Australia’s Communications Minister Anika Wells introduced a Digital Duty of Care bill on 15 October 2026, arguing that large online platforms should be responsible for risks created by their products. The proposal would let users reject personalised recommendation feeds and would require stronger protections for people under 18. It builds on Australia’s separate under-16 social-media minimum-age law, which places compliance duties on platforms rather than on children or their parents.
What Australia’s Digital Duty of Care would change
The bill is designed around a simple principle stated by Wells: “if you build it, you are responsible for its risks.” Instead of focusing only on individual posts, the proposed duty would require online-service providers to examine whether their systems, tools and features create foreseeable harm and to maintain a safer online environment.
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For users generally, major platforms would have to offer a choice between an algorithmically recommended feed and a feed containing only posts from accounts the user follows. The government presents that choice as a way to return control over ranking and discovery to Australians rather than leaving engagement-optimisation systems as the default.
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Repair common Windows errors and clear accumulated junk for a smoother, more stable PC - no reinstall needed.Free scan · no reinstallThe draft would also require providers to protect under-18s from categories of material the government identifies as seriously harmful, including pornography, bullying and abuse, promotion of eating disorders, glorification of crime or dangerous stunts, and hostile ideas about women and gender equality.
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How the proposal relates to the under-16 social-media law
Australia’s minimum-age regime applies to Australian users under 16. The platforms must take reasonable steps to prevent those users from holding covered social-media accounts. Children and parents are not the parties punished under the regime; enforcement responsibility sits with the eSafety regulator.
| Measure | Who it covers | Main obligation | Who carries the compliance burden |
|---|---|---|---|
| Under-16 minimum-age law | Australian users younger than 16 | Platforms must take reasonable steps to prevent covered accounts | Platforms; eSafety enforces the regime. Parents and children are not penalised. |
| Proposed Digital Duty of Care | Online services, with specific protections for under-18s | Assess and reduce harm from systems, tools, features and harmful content; provide feed choice | Service providers, subject to powers and rules that would be set in the legislation and regulations |
The two measures therefore address different points in the online experience. The age law is intended to keep under-16s off covered services, while the duty of care would govern how services operate and what safeguards they provide, including for teenagers who can lawfully use them.
Would the bill stop children from using social-media apps?
Not necessarily. The minimum-age system is based on platforms taking reasonable steps, not on a guarantee that every child will be identified or blocked. The sources available do not establish the final age-assurance technology, its privacy safeguards or the complete list of covered services. Children could also encounter services outside the law’s final scope or create accounts that evade a platform’s checks.
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If enacted as described, under-16 users on covered platforms would face two additional product restrictions: personalised recommendation algorithms would be switched off, and endless scrolling would be disabled. Those controls could reduce algorithmic amplification and the amount of time a user can continue consuming an automatically replenished feed, but they would not remove every harmful post or prevent access to every online service.
Which algorithms and features are targeted?
Personalised recommendation feeds
The proposed general-user choice concerns feeds ranked by recommendation systems, such as systems that infer interests from viewing, following and engagement behaviour. A user could instead select a chronological or follow-only experience showing accounts they deliberately chose to follow. The bill’s final technical definitions will determine which ranking systems and services must provide that option.
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Under-16 defaults
For users under 16, the proposal described by the ABC would go further than an opt-out: personalised recommendations would be turned off and endless scrolling removed. The intention is to limit both targeted discovery and the frictionless continuation of a session.
Other product features
Wells has framed the duty around “systems and the tools and the features that cause harm,” not only around illegal content. That could put design decisions such as recommendation settings, engagement prompts and feed mechanics under regulatory scrutiny. The precise duties, exemptions and technical standards remain dependent on the enacted text and subsequent regulations.
What does “unfettered access” mean in the government’s argument?
Wells said she believes Australians may eventually look back on the minimum-age policy and ask why Big Tech was ever allowed “unfettered access” to children. In context, the phrase refers to platforms being able to design, test and deploy engagement systems for young users with limited statutory constraints on those systems. It does not mean the government has proved that every child currently has unrestricted access to every platform.
The minister also said, “The problem today, is that Big Tech has been allowed to live-test its products on Australians.” That is the government’s policy characterisation, not an independent finding establishing that all platforms or all features cause the same level of harm.
What evidence has the government cited?
In her official speech, Wells cited several 2026 figures connected to the under-16 regime and related wellbeing surveys:
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- More than 5 million underage accounts were said to have been deactivated, removed or restricted.
- An eSafety first survey was reported as finding a 20% reduction in under-16 account holders three months after the law began.
- A YouGov survey was reported as finding that 30% of Australians aged 13–15 were spending more time playing sport and 27% reported better sleep.
- The speech reported online bullying down 9% and exposure to inappropriate and violent content down 18%.
These numbers are claims presented in a government speech. The available material does not include the underlying survey methodology or an independent audit, so they should not be treated as independently validated causal estimates. They also do not, by themselves, show which specific platform changes produced each result.
Are parents or technology companies responsible?
Under the existing under-16 law, the compliance obligation is on platforms. Parents and children are not fined for a child holding an account, and eSafety is responsible for enforcement. The proposed Digital Duty of Care would extend responsibility further into platform design and operations, making providers answerable for assessing and mitigating risks created by their own systems and features.
That allocation is central to the political dispute. The government argues that companies that build and profit from these systems should manage their risks. Opposition communications spokeswoman Sarah Henderson argues that the proposal could give the minister excessive discretion, saying it would provide “unfettered powers” to regulate anything considered seriously harmful or harmful to children.
What is still unresolved?
The bill’s introduction does not establish that it will become law. The final Senate vote, commencement date, definitive list of covered services, detailed age-assurance rules, privacy protections and enforcement penalties remain open. The final text will also determine how regulators distinguish serious harm from ordinary controversy, how quickly providers must act, and what review or appeal rights services and users receive.
Anyone assessing the policy should look for five concrete details as the bill progresses:
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- Who pays and who complies: whether obligations fall on platforms alone or create costs and duties for users, schools, parents or other intermediaries.
- Privacy in age assurance: what data is collected, whether identity documents are required, how long information is retained and whether checks can be performed without building a permanent age database.
- Algorithm controls: whether the follow-only option is genuinely usable and whether disabling personalised recommendations and endless scrolling measurably reduces harmful exposure.
- Regulatory scope: how much power the minister and eSafety receive to define harmful systems, issue rules and impose remedies.
- Measured outcomes: whether future reports publish methods, independent validation and comparable results rather than only headline percentages.
What the proposal means now
Australia is moving from a narrow question—whether a child is old enough to hold a social-media account—to a broader question about how online products are engineered. The Digital Duty of Care would make platform design, recommendation systems and youth protections regulatory issues. Until Parliament passes final wording and regulators publish operational rules, however, the proposal remains a framework under debate rather than a settled set of obligations.
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