Congratulations/regrets — today we celebrate the 20th anniversary of the birth of today’s internet.
I suppose there are numerous candidates for that title. The debut of the iPhone in 2007? The launch of Google AdSense in 2003? The first YouTube video in 2005? All worthy nominees.
But for me, it’s the debut of Facebook’s News Feed. In 2006, on the day after Labor Day,1 Facebook engineer Ruchi Sanghavi blogged about what she called Facebook’s “Facelift”:
News Feed highlights what’s happening in your social circles on Facebook. It updates a personalized list of news stories throughout the day, so you’ll know when Mark adds Britney Spears to his Favorites or when your crush is single again. Now, whenever you log in, you’ll get the latest headlines generated by the activity of your friends and social groups…
These features are not only different from anything we’ve had on Facebook before, but they’re quite unlike anything you can find on the web. We hope these changes help you stay more up to date on your friends’ lives.
Before that day, getting updates on your friends meant visiting each of their Facebook pages in turn. It wasn’t too different from the actual printed college “facebooks” that inspired the name — a set of pages you’re meant to flip through, looking for specific people. But combining them all into a single stream meant Facebook was no longer just hosting your friends’ stray thoughts — it was shoving them right in front of your face. As Michael Arrington wrote at TechCrunch:
(Yeah, gosh, is it even possible for users to love Facebook more?!?)
Users hated it, even protesting outside Facebook’s offices. It was one thing to post about your breakup to a place where your closest friends could find it; it was another to broadcast it on the metaphorical dorm loudspeaker. But people adjusted, the protests stopped, and one of the greatest money-makers in human history was born — soon to be duplicated in some form or another in just about every digital product.
So it’s somewhat fitting that today marks one of the most significant efforts by a national government to regulate and disrupt Facebook’s feeds — treating them more like a public utility than a private corporation’s product.
The Albanese government in Australia has announced its proposed “Digital Duty of Care” for major online platforms, which includes a requirement that Australians be able to “turn off” the algorithms that inject content from people and companies you don’t follow into your feeds. (In PR-speak, “My Feed, My Way.”) In other words, it’s a switch that would return you to the Facebook News Feed of 2006. Clare Armstrong for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation:
Labor will seek support for an opt-in/opt-out system where platforms like TikTok, Instagram or Facebook would be required to send account holders a push notification asking them to decide if they receive recommended content.
The social media algorithm controls come under broader “Digital Duty of Care” draft laws that shift responsibility onto big tech to proactively reduce foreseeable harms or face fines of more than $100 million.
The bill (text here, explainer here) would require platforms to let users turn off all recommended content — and, more important to Facebook, block all targeted advertising. (It doesn’t require platforms to offer ad-free options; a user who turned off targeted advertising would just be served non-targeted ads.) The bill would also give users the right to reset the data profile a platform uses to target content at them.
“Just as we have basic safety standards for cars, toys or food, the duty of care applies basic standards for the online products we use every day,” communications minister Anika Wells said. This proposed internet time-machine will now go before Australia’s Parliament for approval.
- The post actually went up on September 5, 2006, not September 8 — but today’s also the day after Labor Day, so I’m counting it as the 20th anniversary. Sue me.
