Gower’s MP wants everyone, not just teenagers, to be able to switch off the software that decides what they see on social media.
Tonia Antoniazzi is one of around 40 MPs who have written to Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy asking for an “off switch” for the algorithms that pick and rank posts on apps such as Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and X.
Instead, the letter says, people should be able to opt for a simple feed showing only the accounts they follow, in the order things were posted.
“I’ve signed a joint letter with nearly 40 MPs calling for people to have the option of switching those algorithms off and seeing content in a simple chronological order instead,” the Gower MP said on Wednesday. “You should decide what you see online.”
What the letter asks Lisa Nandy to do
The letter, dated 23 September and seen by Swansea Bay News, is led by Labour MPs Sadik Al-Hassan, who represents North Somerset, and Andy MacNae, the MP for Rossendale and Darwen.
It argues that the recommendation systems built into the big platforms are designed to keep people scrolling, and that they do so by rewarding “outrage and conflict”.
The MPs point to Australia, where the government published a draft Digital Duty of Care law on 8 September that would give users the right to turn the algorithm off and see only the accounts they choose to follow, in chronological order.
They want the UK to adopt the same principle: the algorithm stays for anyone who wants it, but nobody is forced to have it.
“A staging post”: Nandy says the crackdown isn’t finished
The letter lands as the Government prepares to bring in its ban on under-16s using the main social media apps, which is due to take effect in the spring, with 16 and 17-year-olds to get limits on infinite scrolling and algorithm-driven feeds.
Speaking at Labour’s conference in Liverpool on Tuesday, Ms Nandy said the ban was “a staging post to what must be a very active interventionist state, policing and regulating the online space”, and that “we shouldn’t accept that this is the end”.
The MPs’ letter asks her to take the next step, extending the choice of a plain feed to adults.
Swansea was ahead of Westminster on the ban
Ms Antoniazzi was among more than 60 Labour MPs who called for an under-16 ban before the Government announced one in June, and Swansea West MP Torsten Bell found 80% of the constituents he surveyed backed an age limit after a packed public meeting at the Guildhall.
Writing for Swansea Bay News on the day the ban was announced, the Swansea communications consultant Kirstie Logan-Townshend described the “self-perpetuating algorithm” as the same mechanism that radicalises children and coarsens adult debate, and said the harder work lay in what came next.
The letter’s signatories are asking for a change that would touch far more people than the ban does: every adult with a Facebook or TikTok account, and the pubs, clubs, schools and small businesses that rely on those feeds to reach them.
The Department for Culture, Media and Sport has not yet responded to the letter, and the MPs have not set a deadline for a reply.
Related stories from Swansea Bay News
SOCIAL MEDIA BANNED: Under-16s to be blocked from popular apps, here’s what it means for Welsh teens
The ban that takes effect in the spring, and what it covers.
SOCIAL MEDIA: ‘Swansea backs a ban’ says MP Torsten Bell as survey finds strong local support
Eight in 10 of those surveyed wanted an age limit.
OPINION: ‘That is the line in the sand. The work now is on the lines that follow’
Kirstie Logan-Townshend on the algorithm, from the train to Paddington.
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