Campaign group calls on Musk, Google to fund High Court challenge

Ruddick said the Digital Freedom Project launched the Supreme Court bid after Google failed to follow through on its threat to sue over its social media ban on young people.

Ruddick, a member of the NSW Libertarian Party, said the intention to protect children online was correct but the ban would only make the problem worse.

“Like many cases of bans and censorship in history, this will have unintended side effects,” he said. “Kids will continue to have access to social media, but it will be an underground social media with no parental controls. So that’s the biggest problem. The second biggest problem is we fear this is the beginning of more censorship.”

Ruddick said it should be parents’ responsibility to be aware of what their children are doing online and educate them about the harms of social media.

“In today’s world, it is very important that children are cared for online, but… parents cannot delegate this to bureaucrats. This is a recipe for disaster,” he said.

Communications Minister Anika Wells said on Wednesday the government was committed to the ban.

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“We will not be intimidated by threats. We will not be intimidated by legal challenges. We will not be intimidated by big tech,” she said in parliament.

“Although we face threats and legal challenges from individuals with ulterior motives, the Albanian Labor Party government remains firmly on the side of parents, not the platforms.”

The Digital Freedom Project laid out its argument in a statement Wednesday.

“The Supreme Court has long held that our Australian Constitution implies freedom of communication on political and governmental matters. In this case, the government’s aim of protecting children from demonstrable online harm is legitimate and serious. A measure is constitutional only if it does not impose a greater burden on substantive political communication than is reasonably necessary to achieve that aim,” the group said.

“ [social media minimum age ban] It blocks an entire class of Australians from online spaces where news is consumed, representatives are engaged, campaigns are held and public debate takes place.”

Social media companies face fines of up to $49.5 million if they don’t take “reasonable steps” to block young people from platforms that use age-safe technology, but the eSafety Commission has not specified how they should do this.