Echo chambers in social media pose a growing threat to democratic discourse. Unlike other approaches that address this challenge by imposing obligations on the platforms or through regulatory measures that violate users’ rights, our proposal preserves user autonomy by allowing them to decide whether to explore opinions outside their echo chamber. This paper investigates whether a regulation applied only to users who have granted explicit consent can promote balanced information flow across polarized communities throughout the network. We propose a general model that captures how information spreads on social media. The model accounts for users’ friends, opinions, and message virality. We conduct simulations with varying parameters over real-world data to analyze the model’s behavior. Our results show that even targeting a small fraction of consenting users can significantly enhance cross-group message reach (without overstepping user entitlements). This work underscores the potential for a consent-driven regulation to foster healthier public dialogue.