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Watch: Many social platforms already have following-only feeds - here's how they work Warning: This article contains an account of living with an eating disorder Varsha Yajman was already self-conscious about the way she looked when she joined social media as a 13-year-old. Endless workout videos making impossible promises filled her feeds. Through the screen, girls she'd never met urged her to sign up to dangerous calorie challenges. Others proudly promoted their height and weight - even the number of times they had been sent to hospital - on their profiles in a form of twisted competition. Every night as she fell asleep, Varsha would watch a stranger on the internet diarising what they'd consumed that day. "I was like, 'I don't need to eat. I can just watch other people eat'," Varsha tells the BBC. "I would find that I'd be down these really deep rabbit holes... it was like no matter how hard you tried to get out, you couldn't." Now 24 and in recovery from anorexia, Varsha says she is still served weight loss content on social media - despite having every safety setting turned on, and an exhaustive list of banned words. Tiffanie Turnbull / BBC / Varsha Yajman says social media aggravated her eating disorder It is people like her the Australian government says it is trying to protect with a new suite of laws cracking down on big tech, which were introduced to parliament this week. The centrepiece of their proposed reforms: an algorithm switch which would force social media platforms to let users turn off recommender content. The idea is that you would only see posts from accounts you follow. It isn't the first government to try this, but existing algorithm controls are often transient and come with trade-offs in app functionality. Australia has set out to make its legislation tighter to stop this. And it hopes its new laws – which would also impose a legal duty of care on online services – will help Australians become happier and healthier. But critics are concerned Prime Minister Anthony Albanese's government has bitten off more than it can chew in its fight with big tech, while others, including the Trump administration, say the reforms threaten free speech. The choice Flynn Martin knows what it is like to be sucked into an algorithmic spiral. Self-proclaimed misogynist influencer Andrew Tate and other manosphere figures started overwhelming the then-20-year-old's social media feeds about four years ago. It was a time when Flynn, who was eventually diagnosed with bipolar disorder, was insecure, frustrated with his life and struggling with his mental health. He says he fell for the rhetoric. He soon went viral in Australia for two videos: one ranting about whether it was OK to be a straight white male, and another where he criticised a date for her frozen yoghurt order. "You find yourself in like a bit of an echo chamber... It's easy to get swept up in that," he tells the BBC. "I really bought into the idea we were living in this matrix, we had this really negative system that was designed against you. And the only way to break out of it was becoming this alpha male character." The Melbournian was only pulled from the manosphere after a period of psychosis and a hospital stay. Daniel Fermer / ABC News / Flynn Martin says he's still finding a healthy balance with social media Nowadays, he finds it tough to look back at that version of himself: "While there's a bit of shame and embarrassment... I think there is a bit of empathy for that younger man." Both Flynn and Varsha know social media alone isn't to blame for the worst chapter of their lives, but say it was a key factor. Countless others have stories of being confronted by social media content they didn't seek out, and didn't want to see – and there's long been suspicions the algorithms curating these platforms are harming users. Social media firms argue the potential risks are being overstated and that they already provide users with effective safety tools. But research emerging from around the world has been sketching a different picture. Studies have found social media use triggers a similar brain response to gambling and substance addiction; that algorithms – often unsolicited – serve up content which harms users' mental health, and that they're spreading disinformation and increasing polarisation, driving violence offline. Court cases and whistleblowers have aired claims that these companies know the dangers and are willing to overlook them as this technology lifts user engagement and their bottom line. "The result is that they promote content that is outrageous or that invokes strong emotions from people - so it might be anger or fear or desire or lust or insecurity, whatever it is, it's going to keep us scrolling," Chanel Contos tells the BBC. Cordelia Hsu/Reuters / Consent education campaigner Chanel Contos lobbied the government for change after founding the Teach Us Consent website in 2021 While studying the topic at university, the activist - who helped reform sexual consent education standards in Australia - came up with a campaign for change. "Fix Our Feeds" demanded recommended algorithms be turned off by default, and social media users be given the choice to opt into them. Contos envisaged a nostalgic return to the social media of the early 2010s – a time when a person's social media was filled with posts from friends or people they actually followed and their feeds were finite. More than 15,000 people signed her petition, and the campaign also won the backing of two former prime ministers, several MPs, influential figures, mental health advocates, and online safety experts. The government in September said it had listened to the Australians who had backed Contos's campaign, and announced a version of her proposal: forcing big tech to introduce an algorithm switch - but stopping short of requiring it be automatically set to off. "This is not about giving government control, it is about giving people control," Albanese

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  • 发布时间：2026/10/17 02:11:29