Could Australians Turn Off the Social Media Algorithm?

What businesses need to know about Australia’s social media rules

Australia’s social media rules could be changing again. On 8 September 2026, the Australian Government released draft legislation that includes a new proposal called ‘My Feed, My Way’. For businesses, the conversation around social media algorithms in Australia is now one of the most interesting markets to watch.

If it becomes law, Australians aged 16 and over could choose whether their default social feed includes personalised recommendations from the platform’s algorithm or focuses more on content from the people and creators they follow.

We get why this conversation is happening

At Feed, we’re marketers. Some of us are also parents. So while our first instinct is always to look at what a change like this could mean for clients, we understand the conversation on a very human level too.

We’re old enough to remember life before social media, and then the slightly chaotic early days when it arrived. Facebook photo albums from Saturday night. Photos of whatever you were having for lunch. Instagram filters turned all the way up. Checking in on what your friends were doing, rather than opening an app and immediately being served an endless stream of people you had never met. Simpler times.

There was something genuinely fun about that version of social media. It felt social in the literal sense. It helped us stay in touch, share things, discover businesses, find communities and eventually gave small businesses a way to reach people without needing a huge advertising budget.

But as parents, we see it differently now. We don’t want our kids to look back on their childhood and realise how much of it disappeared into a screen. There should be time to be outside, be bored, see friends, make things, play sport, read, talk to people and do all the ordinary things you only get one childhood to do. The pull of an endless feed is real, especially when the system is designed to keep you there.

So the idea of giving people more say over the algorithm? We get it.

At the same time, we’re in the business of marketing, and we can see the other side clearly. Social media is not simply good or bad. It can connect communities, help people find services they genuinely need, give small businesses a voice, raise money, share important information and introduce people to places, products and ideas they would never otherwise have found.

For us, the more useful question is not whether social media should exist. It is how much control the platform should have over what we see, and how much control should sit with the person using it.

Marketing technology moves fast. Human attention hasn’t suddenly become unlimited.

So, should businesses be worried?

Not at this stage. This is still draft legislation, and there are a few big unknowns – including what the final law will look like, how the platforms will implement it and how many Australians would actually choose to turn personalised recommendations off.

We wouldn’t change a client’s Meta budget or content strategy simply because this proposal has been announced. But it is worth paying attention to because it highlights something businesses should already be thinking about: how much of your reach depends on an algorithm putting you in front of people who didn’t actively choose to hear from you?

That question matters especially for small-business social media marketing, where organic discovery can still play an important role in getting a local brand in front of new people without a huge media budget.

What is ‘My Feed, My Way’?

Under the proposal, social media platforms would need to give new and existing users a clear choice over their default feed. People could keep the personalised, algorithm-led feed they are used to, or opt out of those personalised recommendations and see content focused more heavily on the accounts they have chosen to follow.

The Government has released the legislation as an exposure draft for consultation. Feedback is due by 12 pm on 22 September 2026, with the Government saying it intends to introduce legislation to Parliament later this year.

What could it mean for organic social media?

This is the part we’re watching most closely. Much of the organic reach on Instagram, Facebook and TikTok comes from platforms recommending content to people who don’t already follow the account. That’s how a Reel from a local business can suddenly reach thousands of non-followers.

If a meaningful number of Australians eventually choose a feed that relies more on accounts they already follow, that passive discovery could become less reliable. We’re not saying organic reach will disappear – we simply don’t know that yet. But it could make the follower relationship more valuable again.

The algorithm can introduce you. It shouldn’t be responsible for the whole relationship.

For businesses investing in social media marketing in Geelong, that could mean putting a little more weight on why someone should deliberately follow, save, share, click or come back – not only how far a Reel travelled this week.

What about Meta Ads?

There is an important distinction here. Nothing announced so far says Australians will be able to switch off Meta advertising, and the proposal does not say Meta’s advertising targeting tools are being removed.

Could changes to how people use their feeds eventually affect ad inventory, engagement, or performance? Possibly. But we wouldn’t make decisions before we see how the final legislation and platform changes actually work.

For now, if Meta Ads are working for a business, we’d keep optimising them based on the results – not reduce spend because of a proposed law.

The Bigger Question: Why should someone follow your business?

This is where the proposal gets interesting from a marketing perspective. If people have more control over what appears in their feed, businesses need a better reason to stay connected.

A generic ‘follow us for updates’ isn’t much of a proposition. ‘Follow us for weekly Geelong property updates’, ‘practical family-law explainers’, ‘new beekeeping products & advice’ or ‘local event offers’ is much clearer.

The answer will differ for every business, but people should understand what they’ll get by following the account. If we are asking for a tiny piece of someone’s attention every week, the content should give something useful back.

What should businesses be doing now?

We’d focus on a few basics: create more specific and useful content, build recurring content people recognise, make profiles and pinned posts clearer, and make sure social is helping to grow something the business owns as well – whether that’s website traffic, enquiries, an email subscribers list, customers or CRM data.

A good social media marketing agency should also be looking beyond the social feed itself. If platform discovery becomes less predictable, the website, email list, search visibility, paid media and first-party data all become even more useful parts of the digital marketing strategy.

This is also where social media consulting should be practical, not dramatic. We watch the legislation, watch the platform changes, watch the data and adjust when there is something real to adjust to.

Use the algorithm. Don’t build your house on it.

And we’d keep looking beyond reach. Follower growth, saves, shares, website actions, enquiries, bookings and sales tell us far more about whether social is actually doing its job.

Don’t panic. Do make the follow worth it.

This proposal still has a way to go, and plenty could change before it becomes law. Many Australians may also decide they like algorithmic recommendations and keep them switched on.

So we’re not telling businesses to stop making Reels, stop advertising or rebuild their social strategy overnight. Social media still has a place. We use it, we market through it, we’ve watched businesses grow because of it, and we know it can do a lot of good.

But this may be a useful moment to remember what social media was supposed to be in the first place: a way to connect with people. If your audience deliberately chooses to follow you, that’s worth more than a fleeting view from someone the algorithm happened to put you in front of.

Our take? Earn the follow. Build the relationship. Let the algorithm help, but don’t make it the whole strategy.

If you’re reviewing social media marketing for small business, or how social fits into your wider digital marketing strategy, Feed can help you see the full picture across organic social, paid media, search, your website, and first-party audiences.

For more information on how we can support your 2026-27 marketing strategy, contact us today at hello@feeddigital.com.au or 03 5270 5159!

Prepared using information available on 9 September 2026. ‘My Feed, My Way’ forms part of draft legislation and may change during consultation and the parliamentary process. Meta product features and availability can also change over time.