Toxic algorithms wouldn't let them go – now Australia wants an off switch

Australia has proposed a switch to force social media platforms to let users turn off recommended content. Watch: Many social platforms already have following-only feeds – here's how they work Warning: This article contains an account of living with an eating disorder Varsha Yajman was already self-conscious about the way she looked when she joined social media as a 13-year-old. Every night as she fell asleep, Varsha would watch a stranger on the internet diarising what they'd consumed that day. "I was like, 'I don't need to eat. I can just watch other people eat'," Varsha tells the BBC. "I would find that I'd be down these really deep rabbit holes…

it was like no matter how hard you tried to get out, you couldn't." Now 24 and in recovery from anorexia, Varsha says she is still served weight loss content on social media – despite having every safety setting turned on, and an exhaustive list of banned words. It is people like her the Australian government says it is trying to protect with a new suite of laws cracking down on big tech, which were introduced to parliament this week. The centrepiece of their proposed reforms: an algorithm switch which would force social media platforms to let users turn off recommender content. The idea is that you would only