Activist calls on Australia to introduce consent for social media algorithms
Australian consent culture activist Chanel Contos has called on the federal government to introduce a model under which algorithmic feeds on social media would be used only with the user’s active consent. In her view, technology companies would find it easy to circumvent weaker reforms, ABC News Australia reports.
Contos, the founder and executive director of the Teach Us Consent non-profit organization, is due to present her position on Wednesday during an address at the National Press Club in Canberra. She argues that recommendation algorithms can direct young people toward misogynistic content from the so-called manosphere and contribute to the spread of sexual violence in Australia.
Consent for algorithmic recommendations
Algorithms are automated systems that determine which posts, videos and other content a user sees and in what order, including based on their behaviour and likely interests. Contos called the ability to opt out of algorithms a first step, but insists on a model under which recommendation systems would not operate without the user’s active consent.
According to her, such an approach could make the start of social media use safer for 16-year-olds and other children and transfer the principle of active consent to digital screens. She launched the Fix Our Feeds campaign, demanding that such a model be enshrined in law, in December last year.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese supported the idea of giving Australians more control over content on their devices, but did not explicitly endorse Contos’s proposed active-consent model. The government is considering options that would give users more control over the information delivered to their devices.
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Platforms’ duty to prevent harm
Communications Minister Anika Wells said opaque algorithmic recommendation systems had enabled social platforms to influence Australian culture “for better or worse.” She stressed that harm online has consequences in real life.
Wells is also developing the Digital Duty of Care legislative initiative, which is intended to require online platforms to identify and reduce foreseeable risks of harm to users in advance. A preliminary draft of the legislation is planned to be released later this month. The initiative is intended to change the current largely reactive approach, under which users report harmful content only after a problem has arisen.
The manosphere and recommendations
Contos argues that young men who search online for a community, self-improvement advice, or watch fitness or motivational videos may quickly receive recommendations containing content that blames women for their failures and promotes outdated gender roles.
She plans to cite the Man Box study, according to which men who hold such beliefs are twice as likely to engage in excessive alcohol use, six times as likely to have gambling problems, and eight times as likely to have suicidal thoughts. According to the study, they were also 17 times more likely to have used violence against a partner.
