Global communities forum Reddit could still go ahead with its mooted challenge of the Australian Government’s social media ban with a well-resourced High Court brief and legal team.

The Australian Financial Review reports today that Reddit has engaged top barrister Perry Herzfeld SC and legal firm Thomson Geer to run its case, according to its sources.

At the same time Reddit is saying it will comply with the ban for now.

Mr Herzfeld was in the news representing controversial US commentator Candace Owens who in October lost her bid to enter Australia.

One of the key arguments of that case was that the initial rejection by Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke went against Ms Owens’ “implied freedom of political communication”, an argument that is likely to be centerstage in this case.

In the Owens case the High Court ruled that the visa refusal did not infringe on the implied freedom of political communication. While the circumstances of that case were different (eg a visa refusal), the involved legal firms will no doubt be scurrying to look at what the High Court said.

Back in 2023 Mr Herzfeld was in a Federal Court advocating the retention of sanctions against Russian oligarch Olef Deripaska who then foreign affairs minister Marise Payne had banned from entering Australia due to his close ties with Vladimir Putin.

There is some circumspection around Reddit’s action. The AFR reports that there is no guarantee Reddit will go ahead with the challenge. The paper had not spoken with either Thomson Geer or Mr Herzfeld.

But Reddit’s action to take on the federal government would up the ante when compared to the High Court case already being prepared by the less-resourced NSW Libertarian Party MLC John Ruddick’s Digital Freedom Project and two 15-year-olds Noah Jones and Macy Neyland.

Speculation around the Reddit action comes a day ahead of the start of the ban, tomorrow on December 10.

There has been some confusion with some reports casting it as a total ban on all social media, rather than of 10 major social media platforms.

There has been reports of some teens already using VPNs (virtual private networks) to beat the ban, and of parents agreeing to allow their children to access their adult accounts but also reports of others teens preparing to migrate together to other platforms such as WhatsApp and Messenger for group chats.

Instagram and Snapchat like platforms Yope and lemon8 are among them. But eSafety commissioner Julie Inman Grant has warned that any platforms teens flock to may also be subject to age restrictions in future. Still, the idea of the age restrictions is to encourage teens to look elsewhere online at safer platforms for communicating with friends and building their online personas – and of course to enjoy more off-line time.

Discord, GitHub, Roblox, Steam and Steam Chat, and YouTube Kids are among the hundreds of existing platforms still available to under 16 users.

There has been a deathly silence from X’s owner, the normally outspoken Elon Musk, who has said little recently about the ban. In September, he called for the ban to be delayed, questioning whether it was lawful.

Musk at the moment is engulfed in a fight-to-the-death online battle with the European Union after it imposed a 120 million Euro fine over X’s blue-tick verified accounts policy. Musk has banned European Commission ads in retaliation.

Parents, teachers and teenagers themselves today will be making last minute preparations ahead of the ban’s official start overnight.