The Albanese government told the High Court that its social media ban for under-16s places only an indirect and modest burden on political communication. Reddit says the law is over-broad and was rushed through in 2024. The fight now turns on whether the ban reaches platform design or goes too far into speech rights.
Stephen Lloyd SC in High Court
Stephen Lloyd SC said rule making was part of the scheme from the outset, and that the ban targets endless scroll, likes and comments, personalised recommendations and push notifications. He said those features posed a credible risk of sleep issues, depression, anxiety and suicide ideation for under-16s.
He also said the government accepts the ban is an “effective burden” on the ability of under-16s to politically communicate, but says it is narrow, indirect and modest. The legal distinction matters because the government is defending a law that blocks accounts by targeting the platforms, not the political messages a child might try to send.
Reddit and Julie Inman Grant
Reddit challenged the ban on the ground that it impinges the implied freedom of political communication for under-16s, and it cited Julie Inman Grant’s 2021 description of an account ban as a “blunt tool.” That argument tries to cast the law as broader than needed, while Stephen Lloyd SC says it is “not a blunt instrument but … designed to minimise the adverse effects of these features”.
Reddit also allows users to read the site without an account, which sharpens the practical issue in this case: the dispute is not about whether teens can see information, but whether account-based features are the part the law is trying to remove. Stephen Lloyd SC said personalisation is limited to users who hold accounts.
10 platforms, 5 million accounts
Since the ban came into effect in December last year, more than 5 million user accounts the platforms understand belong to people aged under 16 across 10 platforms have been suspended or deactivated. The covered platforms include Snapchat, TikTok, YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, Reddit, Kick, X, Twitch and Threads. Only YouTube Kids has obtained an exemption for a teen-specific version.
That scale means the case is already shaping account access for a large group of teens, even before the High Court rules on the implied freedom issue. A reader affected by the ban should assume the current restriction is platform-level and account-based, not a filter on particular posts, because that is the design the government says it chose. For a broader sense of how social platforms can move attention and behaviour, see Caitlin Clark Wnba Viewership Impact.
The unanswered issue is whether the High Court will accept the government’s view that the ban is a modest burden rather than an unconstitutional one, and that decision will decide how far Australia can push age-based limits on social media account access. For a different example of how platform design can shape public attention, see Lewis Hamilton Charles Leclerc Ferrari Takeover.
