

The US Trump Administration similarly wrote in a submission that Albanese’s proposed laws will “impose rigid, one-size-fits-all platform design requirements” and ultimately facilitate viewpoint-based censorship, and urged Canberra to delineate how “harm” and “risk” would be determined.

Additionally, in aiming to protect children from addictive features like endless scrolling, the legislation will include “design features” provisions to allow the government to require platforms to provide “user empowerment tools”.

However, because terms like “harm” and “negative behavioural impacts” remain vaguely defined, discretionary power once again falls to the Minister to decide how platforms display and distribute their content.

“This scheme has very little to do with choice for users. Whatever settings users may choose, online services must still be safe, as defined by the government,” IPA senior fellow Dr Andrew Bushnell said.

Beyond the issue of ministerial powers, some users would see the upside of choosing to “switch off the algorithm” on their default feed. But others may find that the availability of the “Explore” page on Instagram, for example, still makes it too easy to fall back into “doomscrolling” through content you don’t follow, even if the content is made to be more generic and not based on user behaviour.

Even the eSafety Commissioner noted in a 2026 paper that users find reverse chronological feeds less engaging and often revert back to the algorithmic feeds they claim they don’t like.

Fergus Ryan from the Australian Strategic Policy Institute suggested an alternative system that allows users to customise their feed, rather than having to choose between Big Tech’s algorithm and a following-only feed.

But much like the social media ban, the efficacy of “switching off the algorithm” is doubtful. It’s a nice sentiment, but the fine print ultimately enables arbitrary government control over digital speech.

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Republished with thanks to News Weekly. Image courtesy of Adobe.

About the Author: Nicole Yap

ANALYSIS / Australia / Children / Fairness & Justice / Freedom / Safety & Security / World

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