Reddit launches high court challenge to Australia’s under-16s social media ban

Reddit has filed a challenge against Australia’s under-16s social media ban in the high court, lodging its case two days after implementing age restrictions on its website. The company said in a Reddit post on Friday that while it agreed with protecting people under 16, the law “has the unfortunate effect of forcing intrusive and potentially insecure verification processes on adults as well as minors, isolating teens from the ability to engage in age-appropriate community experiences”.Reddit said there was an “illogical patchwork” of platforms included in the ban.“As the Australian Human Rights Commission put it, ‘There are less restrictive alternatives available that could achieve the aim of protecting children and young people from online harms, but without having such a significant negative impact on other human rights.’”Reddit argued it was a forum primarily for adults without the traditional social media features the government has “taken issue with”.Reddit was challenging the law on the grounds it infringed on the implied freedom of political communication. It was also seeking to challenge whether Reddit could be considered an age-restricted social media platform under the legislation.It said it was not seeking to challenge the law to avoid compliance, and had implemented age-assurance measures since Wednesday.The company said the vast majority of Redditors were adults, and advertising wasn’t targeted to children under 18. The Apple app store age rating for Reddit is 17+.“Despite the best intentions, this law is missing the mark on actually protecting young people online,” Reddit said. “So, while we will comply with this law, we have a responsibility to share our perspective and see that it is reviewed by the courts.”Reddit’s challenge is separate from one filed by New South Wales Libertarian MP John Ruddick’s Digital Freedom Project group. The next court appearance for Digital Freedom Project group is late February, and Reddit expects it will be heard sometime next year, if the high court takes up the case.Prof Sarah Joseph, from Griffith university’s law school, said she believes there was a strong case against the ban.“I do believe the legislation has cut off the main source of political information for people under the age of 16, in terms of their receiving and giving information. Whilst that is not the intention of the legislation, that is one of its many effects,” she said.“Whilst other sources remain open, they operate in very different ways and do not provide the same means to communicate one’s opinions, and the same variety of opinions.”But Joseph said she believed the high court case was more likely to fail, as with most challenges to legislation on implied freedom of communications grounds.“The freedom is engaged in most cases, but the high court goes on to find the law to be proportionate. In reality, the constitutional freedom is quite weak due to the way that it has been interpreted and applied.”A law that has the effect of reducing the overall volume of political communication in Australia will be invalid unless it is proportionate to a legitimate purpose, constitutional law professor Luke Beck wrote in the Guardian on Thursday.“[But] the social media account ban only slightly reduces the overall volume of political communication in Australia,” the Monash University academic said.“The law does not ban teenagers from using the internet or having online group chats. It’s likely that in the [Ruddick] social media account case … the government will succeed.”The Guardian revealed on Tuesday that Reddit had argued to the eSafety commissioner in September that it should be excluded from the ban.“The sole or significant purpose of our platform is to provide knowledge-sharing in timely, context-rich conversations; interaction between end-users is simply an incidental step to enabling this primary purpose,” Reddit said in the letter obtained under freedom of information laws.“It is not in keeping with Reddit norms for users to use their real names or identities on Reddit, as communities are not centred around real-time social networking among young people.”Reddit does not promote real-time presence, friend requests or activity feeds that drive ongoing engagement, the company said. It said it was committed to collecting minimal personal information from users to preserve pseudonymity on the platform.Reddit was a “pseudonymous platform organised around sharing information in topic-based communities rather than personal profiles or social networks,” the platform said.The 10 platforms the government announced were covered by the ban – Twitch, Kick, YouTube, Threads, Facebook, Instagram, Snap, X, TikTok and Reddit – had all implemented measures to comply by Wednesday.