Activist Chanel Contos urges 'opt-in' approach to algorithms as key next step to protect children
Now that the social media ban is becoming law, youth safety activist Chanel Contos wants to target the hidden algorithms harvesting our data.
With the social media ban coming into force this week, Australia’s next world-leading step in protecting young people online should be enforcing an opt-in function on tech giants for damaging algorithms, says a leading safety activist.
Teach Us Consent chief executive Chanel Contos said an algorithm opt-in would “keep the momentum going” in the wake of the federal government’s world-first social media ban for children aged under 16, which takes effect on December 10.
Ms Contos is spearheading the Fix Our Feeds campaign, which is lobbying the federal government to make social media platforms switch off their automatic algorithms and give users the freedom to opt in if they choose.
The European Union allows social media users to opt out of receiving recommendations but no country has an opt-in policy.
“The idea of Fix Our Feeds is to bring informed and affirmative consent to our screens,” said Ms Contos, whose Teach Us Consent movement saw mandated consent education introduced in all Australian schools in 2023.
“We’ll then be able to turn our algorithms on and off whenever we want with a setting switch, essentially. We see it as an important next step. I do think that this policy change would be a really great accompanying policy to the social media delay because it would then provide a softer landing on social media for young people once they turn 16.
“It would mean that the first thing they do on social media is go and find their friends … and that’s what was most fun about social media.”
Ms Contos said the Fix Our Feeds campaign was being driven by worrying trends of misogynistic and violent content appearing in the algorithms of boys and young men.
“We’re concerned with rising misogyny, particularly in young boys and men, because we know that misogynistic content is being propagated to them on social media,” she said.
“As quickly as under 23 minutes of sign up, they’ll be sent to this sort of content.”
Ms Contos said the toxic trend was being reflected in rising sexual violence by teenage boys, who now made up 10 per cent of all abusers and were the “most likely perpetrator of child sexual abuse in Australia”.
“Teenage girls are most likely to be abused by their current or former boyfriends now,” she said.
“We can’t ignore these worsening statistics and this reinstation of misogynistic attitudes.”
Algorithms also exposed impressionable young women to concerning posts about body image.
“All you need to do is watch one video of ‘this is what I ate in a day’ and that … can take you down a really bad pipeline,” said Ms Contos, who has returned to Australia after finishing her masters in public policy at Oxford University in the UK.
“The opt-in algorithm is a way to have more control over the content you consume because you can actively still explore the internet, you can follow the hashtag you want, we just truly believe that a lot of kids won’t actively follow harmful content because they won’t think about it unless it’s given to them.”
An open letter urging Prime Minister Anthony Albanese to back the Fix Our Feeds campaign and give social media users control over their data has attracted 5000 signatures, including former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull, professional boxer Harry Garside, TV host and podcaster Abbie Chatfield and NSW Women’s Safety Commissioner Dr Hanna Tonkin.
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Originally published as Activist Chanel Contos urges 'opt-in' approach to algorithms as key next step to protect children
