Ban infinite scrolling

Australia’s Labor governments are a mixed bag when it comes to digital infrastructure and legislation. They introduced the teen “social media” ban that experts warned them would be ineffective and easy to circumvent. They also introduced the National Broadband Network which was a net positive, and floated the idea of mandatory internet filtering by ISPs. It’s hard to keep track of, honestly. Today’s news seems broadly like a good idea: [This legislation] will require social media platforms to provide user empowerment tools that give people over the age of 16 genuine and enduring choice about what they see in their feeds. The reason social media companies don’t do this currently is obvious: people would always choose seeing what their friends post, not what an algorithm wants to throw at them. Consent is something the Valley has wilfully misunderstood for a long time, because we can’t let it get in the way of line going up. I can’t stop thinking about someone’s comment recently that…