Australia’s algorithm opt-out law hinges on one forgotten design choice

On September 7, 2026, Communications Minister Anika Wells introduced a draft Digital Duty of Care bill requiring Meta, TikTok, and Google to give every Australian user a clear on/off switch for personalised recommendation feeds. Non-compliance could trigger penalties of A$99 million, with independent reporting indicating potential liability exceeding A$100 million.

The bill’s practical impact hinges on a single unresolved design choice: which feed setting is the default. The government has not yet decided, and the eSafety Commissioner’s record of zero fines under the existing teen ban raises doubts about whether the new mandate will change platform behaviour.

The switch is not the story. The story is which position the switch starts in. Australia’s draft Digital Duty of Care bill requires platforms to offer users a choice between personalised and non-personalised feeds. But the government has not decided which feed will be the default—and that single design choice will determine whether the law reshapes Australian social media or leaves it untouched. The evidence from behavioural economics is unambiguous: people overwhelmingly stick with whichever option is preset. If personalised curation remains the default, the opt-out becomes a compliance checkbox almost no one will use. The government says it is still taking expert advice. The question is expected to be resolved during parliamentary committee scrutiny in the coming weeks. The answer will reveal whether the law is a structural reform or a press-release reform.

The default is the whole game

The draft bill, developed under the Online Safety Act 2021, would let users choose between a feed shaped by individual behavioural profiling and a non-personalised alternative—most likely a reverse-chronological timeline of posts from followed accounts. The draft bill specifies a maximum penalty of A$99 million for non-compliance, approximately US$68 million. Independent reporting indicates that companies found in violation could face penalties exceeding A$100 million based on broader liability analysis. But the bill does not specify which feed setting is the default. That decision remains unresolved.

The eSafety Commissioner, the regulator responsible for enforcing the new law, has issued no fines under Australia’s existing under-16 social media ban since it took effect on December 10, 2025. Julie Inman Grant, the commissioner, described the teen-ban law as having “very thin scaffolding” and said she lacked potent powers needed to enforce compliance. Three months after the ban began, a University of Newcastle study published in the British Medical Journal found that 85 per cent of Australian children aged 12 to 15 were still using restricted platforms, based on a survey of 408 adolescents. Two-thirds of those underage users remained on the platforms by self-declaring an age above 16 or posting a selfie that an age-verification system accepted as adult.

The enforcement record matters because the same regulator will be responsible for policing the algorithm opt-out. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese doubled the teen-ban penalty to A$99 million in June 2026, saying platforms were not doing enough to comply. eSafety and Minister Wells have since said they are preparing legal action against multiple platforms. Reddit has filed a High Court challenge to the teen ban, now in preliminary hearings. The committee scrutiny of the new bill will also serve as a referendum on the earlier law’s failures.

The default effect is easier seen than read.

The research, identified by Nobel laureate Richard Thaler and legal scholar Cass Sunstein, shows that people stick with preset choices at rates around 90 per cent or above. In organ donation registration, pension auto-enrolment, and GDPR cookie consent banners, participation hovers near 90 per cent when an option is the default—compared with roughly 5 to 10 per cent when users must actively opt in. The pattern holds across domains. For social media feeds, the implication is direct: if personalised curation remains the default, the practical effect of the opt-out law would be close to nil.

Chanel Contos, founder of the Fix Our Feeds campaign, wants algorithmic curation to be opt-in by default—meaning users would start on a chronological feed and actively choose personalisation. David Mejia-Canales of the Human Rights Law Centre has called for an expansive, rights-based duty of care protecting freedom of expression alongside user safety. Opposition Leader Angus Taylor said the Coalition had not seen the bill and was deeply sceptical, warning it could become a censorship vehicle. Minister Wells rejected that framing. “We are not telling platforms what to put on the feed,” she said. The obligation is to offer the choice, not dictate what appears.

The bill is presented as the first legislation anywhere to mandate algorithm opt-out controls as a user right rather than a voluntary product feature. Australia’s version extends the right to all users, imposes it as a legal obligation, and places it within a broader duty-of-care structure that also covers harmful content categories—including child exploitation imagery, non-consensual intimate images, and content promoting disordered eating or self-harm. For users under 18, it would establish additional psychosocial harm categories. Free-expression advocates who have criticised the EU Digital Services Act have raised similar concerns about the harmful-content provisions in Australia’s version, arguing that broad regulator power to designate content as harmful is a governance risk regardless of intent.

The architecture of compliance

Australia’s proposed regime sits inside the Online Safety Act 2021 and the draft Digital Duty of Care framework, with eSafety as the main enforcer. That is stricter and broader than the UK’s current approach, which lacks an explicit algorithm opt-out mandate, and more universal than New York’s SAFE for Kids Act, which targets minors rather than all users. The main gap is definitional: the draft must still specify which recommendation systems the choice covers.

The unresolved default is not a technical detail. It is the distribution of power. Cookie consent patterns under Australia’s Privacy Act and the EU GDPR show most users accept defaults and do not opt out. Making the non-personalised option the default is the most credible way to ensure Australians actually experience chronological feeds. But that would impose a cost on platform business models, because recommendation algorithms exist to increase session time and ad revenue. The government has not committed to that design.

TikTok is owned by ByteDance, headquartered in China and subject to China’s 2017 National Intelligence Law, which requires all organisations and citizens to support state intelligence work on demand. An algorithm opt-out law would not erase behavioural data already collected or alter those existing legal obligations for the company. The bill’s design choices therefore matter more than its headline goal. The committee review will surface pressure to fix the teen ban’s enforcement gap. The unresolved default will determine whether the law meaningfully reduces algorithmic curation or becomes another compliance checkbox. The next few weeks of parliamentary scrutiny will reveal which one it is.

Beyond the headline

The power behind it

The unresolved design choice is not technical detail but the real distribution of power: whether platforms keep control through preset design or lose it through a compulsory default. If the government stops at an opt-out buried in user settings, the law leaves the economic logic of recommendation systems intact.

The timing

This week matters because the draft bill is arriving alongside fresh scrutiny of the under-16 ban’s weak enforcement record. That gives opponents and crossbenchers a live opening to ask whether a new law can be enforced any better than the last one before the committee process hardens the text.

What isn’t being said

The public debate is mostly about choice and censorship, but the missing issue is the architecture of compliance. Unless the bill names every recommendation surface it covers, platforms can comply on one feed while leaving the highest-engagement surfaces untouched.

The default will decide who actually gets a choice

With the draft bill entering parliamentary committee scrutiny in the coming weeks, the unresolved default setting creates distinct implications for different groups.

• Australian social media user

  If personalised curation remains the default, the opt-out switch will be buried in settings you are unlikely to find—and even less likely to use. The behavioural evidence is clear: roughly 90 per cent of people stick with the preset. Check the Australian Parliament bills tracker during the committee stage in September 2026 to see which way the default is set. That single detail will determine whether you actually experience a chronological feed.

• Western tech policy professional

  Australia’s rules often become templates for other countries. Monitor the committee submissions and hearing transcripts for expert advice on the default setting. If Australia adopts a non-personalised default, platforms may adjust feeds globally or use the Australian approach as a benchmark in future regulatory fights. The EU Digital Services Act already offers a profiling-free option in some circumstances, but Australia’s universal user-facing switch would be a more expansive model.

• Social media platform executive with Australian operations

  The bill’s final design—especially the default feed setting and the scope of covered recommendation systems—will directly affect your product strategy, user engagement, and compliance costs. A non-personalised default would reduce session time and ad revenue. The current draft does not specify which recommendation surfaces the switch covers, leaving room for compliance on one feed while leaving higher-engagement surfaces like Stories and Reels untouched. Watch the committee stage closely.

• Australian parent of a teenager

  The teen ban’s enforcement record—zero fines, 85 per cent of under-16s still using restricted platforms—raises a hard question about whether the new opt-out law will genuinely create a safer online environment for your children. Review eSafety’s social media minimum age compliance page and latest update to see what enforcement powers are actually being used. The committee scrutiny of the new bill will also surface pressure to fix the teen ban’s enforcement gap.

FAQ

Explainer

Digital Duty of Care

Australia’s proposed regulatory framework requiring online platforms to proactively identify and reduce harmful content. It is being developed under the Online Safety Act 2021 and would impose obligations on platforms to protect users from illegal material and content promoting disordered eating or self-harm. The algorithm opt-out bill is the first legislative instrument introduced under this framework.

eSafety Commissioner

Australia’s independent regulator for online safety, currently held by Julie Inman Grant. The office enforces the Online Safety Act 2021, including the under-16 social media ban and the proposed algorithm opt-out requirement. Its enforcement record under the teen ban—zero fines since December 2025—has become a central point of scrutiny for the new bill.

Default effect

A behavioural economics principle identified by Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein showing that people overwhelmingly stick with preset choices. In organ donation, pension enrolment, and cookie consent, participation rates hover around 90 per cent when an option is the default. The effect means Australia’s unresolved default setting for algorithm opt-outs will largely determine how many users actually switch to non-personalised feeds.

Recommendation system

A machine-learning pipeline that ranks and selects content for a user’s feed based on behavioural signals such as watch time, likes, and shares. Major platforms run multiple separate systems: Instagram’s Feed, Stories, Explore, and Reels each use distinct algorithms. A single opt-out switch may only affect one of these surfaces unless legislation explicitly defines broader coverage.

Online Safety Act 2021

Australia’s foundational legislation for regulating online platforms, administered by the eSafety Commissioner. It provides the legal basis for the under-16 social media ban and the draft Digital Duty of Care framework. The Act gives eSafety powers to issue notices, seek enforceable undertakings, and pursue civil penalties, with a current published ceiling of A$49.5 million for the teen ban regime.

For You Page

TikTok’s primary recommendation-driven feed, distinct from the Following feed and other product areas. It uses a proprietary algorithm trained on individual behavioural signals to serve content from accounts a user may not follow. The bill’s scope would need to explicitly cover the For You Page for the opt-out to affect TikTok’s highest-engagement surface.