Social media giants should be forced to make algorithmically curated feeds an opt-in service, rather than allowing harmful content to be pushed automatically to young users, consent campaigner Chanel Contos is expected to tell Australia’s National Press Club.
Ms Contos, founder and chief executive of Teach Us Consent, will argue in Canberra that online platforms are exploiting male psychology to draw boys and young men towards misogynistic and sexually violent material.
She is expected to describe the so-called “manosphere” as a commercial network in which content creators and technology companies benefit from targeting users seeking advice on fitness, self-improvement and relationships.
“Young men online seeking community, belonging, and self improvement advice are targeted with content that blames women for their misfortune and reinstates harmful and outdated gender roles,” she will say, according to an advance extract of her speech.
Research cited by Teach Us Consent suggests boys aged between 16 and 18 can be shown misogynistic material within 23 minutes of joining platforms such as TikTok and YouTube Shorts, even when their stated preferences do not indicate an interest in such content.
The material can begin with gym videos, motivational messages or advice about healthy eating before shifting towards claims that men must dominate women and that women should not work, control their own money or leave the house alone.
Ms Contos is expected to warn that the progression is being driven by recommendation systems designed to maximise engagement, rather than by users actively seeking violent or extremist material.
Call for algorithmic feeds to be opt-in
She will urge the Australian government to require social media companies to show users posts from accounts they follow by default, unless they specifically choose to activate personalised recommendations.
The proposal would, she argues, return feeds closer to the chronological timelines used by major platforms a decade ago and reduce the volume of unsolicited material placed in front of children and teenagers.
“It is too easy for big tech to design schemes that appear as structural reform but actually suit them just fine,” Ms Contos will say.
She is expected to describe an opt-out model as a useful first step, but will insist that an opt-in system would offer greater protection to young people entering social media for the first time.
“Opt-in algorithms would fundamentally make the transition onto social media for 16-year-olds and other children safer, and it would bring the principle of affirmative consent to our screens,” she will say.
The Australian government is considering whether users should be given greater control over the content recommended to them. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has backed the principle of giving Australians more choice, but has not committed to Ms Contos’s preferred opt-in model.
“In response to community concern about the impact of algorithms, we are considering options to ensure people have greater control over what they receive on their devices,” Mr Albanese said.
Communications Minister Anika Wells has separately warned that “deliberately opaque” recommendation systems have allowed social media companies to influence Australian culture, adding: “If we want to prevent harm, we must fix platforms that reward it.”
The government is also preparing an exposure draft of Digital Duty of Care legislation, which would place a legal obligation on online services to identify and reduce foreseeable risks to users before harm occurs. The draft is due later this month.
Ms Contos will link the debate over algorithms to wider concerns about sexual violence among young people. Teach Us Consent says men who strongly identify with rigid “Man Box” ideas about masculinity are twice as likely to binge drink, eight times as likely to experience frequent suicidal thoughts and 17 times as likely to have hit a partner.
Evidence from the Australian Child Maltreatment Study has also pointed to a generational shift, with child sexual abuse in contemporary Australia more commonly inflicted by an adolescent than an adult, although adult-perpetrated abuse remains a major problem.
The campaign group has been pressing for algorithmic feeds to become optional since launching its Fix Our Feeds campaign last year. More than 13,000 Australians have signed an open letter calling for users to be given a clear choice over whether recommendation systems operate on their accounts.
