{"id":762800,"date":"2026-09-07T11:14:22","date_gmt":"2026-09-07T11:14:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/762800\/"},"modified":"2026-09-07T11:14:22","modified_gmt":"2026-09-07T11:14:22","slug":"an-algorithm-off-switch-isnt-enough-a-digital-duty-of-care-must-hold-tech-bros-accountable-for-addictive-designs-zoe-daniel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/762800\/","title":{"rendered":"An algorithm off switch isn\u2019t enough. A digital duty of care must hold tech bros accountable for addictive designs | Zoe Daniel"},"content":{"rendered":"

A digital duty of care is about a lot more than opting out of \u201cthe algorithm\u201d. And after the simplistic and at best patchy<\/a> exercise of the under-16s social media ban, we shouldn\u2019t let the government get away with another populist policy that looks good on the surface but doesn\u2019t get to the core of the problem.<\/p>\n

A digital duty of care must hold the tech bros accountable for the safety of the spaces that they have created.<\/p>\n

Like the social media age ban \u2013 and indeed the government\u2019s paltry efforts on gambling advertising \u2013 an algorithm opt-out maintains the onus on the consumer and is only one piece of the framework needed to manage the fact \u201cthe algorithm\u201d is currently controlling the world.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a lot to be said for the Chanel Contos-driven \u201cFix our feeds\u201d campaign<\/a>, which has drawn much-needed attention to the effect of \u201cthe algorithm\u201d \u2013 particularly when it comes to online misogyny and sexual violence, normalisation of pornography and strangulation during sex.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is too easy for big tech to design schemes that appear as structural reform but actually suit them just fine,\u201d the sexual consent advocate said in a speech<\/a> to the National Press Club in Canberra on Thursday.<\/p>\n

She\u2019s right. The issue is that giving users control over their exposure to \u201cthe algorithm\u201d alone won\u2019t be enough to create real accountability \u2013 particularly if the user has to opt out.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe algorithm\u201d is a suite of systems which, in part, profile users and then leverage our personal habits to keep us scrolling. This embeds the potential for considerable societal harm, which we are now seeing unfold in real time.<\/p>\n

Addictive design features are eroding attention spans and productivity; mental health issues are increasing; divisive and outrageous content is amplified over consensus; and social isolation is increasing statistically across all age groups.<\/p>\n

The key to beginning to retake our \u201cinformation sovereignty\u201d \u2013 to keeping some level of say in what\u2019s happening in the digital realm \u2013 is applying a mandatory and enforceable duty of care on big tech.<\/p>\n

This is becoming ever more urgent as AI advances minute by minute and governments grapple with new developments that they don\u2019t know how to manage. It\u2019s big tech v community \u2013 and we know who wins there, with smart glasses the latest iteration of a complex debate that is also an opportunity.<\/p>\n

An effective update of our woefully out-of-date privacy laws<\/a>, together with the implementation of a legislated and enforceable digital duty of care, would be a powerful step forward.<\/p>\n

In 2024 I tabled a private members\u2019 digital duty of care bill<\/a> in federal parliament, modelled on the best of UK and EU legislation. As I said in my introductory speech for the bill, the core aim has to be to make the platforms make their spaces safe for us, for our kids and for our communities.<\/p>\n

A duty of care is not only just, but essential. It is appropriately broad in scope to ensure that all of the systems, processes and elements of a digital service are captured, including \u201cdark patterns\u201d and addictive design features.<\/p>\n

The bill included the strongest-possible default privacy settings and the ability for users to both reset and \u201cswitch off\u201d the algorithm.<\/p>\n

Enabling this was targeted particularly at young people with eating disorders and mental health issues, problem gamblers and others.<\/p>\n

But the bill went much further than that. It required detailed evidence of risk assessment and mitigation by the platforms; transparency and access for independent researchers to get \u201cunder the hood\u201d and understand the algorithm; and penalties of up to 10% of global turnover for non-compliance.<\/p>\n

In other words, it had teeth for enforcement.<\/p>\n

And this is far less about the content itself than it is about the systems that drive it. The old game of removing content via whack-a-mole is pointless.<\/p>\n

A well-executed duty of care would protect everyone, whether they opt out or not, by holding the platforms to account for the design of their systems and the resultant risk to emotional wellbeing, political and social cohesion and addictive design features.<\/p>\n

It could also include misinformation and disinformation. This would risk the usual culture war debate about free speech, while we blithely accept the changes to our culture and society that are being freely imposed by Mark Zuckerberg, Elon Musk and others.<\/p>\n

What we should be worried about is the sovereignty of the information landscape and the fact that we\u2019re being controlled by the systems \u2013 not the other way around.<\/p>\n

Zoe Daniel is a three-time ABC foreign correspondent and former independent member for Goldstein<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A digital duty of care is about a lot more than opting out of \u201cthe algorithm\u201d. And after…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":762801,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[554,733,4308,86,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-762800","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-ai","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-artificialintelligence","tag-technology","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/762800","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=762800"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/762800\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/762801"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=762800"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=762800"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=762800"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}