Reddit has filed a High Court challenge alleging that Australia’s social media restrictions are being applied to the company inaccurately.
The company is currently complying with the legislation but has said the new law “has the unfortunate effect of forcing intrusive and potentially insecure verification processes on adults as well as minors”.
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Reddit added the law was “creating an illogical patchwork of which platforms are included and which aren’t”.
In a statement, Reddit said the case was not an attempt to avoid compliance and it would continue to comply and engage with the government regulator.
“We believe there are more effective ways for the Australian government to accomplish our shared goal of protecting youth, and the SMMA law carries some serious privacy and political expression issues for everyone on the internet,” Reddit said in the court filing.
“This law is applied to Reddit inaccurately, since we’re a forum primarily for adults and we don’t have the traditional social media features the government has taken issue with.”
Reddit is one of 10 platforms included in Australia’s world-first social media ban for children under 16.
To avoid Australia’s new age limit laws, a platform must come under an exempt class, which includes messaging, email, voice or video calling, online games, health, education and professional development.
Reddit said “this is also not an effort to retain young users for business reasons”.
The social media platform said it did not “market or target advertising to children under 18”, saying that under-16s were “not a substantial market segment for Reddit and we don’t intend them to be”.
Reddit say the social media ban is applied inaccurately. (ABC News: File)
Ban is not ‘reasonably appropriate and adapted’
In its filing, Reddit says the government’s social media ban has not been well adapted to cater for all platforms affected.
The company says the only obligation imposed on platforms relating to the restriction of access to under-16s is to “take reasonable steps to prevent age-restricted users having accounts”.
Reddit argues the Amendment Act “does not impose any obligation on providers to restrict access to content on the site that is accessible without an account”.
It says the memorandum provided by the government states the “obligation would not affect user access to ‘logged-out’ versions of a social media platform”.
Reddit says it is one such platform where users can access content without an account.