The High Court of Australia will consider whether limiting political engagement of children outweighs the harm done by social media platforms, as hearings into challenges against the under-16s social media ban begin.
Children under the age of 16 were booted from 10 digital platforms in December 2025.
The Digital Freedom Project announced it had launched proceedings in the nation’s highest court in a bid to overturn the laws in the weeks leading up to the ban.
A second challenge emerged days later from US-based social platform Reddit which argued it raised issues on privacy and political expression, but also for inaccurately characterising the platform to be included in the ban.
The government acknowledged concerns the bill impinged on the rights of children at the time but stated the ends justified the means, which children’s rights expert Noam Peleg said is the real test.
“If the court reaffirms its own jurisprudence that Australians do enjoy the right to political communication and to political expression, then the question is whether this right extends to both children and to online platforms,” Associate Professor Peleg told AAP.
“And if the answer is yes, then the question is whether the ban …is a proportionate measure.”
Australia has ranked poorly on the global stage according to the annual KidsRights Index, which parked the nation at 142 out of 194 countries due to the stifling environment for expanding children’s rights.
It’s a sentiment echoed by Assoc Prof Peleg who said children should not be discounted in political debate just because they cannot vote.
“When it comes to children, instead of educating them, which is usually what we do with children, we just tell them …you are out,” he said.
“They are removed from public spaces. They are removed from their ability to exercise their own citizenship. And the court needs to contemplate with that.”
The beginning of the High Court hearings coincides with a separate push by the Labor government to pass its new digital duty of care bill, which would place the legal responsibility on tech platforms to proactively secure their systems rather than relying on users to report harms.
“We can’t say the online world only is harmful to children …removing them completely with no ability to do anything online, that’s something the court needs to pay attention to,” Assoc Prof Peleg said.
The effectiveness of the ban has been frequently called into question with research in June suggesting as many as 80 per cent of people under 16 were still using social media.
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