TL;DR
- Australia's government confirmed on 8 September 2026 that it will seek legislation requiring social platforms to notify every user and let them set a chronological feed as their default.
- Penalties for platforms that fail to comply are set at up to A$109.2 million, with full parameters to be established over the coming months.
- The package also covers addictive design features and content on eating disorders, crime, gender equality and dangerous stunts, and extends to AI chatbots.
- This is a proposal, not enacted law: no covered platform list, no user threshold and no commencement date were published.
- X and Threads already offer a Following feed on desktop, so the requirement is closer to a default-and-discoverability mandate than a new capability.
Australia's government confirmed on Tuesday 8 September 2026 that it will seek legislation requiring social media platforms to notify every user, new and existing, and let them set a chronological feed as their default. Social Media Today reported the proposal the same day. Users who opt out of personally recommended content would see the friends and creators they choose to follow instead. Penalties for platforms that fail to comply are set at up to A$109.2 million. This is a proposal, not enacted law, and the government said the full parameters will be established over the coming months.
The status matters more than the headline. Nothing has changed for any advertiser or any page today, in Australia or anywhere else. What has changed is that a national government has put a number and a mechanism behind an idea that until now has been an argument on panels.
What the proposal actually requires
The mechanism, as described in the press release from Prime Minister Anthony Albanese's office and reported by Social Media Today on 8 September 2026, is a notification and a choice. Platforms would be required to send a notification to new and existing users offering them a choice over their default feed. Users can opt in to a default feed that includes personalised content recommended by the algorithm. Alternatively they can opt out of personally recommended content in their default feed and see the friends and creators they choose to follow.
Read the wording closely and the obligation is about the default and the prompt, not about building something new. Social Media Today points out that most platforms already offer an algorithm opt-out of sorts, but that the option is generally hidden in a side menu, and that none of the major platforms offer an algorithm-free experience as the default. Users can set the "Following" feed as the main option on the desktop versions of both X and Threads.
So the closest description of the proposal is a default-and-discoverability mandate. It takes a setting that exists and is buried, and requires that every user be shown it and allowed to make it their starting point.
The rest of the package
The feed requirement did not arrive alone. Social Media Today reported that the Australian government also wants new regulations covering addictive features in social media apps and AI chatbots, with tougher restrictions on content relating to eating disorders, crime, gender equality and dangerous stunts. Extending the scope to AI chatbots is the part most likely to be underestimated, because it puts conversational products inside a content regulation frame that was written for feeds.
The government's stated framing is that Australians will benefit from better protection from seriously harmful and illegal content across digital services, and that social media users will be afforded more choice.
This table sets out what has been stated and what has not, which is the distinction most likely to get lost as the story is retold.
| Element | Status as reported on 8 September 2026 |
|---|---|
| Chronological default feed requirement | Proposed, legislation to be sought |
| Maximum penalty for non-compliance | Up to A$109.2 million |
| Scope beyond social apps | Extends to AI chatbots and addictive design features |
| List of covered platforms and user thresholds | Not published |
| Commencement date | Not published; parameters set over coming months |
Why a chronological default would change organic reach mechanics
Recommendation feeds and follower-graph feeds reward different things, and the difference is not a matter of degree.
In a recommendation feed, an account's reach is not capped by its follower count. A post that performs well with a small test audience gets shown to people who have never heard of the account, which is why a page with 2,000 followers can reach 200,000 people. Creative quality and early engagement are the levers, and the follower graph is closer to a signal than a limit.
In a chronological follower-graph feed, reach is bounded by who has deliberately followed the account and who is online. Consistency and posting time matter more. The upside of a breakout post is smaller, because there is no mechanism to push it beyond the graph. The downside is also smaller, because a quiet week does not cause the algorithm to stop showing an account to its own audience.
If a meaningful share of users in a market switched to a chronological default, the practical effect for organic social would be a shift in what a follower is worth. Followers acquired through recommendation surfaces, who never chose the account in any deliberate sense, would stop being reachable. Followers acquired because someone actually wanted the account's posts would become the whole audience. Social Media Today frames the same point from the publisher side, noting that a switch in content distribution could lead to new approaches from publishers looking to maintain connections with their audiences.
Two things this proposal does not touch are worth stating. It concerns default feeds, and the reporting describes no equivalent requirement for paid placement, so nothing in the coverage suggests advertising delivery is affected. And it is a choice offered to users, not a switch flipped for them, so the size of any effect depends entirely on how many people take the option.
Why Australia keeps setting the precedent
Australia's earlier moves on teen social media access were referenced widely across the region, which is why a proposal from Canberra gets read in Bangkok, Singapore and Jakarta as a possible template rather than a local curiosity. Social Media Today makes the same observation in broader terms, describing the proposal as a significant step with implications not just for Australian users but for users elsewhere, and suggesting other regions may follow if the approach shows that algorithmic amplification worsens harmful outcomes.
That is the honest framing for a Thai audience: this is precedent-watching. It is not a compliance issue for anyone operating in Thailand, and it does not create an obligation for any Thai brand, agency or platform account. Thailand is not mentioned in the proposal at all.
What was left undefined
- No list of covered platforms was published, so which services fall inside the requirement is unknown.
- No user-count threshold or size definition was given, so whether smaller platforms are captured is unknown.
- No commencement date was published, and the government said full parameters will be established over the coming months.
- No detail was given on how the notification must be presented, which is the design question that will decide how many people actually switch.
- Nothing was published on how compliance would be measured or how the maximum penalty of up to A$109.2 million would be applied in practice.
Every one of those gaps sits between the proposal and any real effect on reach. A requirement that lands as a dismissable banner and a requirement that lands as a forced choice screen would produce very different opt-out rates, and nothing in the reporting settles which it will be.
What this means for marketers in Thailand
Nothing needs to change this week. What is worth doing is a piece of thinking that is useful regardless of whether this law passes anywhere.
The question the proposal raises is: how much of your organic reach comes from people who deliberately followed you, and how much comes from recommendation surfaces reaching strangers. That is measurable today in the analytics of most platforms, usually as a split between followers and non-followers in reach reporting. A page whose reach is overwhelmingly non-follower has built a creative-dependent audience with no durable claim on anyone's attention. That is not a failure, and it is often the efficient choice, but it is a dependency worth knowing about before a regulator or a product team changes the rules.
The durable version of the same audience is the one you can reach without a feed's permission at all: an email list, a LINE audience, a returning site visitor. Anyone whose distribution plan rests entirely on recommendation feeds is one product decision away from a problem, which is the argument for treating owned channels as part of a content marketing programme rather than as an afterthought bolted on at the end.
On the paid side, nothing in the reporting indicates a change to ad delivery. A market where more people browse a follower-graph feed would, if it happened, make paid distribution relatively more important for reaching anyone who has not already followed the brand, since the organic route to strangers narrows. That is a reason to know what your paid social actually contributes versus organic reach, which is a useful thing to know in any case and not a reason to move budget today.
Frequently asked questions
Is the chronological feed requirement now law in Australia?
No. Australia's government said on 8 September 2026 that it would seek to implement legislation, and the reporting describes it as a proposal with full parameters to be established over coming months. No commencement date was published.
Does this apply to platforms or users in Thailand?
No, and Thailand is not mentioned in the proposal. The requirement as reported is an Australian one, and nothing in the coverage suggests it binds any platform behaviour outside Australia.
Do I have to change anything about my social posting?
Nothing is required of any advertiser or page owner by this proposal. The obligation described falls on platforms, to notify users and offer a default feed choice, not on the accounts posting into those feeds.
Would a chronological feed reduce my organic reach?
The reporting does not quantify any effect on reach, so any number would be invented. What can be said is that a follower-graph feed caps reach at the people who chose to follow an account, while a recommendation feed can carry a post beyond them, so the size of any impact depends on how much of an account's current reach comes from non-followers.
Do platforms not already offer this option?
Some do, but not as a default. Social Media Today reported that most platforms offer an algorithm opt-out of sorts that is generally hidden in a side menu, and that users can set the "Following" feed as the main option on the desktop versions of X and Threads, while none of the major platforms make an algorithm-free experience the default.
The short version
A government has proposed making the unbundled feed a visible choice rather than a buried setting, and attached a penalty of up to A$109.2 million to it. As reported by Social Media Today on 8 September 2026, the parameters that would decide whether this changes anything, which platforms, which users, when it starts, are all still open. Watch it as a precedent, and use the interval to find out how much of your reach you would keep if it arrived.
If you want that number for your own channels, along with a view of how much of your audience you can reach without a feed's cooperation, Relevant Audience runs that analysis as part of its social work.
