{"id":341915,"date":"2025-12-11T23:50:08","date_gmt":"2025-12-11T23:50:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/341915\/"},"modified":"2025-12-11T23:50:08","modified_gmt":"2025-12-11T23:50:08","slug":"reddit-files-legal-challenge-against-social-media-ban-for-under-16s","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/341915\/","title":{"rendered":"Reddit files legal challenge against social media ban for under-16s"},"content":{"rendered":"

Reddit will file a court challenge alleging that Australia’s social media restrictions are being applied to the company inaccurately.<\/p>\n

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”.<\/p>\n

The day the snap streaks ended \u2014 for some teens, at least<\/a><\/p>\n

After a year of waiting, Australia’s world-leading laws to block kids from accessing social media are officially enacted. But the teens they’re meant to impact say not much has actually changed.<\/p>\n

Reddit added the law was “creating an illogical patchwork of which platforms are included and which aren’t”.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

“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.<\/p>\n

“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.”\"screen<\/p>\n

Reddit say the social media ban is applied inaccurately. (ABC News: File)<\/p>\n

Reddit is one of 10 platforms included<\/a> in Australia’s world-first social media ban for children under 16.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Reddit said “this is also not an effort to retain young users for business reasons”.<\/p>\n

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”.<\/p>\n

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