Australia to Turn Off the Algorithm. Will You Choose to Opt Out?

Two days after the Albanese Government announced its ‘My Feed, My Way’ initiative, Instagram launched its ‘Algo Confessions’ series in Australia, a first outside the US. The short-form video series features prominent influencers and celebrities showing their personalised algorithmic recommendations and using the ‘Your Algorithm’ feature to filter and explicitly tell the algorithm to show certain topics.

“Lately you’ve been into Aussie actors, city breaks in Europe and fashion inspiration from everyday people,” said Australian actor and model, Josh Heuston, reading off his ‘Your Algorithm’ feature in a recent ‘Algo Confessions’ video. “[Now] I’m going to curate my algorithm more, I’m going to add ‘Dune Prophecy’ so I can see edits and reviews, whether they be good or bad.”

Instagram’s launch of ‘Algo Confessions’ in Australia appears strategic. On 8 September 2026, the Albanese Government announced its ‘My Feed, My Way’ initiative, advocating for user choice over social media algorithms. Social media users will have the option to ‘opt out’ of personalised content recommendations and see content only from accounts the user follows, a step the Albanese Government says will allow Australians to have greater choice over the content they see.

“We’re taking power from big global tech companies and giving it to ordinary Australians. That is what we are doing. It’s the right thing to do,” said Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese.

‘My Feed, My Way’ arises out of the Online Safety Amendment (Digital Duty of Care) Bill 2026 introduced to parliament on 15 October 2026. Social media platforms will have a duty to provide a safe online environment and protect Australians from seriously harmful and illegal content. Under section 26 of the Digital Duty of Care Bill, users will be offered a choice to opt out of personalised algorithmic recommendations and platforms will need to provide “user empowerment tools”, forming the basis of the government’s initiative to require platforms to give users the choice to opt out of personalised algorithmic recommendations. For social media platforms, failure to comply with the digital duty of care may result in significant monetary penalties of up to $109.2 million.

“The digital duty of care will ensure online service providers – including some of the most powerful companies in the world – step up and do more to keep Australians safe from harm on their platforms,” said Anika Wells, Minister for Communications.

Last week, a landmark class action lawsuit filed in the Federal Court of Australia against Meta alleges Instagram and Facebook exploited the vulnerability of children and teenagers through compulsive and addictive platform and algorithm design and exposure of young users to harmful content in breach of the Australian Consumer Law. It is also alleged Meta invaded the privacy of children and teenagers by misusing their personal information. Law firm MinterEllison filed the class action on behalf of eight plaintiffs, seeking compensation for current and former users of Instagram and Facebook.

“This proceeding raises important questions about the design and operation of social media platforms and their impact on children and teenagers in Australia,” said MinterEllison Partner William Nolan.

Instagram is challenging the presumption that personalised algorithms are inherently harmful and is warning of the consequences of opting out of a personalised feed. In a press briefing to promote ‘Algo Confessions’, Head of Instagram, Adam Mosseri, said the average user experience worsens with a chronological feed as post activity from creators and friends is drowned out by those of companies and brands.

“You miss a lot more content… and you spend a lot less time on the platform,” he said.

Mosseri doesn’t believe Instagram’s algorithm is addictive. “I do think we often, in English anyway, conflate the way we colloquially use the word ‘addicted’ – like ‘I’m addicted to this show, and I’m binge-watching it’ and clinical addiction,” Mosseri said. “I just think those things are different.”

Despite Mosseri’s comments, a US lawsuit brought by a coalition of 29 US states alleged Instagram and Facebook were designed to be addictive for teenagers. A settlement agreement reached in August will require Meta, who owns Instagram, to pay around US$18 billion and implement design changes to Instagram and Facebook. Although Meta settled without an admission to liability, wrongdoing or violation of law, Meta will make changes to its platforms, including switching off cosmetic filters and offering teens chronological feeds within the first ten days of joining the platform and every 90 days thereafter.

Australian users of Instagram are already able to opt out of a personalised algorithmic feed, although few users are aware of such a feature. To access the feature on Instagram, a user will need to tap on the ‘Instagram’ logo to access a drop-down menu and select the ‘following’ setting. The user’s feed then reverts to chronological order. However, this changes back to the default algorithm when closing and re-opening the app. Mosseri agreed with the suggestion to make the feature more prominent, pointing towards the lack of discoverability of the feature on too many buttons on the Instagram home page.

Chronological feeds dominated early social media platforms, however commercial incentives and the imperative to maximise engagement led to highly sophisticated and selective recommendation algorithms which make calculated predictions based on individual and collective data. The Albanese Government’s ‘opt-out’, as opposed to ‘opt-in’, model is based on the motivation to maximise user choice over choosing either a personalised algorithm or a chronological feed. Minister Wells says this “neutral choice” in giving Australians a choice to opt out is “empowering”.

Questions over whether an ‘opt-out’ model will give users more control over what they see on their social media feeds has been a leading topic in the debates following the introduction of the digital duty of care bill. In a speech to the National Press Club in September, Chanel Contos, consent advocate and chief executive of Teach Us Consent, warned of the addictive content personalised algorithms produce that reinforce misogyny and fuel violence against women and girls.

The Digital Duty of Care Bill will require social media platforms to protect Australians under 18 years of age from harmful content, such as content that encourages eating disorders, hostility towards women, and abuse and bullying. The Bill will also protect adult Australians from seriously harmful and illegal content, however how much control a user will have over the content they see on social media platforms is uncertain. 

To opt out, Australians will receive a pop-up notification that requires a user to choose between a personalised algorithm or a chronological feed. Although it will align with Albanese’s call for Australians to have a choice over their feeds, a chronological feed may result in a clunky user experience and perhaps disincentivise user engagement.

“If people want to doom scroll… that’s fine. That’s up to them,” Albanese said. “But if people want to have a change, then this will provide them with the opportunity.”

Through its newly released ‘Algo Confessions’, Instagram is challenging the choice of a chronological feed and promoting the benefits of a personalised algorithm. “I guess everything else in life is… working and stressful, or a lot of focus,” Heuston said in his ‘Algo Confessions’. “I pick up my phone to look at things that are just random.”

The alleged addictiveness of platform design, however, is not solely attributable to personalised algorithms and is rather a mix of design, including algorithms and the user interface, and how these interact with human behaviour. Whether users will welcome the choice to opt out of a personalised algorithm that knows way too much about them is uncertain and only one actual user experience will provide an answer to. “That’s enough peeking into my algorithm. You know way too much about me,” Heuston said, concluding his ‘Algo Confessions’.