Boy oh boy, there's been some nonsense about the government's proposed digital duty of care on social media.

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This is not about freedom of speech, as some in the Coalition were so quick to claim. It's about freedom from speech, something I, for one, long for.

Surely, it's not too big an ask to choose not to be bombarded by influencer brain rot or ads for stuff I don't want on my social media feed. And the speech from which I certainly crave freedom is the recent tide of inflammatory, often racist commentary, not to mention the intelligence-insulting far-right memes produced by bot farms in Indonesia.

If that's what others want, they can knock themselves out. But, for me, life would be so much better without exposure to the unhinged anger of others, something the algorithm assumes I want, possibly because it knows I'm a white male of a certain age.

The government's proposed digital duty of care promises to hand back control to users by mandating opt-out tools, something a mate of mine desperately wanted yesterday as he prepared to depart on a long European holiday. When I asked whether he was excited, he sounded downbeat, saying his anxiety levels were red-lining.

That's because the algorithm had flooded his feed with "content" about the risk of being robbed and the various products that might prevent that from happening. The algorithm detected an opportunity to pressure him into buying theft-proof crossbody bags, lanyards for his mobile phone, luggage trackers, RFID-blocking wallets and a host of other "must-have" gadgets to help him survive a warzone.

Trading on fear, the torrent of ads turned what should have been an exciting prospect into one of dread. Had he been able to switch off the algorithm, he would have been spared.

He's a retired TV producer, not some impressionable kid worried about their weight and acne. So imagine how a 17-year-old boy or girl feels on a diet of content designed to prey on the insecurities that accompany adolescence in order to sell a product or, worse, some toxic worldview or ideology.

There's nothing sinister in demanding that big tech relinquish its power over what we see on social media. There was a time when that's exactly what the platforms offered. You followed friends, groups and organisations in which you had an interest. You might also have followed companies which sold stuff that interested you. And you could unfollow them when they became tiresome.

Now, the content on your feed isn't determined by you; it's decided by the algorithm whose sole purpose is to make money for big tech by keeping you engaged and in front of ads for as long as........

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