What might turning off the algorithm look like? Chinese social media provides some hints

The Albanese government has introduced its digital duty of care legislation to parliament today. The bill includes an “off switch” to allow social media users to opt out of recommender algorithms.

If passed, Australians could choose to switch off their algorithmic recommendation and consume a news feed populated by the accounts they subscribe to. It’s been welcomed by online safety advocates.

The bill echoes a model that one of the world’s largest platforms has run for more than a decade: WeChat in China.

Its long experience offers Australia an preview of what a feed unshackled from algorithms might look like. It’s not all good news.

The Chinese platform WeChat was launched in 2011 and now has one billion users globally, making it one of the primary social media services for Chinese-speakers worldwide.

The platform’s design logic was simple. WeChat was meant to be an efficiency tool. Unlike its American or Chinese counterparts, which used algorithmic recommendations to keep users on the platform, WeChat is designed for users to open the app, do what they need, close the app and put their phone away.

Algorithmic curation played a minimal role until the introduction of the short-video function “Channels” launched in 2021 to compete with Douyin (the Chinese version of TikTok) and RedNote (Xiaohongshu) in the rising short-video market.

Instead of trying to hold user attention for as long as possible, WeChat is a “super app” that offers a suite of services including finance, commerce, publication, entertainment, and communications within a single platform to make it integral to people’s lives.

WeChat’s news feature lists stories published by “Official Accounts”, or content creators. Users only see content they follow.

Our research project, RECapture, has studied Official Accounts targeting Chinese-Australians since 2019. Our data offer a longitudinal study of monitored content.

We found the absence of algorithmic curation gives publishers significant autonomy to generate revenue independently of the app.