The fight to switch off your algorithm

与关闭你的算法的斗争

Today in Focus

2026-10-12

20 分钟
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Chanel Contos talks about her campaign against social media algorithms and how it has helped shape a groundbreaking bill in her native Australia to increase regulation of big tech. Help support our independent journalism at theguardian.com/infocus
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  • This is The Guardian.

  • Today, the young woman taking on big tech.

  • You probably remember, and it wasn't even that long ago, when your social media feed looked very different.

  • Back then, it was mostly holidays you weren't on, family parties, and a lot of new baby pics.

  • And then everything changed.

  • Now, my Instagram feed is this dizzying, intoxicating mashup of fashion influencers, aspirational interiors,

  • celebrity podcasts, war zones, far-right demos, and a lot of people trying to sell me things.

  • And it feels like I rarely see a post from someone I've actually chosen to follow.

  • And that's all down to the algorithm, which relentlessly tracks our behavior online,

  • predicting what will hold our attention and then feeding this right back at us.

  • And the algorithm doesn't care whether the content is useful or addictive, distressing or harmful.

  • All it cares about is that we don't stop scrolling.

  • And I guess for most of us, we've just come to accept it.

  • And we just keep going, staring at our phones.

  • But not activist Chanel Contos.

  • A dictator by algorithms, engineered to incite outrage, insecurity and desire.

  • All to keep us online for longer.

  • Chanel has spent years trying to find ways to tackle the spiralling crisis of sexual violence

  • and misogyny amongst teenage boys in her native Australia.

  • Now she has helped pave the way for a groundbreaking new bill in Australia,