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A paragraph from an email Reddit sent me presumably because I created my account in Australia:

> Users confirmed to be under 16 will have their accounts suspended under the new Australian minimum age law. While we disagree with the Government's assessment of Reddit as being within the scope of the law, we need to take steps to comply. This means anyone in Australia with a Reddit account confirmed to be under 16 will be blocked from accessing their account or creating a new one. Note that as an open platform, Reddit is still available to browse without an account.

“Confirmed to be under 16” sounds like they’re not trying very hard to identify them. But maybe I’m just spared any attempt at checking since my account is 12 years old.

I wonder if allowing browsing without an account is compliant with the letter or the spirit of the law—an account is not required for at least some forms of damage. But I’ve paid no attention to this law since I live in India now.





> I wonder if allowing browsing without an account is compliant with the letter or the spirit of the law

Haven't read the law, but I don't think they considered this, since the most popular social media sites make it very hard or impossible to browse without an account. I guess with adult content bans they do consider this, since people don't tend to make an account there.

And a very similar fun fact: You can't browse facebook marketplace if you're logged into an under 18 account, but can without an account (at least here in Hungary).

Somehow, things are going to work better when you're not logged in...


If you gave them an email address, it's possible they were able to verify you with 3rd party data brokers without your knowledge.



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