Reddit and rights group challenge Australia's under-16 social media ban in High Court
Two-day hearings begin Tuesday as challengers argue the ban violates political communication rights and is an ineffective blunt instrument.
What to know
- Australia's landmark under-16 social media ban—affecting 10 major platforms—faces its first major legal test this week in the High Court, with Reddit and a rights group arguing it violates political communication freedoms.
- Challengers contend the ban is an ineffective blunt instrument that prevents teenagers from accessing news, political information, and engaging with youth wings of major parties; government defends it as necessary to protect children from algorithmic harms.
- The Digital Freedom Project faces a procedural hurdle: after original teen plaintiffs withdrew due to concerns about legal costs, the government is challenging whether the advocacy group has standing to bring the case.
- Over 5 million accounts have been suspended under the ban since December 2025; polling shows the ban is popular with Australian voters, despite industry and libertarian opposition.
The ban is justified and necessary to protect children from social media toxicity and radicalization.
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“Social media is toxic. It is used to lie, to push disinformation, and to radicalise children. Gaming sites should have also been banned.”
Cpt_Riker · Reddit ↗
The ban's effectiveness is unproven; the government should demonstrate it actually reduced depression, anxiety, and suicide before claiming success.
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“The reasons cited for the ban included depression, anxiety, eating disorders/dysmorphia and suicide. We want to know if those things actually declined after the ban was implemented since that's the yardstick being used to measure success.”
Jealous-Hedgehog-734 · Reddit ↗
“We shouldn't be using the resources and money of these social media platforms to try to avoid fines from our government. They should be using this money and resources to try to get rid of the predators and harmful content out there.”
Noah Jones, Former plaintiff, teenager · BBC News ↗ · Oct 31
John Ruddick NSW Libertarian MP, Digital Freedom Project leadReddit Social media platformDigital Freedom Project Digital rights advocacy group
Anthony Albanese Australian Prime MinisterAnika Wells Australian Communications MinisterNoah Jones Former plaintiff, teenager affected by the ban
How it unfolded 1 development · click the chart to see its coverage articlespostscomments
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background
High Court hearings on social media ban challenges begin — Two days of hearings commence on Tuesday and Wednesday. The Digital Freedom Project argues the ban violates the implied freedom of political communication and robs under-16s of their right to free communication. Reddit argues that online platforms are a 'common source of news and political information' and that teenagers would be unable to engage in political discourse or contact youth wings of major parties.
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Government reveals over 5 million accounts suspended under the ban
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese reports that more than 5 million accounts across the 10 platforms have been suspended since the ban took effect nearly 11 months ago.
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first by Sky News, 9d ago · also Reuters, France 24, The Canberra Times, Guardian, Guardian Media, ABC Australia +16
20 more headlines
- Reddit blasts 'inept' Australian social media ban as challenge airs in court Reuters · 9d ago
- High Court hears bid to overturn Australia social media ban France 24 · 9d ago
- High Court to test under-16s social media ban The Canberra Times · 9d ago
- Reddit and libertarian group challenge Australia’s under-16s social media ban in high court The Guardian · 9d ago
- High Court to hear challenge to under-16s social media ban ABC Australia · 9d ago
- Australia rushed through ‘ill-thought-out’ under-16s social media ban, Reddit argues as high court challenge begins The Guardian · 8d ago
- Australia’s social media ban ‘ill-thought-out’, Reddit argues in high court challenge Mastodon · 8d ago
- Australia’s High Court hears bid to overturn under-16s social media ban Al Jazeera · 8d ago
- Reddit calls Australia's under-16 social media ban 'poorly designed, ineffective' in court challenge Anadolu Agency · 8d ago
- Major test for Australia's social media ban begins in High Court BBC Asia · 8d ago
- Australia social media teen ban a 'modest' step, says government in top court challenge Reuters · 8d ago
- Reddit blasts Australia’s ‘inept’ social media ban as court challenge begins NBC News · 8d ago
- Australian Court Hears Challenge to Social Media Ban NYT Asia Pacific · 8d ago
- Australian court hears challenges to social media ban RTE News · 8d ago
- Australia's social media ban challenged by Reddit and rights group in court Sky News · 8d ago
- Australia's highest court hears challenges to social media ban for children Japan Today · 8d ago
- Legal challenge to Australia's social media ban to start in High Court Mastodon · 7d ago
- Australia argues in court that social media ban is needed to protect children's brains Philadelphia Inquirer · 7d ago
- Australia’s social media ban faces high court challenge New Scientist · 7d ago
- Australia’s Teen Social Media Ban Faces Constitutional Challenge Breitbart · 7d ago
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Australská vláda v roce 2024 rychle zavedla zákaz používání sociálních médií pro osoby mladší 16 let. Tento krok byl kritizován jako "špatně promyšlený" a příliš široký. Společnost Reddit, která je jednou z nejnavštěvovanějších webových stránek na světě, podala žalobu na vládu, protože tvrdí, že tento zákaz omezuje právo mladých lidí na politickou…
2 more of the top 3 · 27 posts in this stretch
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“From the river to the sea” and “globalise the intifada” likely fall under existing hate speech laws that have yet to be enforced en masse due to fear of backlash or lack of resources. This demonstrates that it’s not anonymity protecting protestors but the power of the people since it’s not hard to find people online saying those statements. In…
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Personally i'm not a fan of giving e-Safety more and that CIA non-Australian more power. Australian Adults shouldn't have to give their personal ID, biometrics or banking information to have a Youtube or Facebook account. A lot of people don't know this but Julie Inman Grant has spent MILLIONS of taxpayer money over legal fees for several years…
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background
Reddit launches separate High Court challenge to the ban — Reddit files its own constitutional challenge arguing the ban has serious implications for privacy and political rights, to be jointly heard with the Digital Freedom Project case.
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Teen plaintiffs withdraw from Digital Freedom Project case — Noah Jones and Macy Neyland are withdrawn as lead plaintiffs, with concerns that they might face legal costs if the case is lost. The Digital Freedom Project continues as plaintiff with some members aged 13–15.
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background
Australia's social media ban for under-16s takes effect — A ban requiring 10 platforms—Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, Reddit, Snapchat, X, Kick, Threads, and Twitch—to prevent under-16 account access goes into effect. Platforms risk fines up to A$99 million for serious or repeated breaches.
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background
Digital Freedom Project files constitutional challenge — The Digital Freedom Project, led by NSW MP John Ruddick, files a High Court challenge a few weeks before the ban starts, initially with teenagers Noah Jones and Macy Neyland as lead plaintiffs.
Also covered reported alongside — the timeline has no entry for these yet
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first by The Guardian, 7d ago · also Al Jazeera
1 more headline
- Australian government defends social media ban for under 16s in court Al Jazeera · 7d ago
and 1 smaller piece
What people are saying 21 voices from 1 site · best of 27 · verbatim
- Nov 5
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Existing used with long active account history can most of the time just be put straight into the adult category, but any new account, age verification is needed. New accounts of a say freshly turned 16 year old won’t have all this account history to use for auto age checks It has the side affect of making a large part of the internet going “I…
- Nov 4
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My nerdy gay adhd ass is wondering how you could ping so many things incorrectly in such a short span of time.
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"I have lost the argument, and now I will run away while proclaiming my superiority!" You lost so bad you might as well be a Texas Republican mate. It's laughable. Anyone reading this - no one will after this much time - will see what was actually written down, and by who.
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If you know someone who is with Commbank. You can use their debit card to bypass the credit card check. I used my mums to verify it when I last stayed at her place and had no issues with uit
- Nov 3
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if they are competent to wield it currently Sorry, I don't think they are. It's the most secretive government Australia has ever had. I don't even trust them to fix the sewerage at the golf course.
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Absolutely. People used to actually be able to talk about politics around the kitchen table even if they voted for separate parties. There might be a no politics rule, but it wasn't enforced nearly as much as it is now, and people didn't get as fired up about it back then as they do now. Although for sure people did get pissy over it back then…
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Arguably parenting has not worked all that well for the last few thousand years. There's barely any imagined crime that humanity hasn't committed. One historian wrote that he couldn't find a single case of a childhood before the 20th century that wouldn't be considered child abuse today. We live in a world that's still extremely segregated over…
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Good luck getting that reality to hit home on this sub. I remember when the Liberal party implemented web filtering. Stephen Conroy was almost crucified by the left (rightly so). This was back in the day when there was a lot more heinous content on the open web.
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Because discussions shouldn’t be dependent on something said 10 years ago or even 2 weeks ago. People can change their mind and learn. Doxing someone’s past messages doesn’t add to the discussion, it just fuels trolls to attack on unrelated grounds across subs and threads. I’m here in this thread to discuss this specific topic, not background the…
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With how Facebook paid out the lawsuit in the US to stop it going any further... nah under 16's should not be on social media
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The no political adds the day or so before voting is currently only for print, TV and radio. You will notice just before an election there is tons of political adds online.
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No, no, I don't think they're stupid enough to "have an ass-backwards approach to encryption.". The government(S) hire experts to quantitatively calculate exactly how much they can take away, exactly how much public resistance each step will generate, and exactly where the minimum threshold for mobilisation actually is. And if they are genuinely…
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If we could block kids from harm without invading the privacy of EVERYONE, that would be nice. Since ya can't, throw it in the bin.
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That's a whole lot of words to say you didn't read their comment, therefore missing the point entirely. You're handing over ID that can be used against you in ways you have not yet conceived of. It's within our best interest to be skeptical of parties viewing and storing our ID since data breaches are a common occurrence. Even from companies and…
- Nov 2
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But you did google it for me? Lol If you can’t explain something in your own words then it’s pretty likely that you don’t understand it. Goodbye :)
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It's not my job to Google basic concepts for you. https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2025/12/10-not-so-hidden-dangers-age-verification Goodbye.
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Social media is toxic. It is used to lie, to push disinformation, and to radicalise children. Gaming sites should have also been banned. It is well known that the far right use them to groom, and radicalise, children. This is what the opponents of the media ban are fighting for.
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This explains how people kept commenting on my posts days and sometimes weeks after posting it. I use Old Reddit so I was used to after 1 day the post is off the front page there should be no more comments was weirding me out suddenly having replies to stuff days after.
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Reddit have had an algo for years though? “Because you liked this other sub”, “because you liked a post from this other sub”, etc. That’s still an algorithm.
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Let's be clear, this is a popular opinion, pretty much ever single piece of polling had strong pretty support explicitly for the social media ban (not just vague motherhood statements designed to be popular). A bit part of why the political opposition to the ban was so ineffective is that it was delusional about it's position in terms of…
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The reasons cited for the ban included depression, anxiety, eating disorders/dysmorphia and suicide. We want to know if those things actually declined after the ban was implemented since that's the yardstick being used to measure success.