Reddit filed a lawsuit on Friday asking Australia’s High Court to overturn the country’s social media ban for children under 16 as well as its inclusion in it, calling the law an infringement of free political expression.
The US firm, which has operations in Australia, called the ban “invalid on the ground that it infringes the implied freedom of political communication”, in a court filing signed by its lawyers, Perry Herzfeld and Jackson Wherrett.
The filing named the Commonwealth of Australia and Anika Wells, the communications minister, as defendants. Ms Wells has said the government was “confident” it would win in court.
Two days earlier, the country went live with the world’s first legally enforced age minimum to access social media.
Reddit and nine other platforms, including Meta’s Instagram, Alphabet’s YouTube and TikTok campaigned against the measure for more than a year before ultimately saying they would comply.
The platforms are required to bar underage users or face a fine of up to AUD$49.5m (£24.6m), while children and their caregivers do not face punishment.
Platforms say they are using measures like age inference, based on a person’s online activity, and age estimation, based on a selfie, to follow the rule.
Anthony Albanese, Australia’s prime minister, claimed his government had the country’s backing “because they know how important it is to give kids more time to just be kids – without algorithms, endless feeds and online harm”.
“This is about giving children a safer childhood and parents more peace of mind,” he said on Wednesday.
But the law “carries some serious privacy and political expression issues for everyone on the internet”, Reddit said in a statement published alongside its court filing. “So, we are filing an application to have the law reviewed.”
This lawsuit marks the second High Court challenge to the ban. Last month, two teenagers backed by an Australian libertarian state politician from New South Wales filed a challenge which will be heard in Feb 2026.
Noah Jones, one of the teenagers named in that case, has called the government’s legislation “lazy” for banning children rather than stopping the paedophiles and bullies that make the platforms harmful.
“If they put all this effort into fixing social media, then we could make it safe for not only under-16s, but everyone,” Noah told The Telegraph.
The 15-year-old warned that the measure could backfire, as children would turn to other less-regulated apps instead.
“Where do you think everyone’s going to go?” Noah said. “Straight to worse social media platforms – they’re less regulated, and they’re more dangerous.”
Reddit has no plans to join other parties challenging the ban, a person familiar with the situation said.
