Australia is facing renewed questions about the impact of social media algorithms, as concerns grow over platforms repeatedly recommending harmful content to vulnerable users. The debate centres on whether people should have greater control over their feeds, including the ability to switch off personalised recommendations and view posts from accounts they deliberately follow.

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Varsha Yajman was just 13 when she joined social media and began encountering content that intensified her insecurities about her appearance. Her feeds were filled with workout videos promising unrealistic results, dangerous calorie challenges and profiles where users publicly shared their height, weight and experiences of hospitalisation.

She also found herself watching strangers document everything they ate. Over time, this content became difficult to escape, drawing her into increasingly harmful online spaces.

“I was like, ‘I don't need to eat. I can just watch other people eat’,” Yajman told the BBC, describing how the videos influenced her relationship with food.

Now 24 and recovering from anorexia, Yajman says weight-loss content continues to appear in her feeds despite enabling safety settings and maintaining an extensive list of blocked words. Her experience highlights a central concern in the debate over social media algorithms: even when users try to avoid certain material, automated recommendation systems can continue presenting it.

Social media platforms use algorithms to select and rank content based on signals such as viewing activity, interactions and user preferences. These systems can help people discover relevant posts, but they can also repeatedly expose users to material they find distressing or harmful.

For people struggling with body image or eating disorders, repeated exposure to extreme dieting advice, restrictive eating content and unrealistic appearance standards can be particularly concerning. Content that appears harmless in isolation may become more troubling when recommendation systems continually serve similar material.

The issue has prompted calls for stronger controls that give users more meaningful choices over what appears on their screens. One proposed approach is to make following-only feeds easier to access, allowing users to see posts from accounts they have chosen to follow rather than relying primarily on algorithmic recommendations.

Such controls would not necessarily remove harmful material from social media altogether. However, they could reduce the influence of automated suggestions and give users greater control over their online experience.

Australia has already become an important testing ground for debates over online safety and government regulation of digital platforms. The discussion about algorithmic feeds adds another dimension to the question of how technology companies should protect users, particularly children and young people.

Supporters of greater user control argue that people should not have to navigate complicated settings or repeatedly block keywords to avoid unwanted content. They believe platforms should make safer feed options accessible and provide clearer choices about how recommendations are generated.

At the same time, changing recommendation systems presents practical challenges. Social media platforms use different ranking methods, and the effectiveness of alternative feeds will depend on how they are designed and implemented. Giving users a choice between personalised recommendations and a feed based on followed accounts may improve control, but it cannot guarantee that every harmful post will disappear.

Yajman's experience illustrates why the debate extends beyond screen time. The concern is not simply how long people spend online, but also what they encounter while using these services and how repeated exposure may affect their wellbeing.

As Australia considers ways to strengthen online safety, the central question is whether social media companies should provide users with a more direct way to limit algorithm-driven content. Greater transparency, accessible controls and effective safety measures could help people make more informed decisions about their feeds.

For users like Yajman, the challenge remains immediate: avoiding harmful content can be difficult even when they actively try to do so. The wider debate now focuses on whether platforms should make that task easier by giving people more control over what they see.