The Albanese government this week introduced its digital duty of care legislation to parliament, including 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 only by the accounts they subscribe to. It’s been welcomed by online safety advocates.

But 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 has around a 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.

Yet, WeChat largely remains focused on efficiency.

Instead of trying to hold user attention for as long as possible, WeChat is a “super app” that offers a suite of services including........

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