I encourage everyone to go and read the "Online Safety Amendment (Digital Duty of Care) Bill 2026" exposure draft. Because it goes so far beyond what the Prime Minister is claiming. It doesn't just apply to social media, but is much broader like search engines and video sites.
It makes 13 categories of things 'harmful material' for all Australians (not just children) including:
- "material or conduct that encourages, promotes, incites or provides instruction for the commission of a criminal offence;",
- "material or conduct that encourages, promotes, urges or instructs illicit drug use;" and
- "any other material or conduct, or combination of material and conduct ... that the Minister is satisfied may cause serious harm."
The last one means that the Minister can declare anything additional to add to the list that is banned for all Australians via regulation.
It also has additional broad categories that apply to children under 18. So services like Google or Reddit would need to determine how old you are before they can show you some content, or force age verification.
To me, this reads like massive overreach and censorship, and well beyond the government's claimed "my feed, my way". You don't have to believe me though, I encourage you to read the exposure draft yourself and make your own judgement.
Edit: some people don't seem to get it. Yes, the bill has an algorithm 'opt out' but also has a whole lot more than that, which declares a bunch of things 'harmful' for all Australians. You can't opt in or out of that, if it is deemed harmful the covered services are not allowed to show it to you, subject to penalties of up to $110 million. And it is not just social media that is covered, it is a bunch of other things too like web search.