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Australia's highest court hears challenges to social media ban for children · Best of: Features

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  Australia highest court hears challenges to social media ban for children. This
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  article is being read by an automated voice generated by Everlet. Melbourne,
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  Australia The AP Australia's highest court on Tuesday began hearing constitutional challenges
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  to the nation's world first legislation banning children younger than sixteen from
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  popular social media platforms. They
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  seven high court judges began hearing two challenges to the ban that
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  took effect last year on young children holding accounts on Facebook, Instagram,
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  Reddit, Kik, Snapchat, Threads, TikTok, X, YouTube, and Twitch. The first challenge
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  was brought by Sydney-based Rights Group Digital Freedom Project. They claim the
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  law improperly robs millions of young Australians of a right to freedom
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  of political communication implied in Australia's constitution. The second challenge comes from
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  US online forum Reddit, which argues the ban raised issues of privacy
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  and political expression. Reddit also argued that it should not have included
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  it in the same category as other banned social media platforms. The
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  two day hearing will end Wednesday. Teens removed as plaintiffs in a
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  case. Two Sydney fifteen year olds, Noah Jones and Macy Nayland, had
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  been included as plaintiffs when the Digital Freedom Project case was filed
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  last year, but the pair were removed over concerns they could be
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  held liable for legal costs should the case fail. Noah Jones who
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  is now sixteen and no longer subject to the ban, told reporters
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  outside court the legislation amounted to a government step toward censorship. I
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  believe that this is just a stepping stone further and further to
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  censorship, and I think they've masked it as this form of child
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  safety, Noah Jones said but in the end it's really just them
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  trying to slowly gain more and more control of what young people
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  see as they will be voters, he added. Noah's mother, Rendon A.
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  Jones, told reporters she was fiercely afraid of problems social media presented
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  to young people, but the government's legislation missed the mark. She said
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  the ban would leave young people ignorant about safe online interaction and
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  The dangers that came with being on social media. I want my
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  son to grow up into a young Australian man who is resilient,
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  who is responsible online, who can identify the dangers, and who is
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  able to vet some of these things, the mother told reporters. Australian
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  government plans to strengthen social media ban laws The government announced in
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  June it was considering strengthening laws behind the ban. This followed evidence
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  that young children were continued to remain on social media. The ten
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  targeted platforms face fines of up to 49.5 million Australian dollars,$34.5
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  million if they fail to take reasonable steps to remove the accounts
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  of young children. A study published in the British Medical Journal in
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  June found eighty-five percent of a group of Australian twelve to seventeen
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  year olds continued to use restricted platforms. The government's own research released
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  in March showed seven in ten underage children continued to hold accounts
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  on Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, and TikTok since December. Communications Minister Anika
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  Wells was in court for the proceedings, and later told reporters the
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  laws were under attack. We are here to defend it a fundamental
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  tenet of Australian democracy, which is an Australian's right, and particularly an
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  Australian child's right, to be free from harm, and we seek to
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  defend it that from sustained ideological attack, well said.