Following Australia's outright prohibition on social media accounts for individuals under sixteen that officially came into force, the data suggested, at first sight, an unqualified triumph. Within a matter of weeks, some major platforms covered by the law removed approximately 4.7 million underage profiles. This showed a scale of exclusion no other nation had previously matched.

However, scrutinising those initial numbers reveals a far more chaotic reality. A study undertaken three months into the enforcement discovered that roughly 80% of Australian teenagers under sixteen continued to access platforms they were technically barred from. It emerges that age verification is surprisingly simple to circumvent; almost 20% of underage users created a fictitious profile to mask their identity and roughly 10% used private browsing to evade detection. Most faced some form of age check – usually just entering a birthdate or uploading a selfie – and overcame it without difficulty.

Opponents have seized on these troubling revelations. Some have described the legislation as a band-aid solution, arguing it only drives teenage engagement underground instead of tackling the addictive features that draw young users in to begin with. An online thread has voiced a distinct objection, maintaining that the rule overreaches, infringes on privacy and free speech, and wrongly lumps an online discussion forum in with standard social media.

In lieu of re-evaluating the policy, the Australian government has reinforced its firm stance, doubling the maximum penalty and threatening to sue five platforms it accuses of engineering noncompliance. Whether heavier fines can achieve what age verification alone could not remains an open issue. Policymakers in other countries, also considering comparable measures, are observing very intently, knowing that a failure could undermine their respective efforts.

(Adapted from https://www.brookings.edu)

Res nullius (Latin for "nobody's property") refers to assets where no person or organisation holds the legal authority to limit entry, allowing them to be on a first-come, first-served basis. These unrestricted resources have led to an issue known popularly as the exhaustion of communal property.

The complications arising from open-access assets are clearly exemplified by the fate of the American bison. Throughout the early history of North America, bison populations remained abundant; unrestricted access for hunters presented no significant problem. [I] Frontier people requiring hides or meat could easily acquire whatever they needed; the aggressiveness of any single hunter did not negatively affect the time or effort expended by others. When there was no scarcity, efficiency was not threatened by open access.

Over time, however, demand for bison increased and scarcity became a significant concern. As the hunter population expanded, each additional unit of hunting activity increased the time and effort required to produce a specific yield. With multiple hunters sharing nonexclusive property rights to the animals, the resulting allocation proved inefficient. Without exclusive rights, individuals could continue to exploit the resource until profits were driven down to zero. [II]

Why does this occur? Unlimited access destroys the incentive to conserve. An individual hunter who could bar others from hunting a specific stock would have every reason to keep the herd at an efficient level, because the benefits of restraint would return in the form of lower costs and larger yields in the future. An individual hunter exploiting a common resource, on the other hand, has no such incentive: any benefit derived from personal restraint is seized, at least in part, by other hunters. Restraint becomes an act of charity toward strangers. [III]

Two key lessons are drawn. When sufficient demand exists, unrestricted access will lead to the overexploitation of shared resources. [IV] The scarcity rent, representing the value generated specifically by the resource's rarity, is dissipated; since no one appropriates it, the value is lost. In effect, what is owned by everyone is protected by no one; and whatever remains unprotected eventually tends to vanish.

(Adapted from Environmental Economics and Policy)

PARKING REGULATIONS UPDATE

All residents are reminded that, (1) __________ of next Monday, vehicles parked on the street will be clamped. Persistent offenders will be brought to (2) __________ and may pay a heavy fine.

(3) __________ of you is expected to have received a parking permit by now, and you must present it to our security personnel whenever you use the community parking lot. (4) __________, it is advised that you should park your vehicles at home since the parking space is limited.

This strict rule is essential to create a (5) __________ environment than before. We hope this improves traffic flow in the neighbourhood. If any question (6) __________, call our hotline before Friday. We appreciate your understanding regarding this important change in policy.

GIVE BLOOD, GIVE HOPE

If it were not for regular donors, blood banks nationwide (1) __________ struggling to meet demand within weeks. This is especially true during holidays when donation (2) __________ typically fall.

To refill our national supply which is (3) __________ out, we would like to invite volunteer donors to come to our site anytime at your convenience next Sunday. Though the process is straightforward, completing the (4) __________ paperwork does require some time. Therefore, we will get our staff (5) __________ you through every step to ensure comfort.

Each blood unit donated can save up to three lives. The sooner patients receive the blood they need, the more chances of (6) __________ they will have. Don't hesitate; sign up now on our website.

A wealthy family, grown over the generations to include thousands of brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, and cousins, owned 100% of every stock in the country. Each year, they reaped the rewards of investing: all the earnings growth that those thousands of corporations generated and all the dividends that they distributed. Each family member grew wealthier at the same pace, (1) __________. Their investment had compounded over the decades, creating enormous wealth, because the family was playing a winner's game.

But after a while, a few fast-talking consultants arrive on the scene, and they persuade some "smart" cousins (2) __________. These consultants convince the cousins to sell some of their shares in the companies to other family members and (3) __________. The consultants handle the transactions, and as brokers, they receive commissions for their services. The ownership is thus rearranged among the family members.

(4) __________. Why? Because some of the return is now consumed by the consultants, and the family's share of the generous pie that the industry of that country bakes each year - all those dividends paid, all those earnings reinvested in the business - 100% at the outset, starts to decline, simply because some of the return is now consumed by the consultants.

To make matters worse, while the family had always paid taxes on their dividends, some of the members are now also paying taxes on the capital gains they realise from their stock-swapping back and forth, (5) __________.