As is common in political shenanigans, the draft bill has a euphemistic label ('algorithmic opt-out') - what it actually does is allow unspecified bureaucrats such as the Minister for Communications to designate any individual piece of content as 'harmful' and have it banished from the internet.

As an Australian who just wants relatively free access to information (and the ability to freely/easily discuss it), it's frustrating.

And it's not the first time the Australian government has done this; last year they banned U16 from social media, several weeks later everyone was alerted to Bondi by... social media.. so they could get the heck out of there, but U16... they were left clueless and unable to get updates (news sites ran 30+ minutes behind real-time events and official sites like NSW Police took 70+ minutes to even announce there was a shooter).

> "We ask that Australia clarify how exactly 'harm' and 'risks' shall be determined... ensuring these definitions do not encroach on protected speech," the US said in its submission.

Australia should put this submission in the circular file. The US government's opinion about any of this shouldn't matter to Australia, especially when the intent is to allow users to elect to use the natural state of no-algorithm time-based-ordering presentation of the content. This is like saying that an impact study needs to be done to determine if walking to the end of the block is safe enough to be allowed rather than blasting people out of a cannon towards the end of the block. Or saying that people should not be able to eat breakfast, lunch, and dinner in that order if they choose to.

> Another worry was that the proposed laws could affect Australia's "reputation as a jurisdiction that enables innovation," the submission said.

How magnanimous of the US to be concerned about this for Australia.

This article is conflating two things. The US response to the Digital Duty of Care law and the US response to the algorithm opt-out provision.

The US did criticize the opt out provision.

But when the US says this, its about a different provision in DDC, which says platforms need to proactively remove harmful content.

>"We ask that Australia clarify how exactly 'harm' and 'risks' shall be determined... ensuring these definitions do not encroach on protected speech," the US said in its submission.

What is an "algorithm"? Showing the 20 most recent posts is an algorithm, but I doubt that's what they're targeting with the law.

I'm not just trying to find a technical gotcha here. I think it's worth identifying what exactly about an "algorithm" causes it to cross the line and become harmful.

When does an algorithm become harmful?

When it is designed and optimized to maximize the amount of time it engages the user?

What about an algorithm that was optimized the present the user with content they would find interesting? That doesn't sound so bad on the surface.

What about an algorithm that maximizes the amount of ads people see? Or the amount of money that the company makes?

Wow, no, actually the complete opposite. Algorithms are free speech but not fair speech. They let those with money or otherwise control over the algorithm to speak far louder than anyone else, giving them an unfair speech advantage, or even taking away the free speech of others by drowning them out.

We need free and fair speech, not just free speech. Everyone should have an equal voice. That means no algorithms. You get one voice, people choose to listen to you or not.

Country that is the reason that globally we can't have breasts on social media, even in completely non-sexual contexts, complains about "censorship" from a country that wants to avoid melting its childrens' brains.

As an Australian, I disagree and look forward to opting out.

Also, I’m not proud of this but Australia has no explicit constitutional right to free speech, and no bill of rights at the federal level AFAIK.

Australia doesn't have protected speech. We're starting to see the dam break where rules that were left unexplored because it would go against the US driven view of globalization is starting to wane due to the US's loss (self destruction?) of its soft power.

By opt-out they mean opt-in to a government curated algorithm, no doubt.

US should mind its own business

Freedom of speech doesn’t mean freedom of reach. It never meant you got to commandeer someone else’s printing press, TV network, or website.

Incredible that US public service does the bidding of corporate America.

It's like freedom.equals(we don't like regulation at all)

"You're censoring our billionaires' freedom to addict your people, psychologically damage your children, promote climate skepticism, spread lies, motivate people to lynch others"

Serious violation!

Brilliant move by the Australian Government to combine the algorithm opt-out with other restrictions. All the headlines are just about opt-out, and the assumption is the US is complaining about opt-out and claiming it is censorship. I suspect the actual claim of censorship is about putting the "onus on platforms to stop harmful content, such as illegal pornography and videos promoting disordered eating, from being shared" (from another BBC article, and similar in AU news sources). I expect manosphere stuff and maybe Nazi will end up in there too, or added later once laws are in place.

Here is a law I wish we had for social media. Let's just align incentives.

If you are working on a social media platform, and your total comp is >= 500k, your children must use your platform for the average amount of time that children of that age range use your platform nationwide.

US regime’s interference in this discourse is only likely to make the average Australian voter want the reforms even more

Well, we know which side the government is on then.

How can a opt-out ever be considered censorship?

Wonder if they'll ever stop to take a look in the mirror every once in a while

>In a rare submission to the proposed laws, the US embassy in Canberra said it had "serious concerns[...] "We ask that Australia clarify how exactly 'harm' and 'risks' shall be determined"

is this like one of those "isn't there someone you forgot to ask" memes? Why is the US embassy making submissions to proposed laws in Australia? The day cannot come soon enough when the last country tells the US to voice its concerns somewhere else

From my cursory look at this last night, the US doesn't like that the definition of "harm" is so poorly defined. They either don't care about the broader concept of opting out of an algorithmic feed or aren't willing to criticise it.

I've been disappointed by the coverage because none of it has helped me understand the legal context behind why they don't like this one specific thing.

How can anyone take this seriously when the US also recently imposed a 12.5% tariff justified by “Australia’s active slave trade”?

Seems that Trump is as beholden to the US tech industry as the US tech industry is subservient to Trumps whims.

Nice to know where that nerve is though. Other countries: pay attention!

Are you not aware that Australia is a willful participant in the wholesale abrogation of human rights, in the form of Pine Gap?

Of course the US has a say in Australian affairs when it comes to matters of human rights about censorship and access to information. Without that stranglehold, the Australian public may well inform themselves about the crimes of their state, committed every single millisecond, against close to 2 billion other human beings.

It is beyond ridiculous that Australians whines about their special relationship with the US, while doing absolutely nothing about the very criminal behavior that both states are co-partners in committing.

Australia and the United States have mutual interests and investments in the Pacific. Underlying this is a sense of shared cultural values and shared legacy as former British colonies.

To act as if the United States is sticking its nose in Australia as if it's Venezuela or something shows a rather pedestrian understanding of Australian history and geopolitics.

If the United States retreats from the world the Australian people will be among those who suffer the most. The interest in each other is mutual.

Edit: I'm not endorsing any particular intervention I'm merely pointing out the parent comment's framing (basically Australia should just ignore the United States or vice-versa) is silly given the reality of the relationship between the two countries, especially right now given how Australia views the present risks associated with the growing threat of Chinese hegemony in the Pacific.

Yes.

Most Australians dislike social media. We are underrepresented on it, and it shovels the US’s issues down our throat. The current algorithms mainly send us US political propaganda and things that are supposed to make us hate nearby Asian powers like China.

> What about an algorithm that was optimized the present the user with content they would find interesting? That doesn't sound so bad on the surface.

If only we had 20+ years of scientific and societal evidence to show that regardless of what you think is "on the surface", the effects are catastrophic to mental health, democracy, the concept of truth, and everything else.

I'm sure the final law will outline the specific details. But the intent of the law is not algorithms in a computer science definition, but modern recommendation engines.

Showing a chronological feed of accounts you have followed in this case would be non algorithmic. This is how all social media worked before the modern hellscape we are in.

> What is an "algorithm"?

To you and me it's a very wide category, and there may be hundreds or thousands or even millions involved in me simply typing this, it being saved somewhere and then served back to you.

For lay-people though, it's become a term which means "The thing which measures your preferences and usage patterns then decides what to show you". So for lay-people to want to turn off the algorithm, they tend to mean going back to "just what your friends posted, in order"

> When does an algorithm become harmful?

I think this is a research subject. AFAICT it's pretty certain now that social media 'algorithms' have been optimised for addictiveness, which is likely to overlap somewhat with what users find interesting, but also cover things they find mildly titillating and/or outrageous.

The harms come in a bunch of forms. The never-ending scrolling of bite-sized videos seems massively destructive to attention span, and people seem to get addicted to it and may neglect other parts of their life. The platforms also seem really keen to send men and boys off to pretty hateful 'manosphere' content which is apparently making life hell for women (including teachers of teenage boys). Then we have all the body-image and anxiety issues caused in teenagers constantly exposed to influencers showing off their (faked) wealth, beauty etc.

Switching off the "shoving this all in your face" part of social media seems to me to be a win. When it was actually a way to keep in touch with friends and family it was a different game.

It’s a good question, and it’s not well defined. I am hoping that it allows us to customise feeds more. If I have problems with body image, don’t show me topless photos. Same goes with alcohol and gambling, which some platforms do have. The answer must not be either be subjected to content you don’t want to see or don’t use social media at all.

I think the line for algorithms is anything machine learning or neural network based, not simple ordering.

Side note: When iterating on male avatars, ChatGPT incrementally increases muscular features without being prompted to do so. There are biases in these machine-learned algorithms.