Reddit is now engaged in a political and legal tit-for-tat against Australia’s under-16 social media ban, after the platform launched a challenge against the restrictions in the High Court.
While Reddit agreed to comply with the world-first legislation on Wednesday — just one day before it took effect — the company has now listed off a range of grievances it has with the implementation of the ban, as mentioned in the court filing.
Reddit’s High Court challenge is seeking a review of the ban and a request to exclude itself as one of the barred platforms.
To make its case, Reddit cited concerns about verification processes, potential intrusions on political expression, and the nature of a forum-based platform like Reddit being different to other social sites like Facebook and Instagram.
Reddit is one of the 10 platforms — also including SnapChat, X and TikTok — that has begun shutting down teens’ accounts this week, but a Reddit Public Policy team member (u/LastBlueJay) said there are “more effective” ways to protect teen social media users.
When sharing the court filing on Reddit on Friday, the team member said the platform “agree[s] with the importance” of protecting teens online but takes issue with “intrusive verification” of adult users, as well as “isolating teens” from political discussions and creating “an illogical patchwork of which platforms are included and which aren’t”.
The filing also accused the ban of being “inaccurately” applied to Reddit because it’s already a platform “primarily for adults” and doesn’t have “the traditional social media features the government has taken issue with”.
For the government’s part, Health Minister Mark Butler said Reddit’s challenge “should come as no surprise” and criticised its argument about the ban restricting political expression.
“The idea that this is some action by Reddit to protect the political freedoms of young people is a complete crock … [It] is an action taken to protect the profits that they make at the expense of the mental health of young people, and we will fight this action every step of the way,” Butler said, per Herald Sun.
But the Reddit spokesperson hit back at those accusations, saying it is not trying to avoid complying with the ban and outlining the small proportion of current under-16 users.
“This case is not an attempt to avoid compliance … This is also not an effort to retain young users for business reasons. Unlike other platforms included under this law, the vast majority of Redditors are adults,” the team member said.
“Simply put, users under 16 are not a substantial market segment for Reddit and we don’t intend them to be,” they added.
In a statement, the Albanese government said the government stands “on the side of Australian parents and kids, not platforms”, while Reddit said it has “a responsibility to share our perspective and see that it is reviewed by the courts”.
Reddit’s mention of the ban limiting political speech — an implied right in the Australian constitution — was echoed in a separate High Court challenge last month.
That filing, fronted by two Aussie 15-year-olds and backed by children’s campaign group Digital Freedom Project, sought to alter the ban so that it doesn’t prohibit young Aussies from political speech online.
Lead images: Getty Images and Reddit
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