Court challenges to Australia’s age checks for social media consolidated

Australia will have to defend the constitutional validity of its online age check for social media access in a single, consolidated court case.

The High Court of Australia has combined a legal challenge from Reddit arguing that it is not a social media platform, and that the country’s online age restrictions violate its constitution, with another from Digital Freedom Project.

Reddit uses Persona biometrics for facial age estimation and age verification, originally deployed to comply with UK regulations.

Digital Freedom Project is run by opposition politician John Ruddick, a Libertarian representative on New South Wales Legislative Council, and filed its lawsuit with two 15-year-olds as named plaintiffs.

Judge Stephen Gageler instructed each plaintiff to coordinate on special cases on the legal validity of the Social Media Minimum Age, which will be settled before looking into whether Reddit falls under the law’s scope.

The judge said “that pleadings in the Reddit matter are appropriate to crystallize the issues between the parties in that case, to guide the preparation of the special case and to coordinate the presentation of the two proceedings to ensure that there is nothing that falls between the gaps,” according to MLex.

Reddit counts as a social media platform under Australian law if its “sole” or “significant purpose” is “enabling social interaction between two or more end-users.” Reddit argues that the criteria does not apply because the interaction it facilitates is not social.

In the words of The Conversation, “These are not strong arguments.”

The company has been given until February 6, 2026 to file a draft special case and a statement of claim. The government must file a defense by March 13. Reddit has until April 10 to file and serve any special case it agrees to with a parallel timetable for the Digital Freedom Project’s suit.

The Atlantic takes a higher level view of the age assurance rules, asking “how Australia will know whether the ban works.”

The eSafety Commissioner’s Office run by Julie Inman Grant has set up a scientific advisory group to evaluate the impact of the age-gates. Measuring whether it is effectively keeping children off of social media is the easy part. Establishing statistical causality for thankfully rare incidents like child suicide are another matter altogether.

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age verification  |  Australia  |  Australia age verification  |  children  |  lawsuits  |  Reddit  |  social media