The feed has split us in two, media has to stitch it back together

By Sam Cousins, Ryvalmedia National Head of Strategy & Product

My social feed has been full of one story for 2 weeks, something that's been a strong topic of conversation between my friends and I. Yet when I shared some posts on it and talked to my male friends about it, the story dominating my feed did not exist on theirs. It made me wonder, are we even seeing the same news?

Whilst it's a small moment, it points to something our industry should be paying close attention to. This isn't just about a few men missing one story, it's about two audiences living in two different news realities.

According to the 2026 Digital News Report released by the University of Canberra, social media is now Australia's second most used news source at 56% ahead of online news sites at 52%. But for under 25's it's a huge 71%, with nearly half getting their news solely on social. Among 18 to 24 year olds 70% use influencers as a news source. Young Australians aren't choosing their news anymore, an algorithm or a creator is choosing it for them.

Men are heavier news consumers than women, with 67% accessing news more than once a day compared with 44% of women. Yet the men I know still weren't seeing the same stories.

If young Australians are increasingly getting their news through algorithms, the gap between what men and women see will only continue to grow.

Algorithms don't serve everyone the same world, we know that. But content shapes culture and culture shapes behaviour, so we have a responsibility to help remove stereotypes. In September, research into social division by Plan International found both teen girl and boy accounts were pushed into strikingly different online worlds built on gender stereotypes within 20 minutes. Girls got beauty standards and luxury lifestyles and boys got wealth, strength, emotional isolation, gym videos and divisive motivational content.

Kathleen Spencer-Chapman, Director of Influencing and External Affairs at Plan International UK, said: "Our research shows that misogyny is not confined to the darkest corners of the internet, it is woven into the everyday content that children are fed without asking for it"

It's why the government's My Feed, My Way proposal, which would give Australians the option to switch off algorithmic recommendations and see only the accounts they follow, is now in consultation, and why our industry should be paying close attention to how it lands.

The same pattern shows up in advertising. European regulators have found that ad delivery systems can skew job ads by gender, serving mechanic roles mostly to men and preschool teaching roles mostly to women, even when advertisers never asked for it. Nobody designed that outcome. The system learned it from behaviour and amplified it.

Platforms have acknowledged that gender can be one of the signals an algorithm learns from. If the machine sorts job ads by gender, it's sorting our brand messages too.

Our responsibility

Here's the uncomfortable part for our industry. We don't just observe the feed, we fund it. Every optimised impression we buy teaches an algorithm who should see what. If we accept that feeds are dividing the sexes, we have to accept that our budgets are part of the machinery doing it. The good news is that means we also hold some of the control.

Measure who we actually reach. Targeting settings tell us who we asked for. Delivery data tells us who we got. Broad campaigns drift toward whichever audience clicks the cheapest, and the sway is usually gendered. Reporting 'delivered reach' by gender should be standard, not a special request.

Stop treating optimisation as neutral. When balanced reach matters, split or cap activity rather than letting the platform decide. An algorithm left alone will find the stereotype faster than any human will.

Treat brand safety as a gendered issue. The adjacency risk around manosphere content sits disproportionately in young male short video environments. If we audit for news and politics, we should audit for this too.

Back real choice in the feed and invest in connecting people. We need choice that is genuinely enduring. Environments where men and women see the same story at the same time are becoming rare and should be protected. News brands, broadcast, live sport, cinema. Rarity makes them more valuable, not less, and we should value and plan them that way.

The future belongs to intelligent brands that know where their money goes, that combine capability with care and will build audiences that share a reality. That is a far stronger foundation for growth than two audiences who no longer recognise each other.