Meta has agreed to a $50 million payment program to settle a long-running proceeding in Australia related to misuse of information for political ad targeting, the country’s information watchdog OAIC announced Tuesday. The settlement concerns the 2018 Cambridge Analytica scandal, when data on millions of Facebook users was exfiltrated without their knowledge or consent by […]

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• I spent eight years living in Melbourne, which ranks among the best cities to live in.
• I loved Melbourne's diversity, cuisine, green spaces, and incredible shopping scene.
• But I struggled with its unpredictable weather and our high cost of living there.

I grew up on the Gold Coast on Australia's east coast and loved it.

But after living overseas for three years in Canada and London, my husband and I wanted to settle somewhere new when we returned to Australia.

Eventually, we moved to Melbourne in the southeastern state of Victoria. Melbourne consistently ranks among the world's top cities to live in based on things like healthcare, infrastructure, culture, and education.

Although I loved a lot about my life in Melbourne, it wasn't a perfect place for my family. Here's what I loved about living there — plus, a few parts I didn't care for.

Its cultural diversity has many perks

Melbourne is known for being one of the most multicultural cities in the world, and with that comes a whole lot of perks. I think the best one is the diversity of the food.

You can find just about any cuisine in Melbourne. If you want to eat Ethiopian cuisine one night, Afghani the next, and Cambodian the night after that, it's all there on your doorstep.

The city is surrounded by top-notch wineries, too, so it's also easy to access mind-blowing libations.

Its arts and sports scenes are outstanding

Melbourne is home to so many different galleries and theaters that it feels like the city has something for everyone.

In my opinion, its arts offerings are second to none. You could watch an opera, ballet, world-class comedy show, and live jazz performance all in one week.

Likewise, if you're into sports, Melbourne is the place to be. The city hosts many world-class sporting events, from the Australian Open to major cricket matches.

Melbourne has so much great shopping

Its central business district is filled with hidden laneway boutiques, historic arcades, and quirky stores you'll find nowhere else.

If you want to visit mainstream and big-name stores, Melbourne's bigger shopping centers have everything you need. Plus, there are open-air markets and farmers markets in most municipalities.

The inner fashionista in me also loved the city's secondhand-shopping scene. When we lived in Melbourne, I'd often spend weekends taking myself to one of the area's many vintage markets in search of treasures.

The green parks and leisure opportunities feel endless

Melbourne is dotted with beautiful parks in the heart of the central business district and surrounding areas.

I always enjoyed wandering the tree-lined pathways through the Fitzroy Gardens or walking around the Royal Botanic Gardens.

It felt special to be able to reconnect with nature amid the buzz of the cityscape.

On the other hand, I could never get used to the weather

Melbourne is known for its unpredictable climate — so much so that its frequent "four seasons in one day" even inspired a song.

It's not uncommon to experience drastic weather changes in the span of 24 hours — a warm, sunny morning could turn into a cloudy, cold, and windy afternoon.

One year, we had our heater running right up until mid-November — only a few weeks out from summer in Melbourne.

The urban sprawl took its toll on us

Living in Melbourne, we had to get used to driving long distances across the huge city. The Greater Melbourne area is over 3,800 square miles — for context, that's about 12 ½ New York Citys.

Many of its suburbs are pretty spaced out, and it can be time-consuming to visit friends and family just a few neighborhoods over.

Our house was on the south side and my sister lived in a leafy inner suburb called Elwood. A trip to see her and my niece often took us up to an hour in the car, so each visit felt like quite a time commitment.

We often struggled with the cost of living

Melbourne is not as expensive as Sydney, but I still found its cost of living to be quite high.

It's one of Australia's most expensive cities and placed in the top 50 most expensive cities in the world, based on Numbeo's most recent cost of living index.

Melbourne is also among the least affordable cities in the world for housing, based on Demographia's latest report assessing housing affordability in 94 major markets.

Although the property values dropped slightly earlier this year, the homes are still unaffordable for many.

We couldn't afford a home in Melbourne unless we moved far from the city center and deep into the suburbs, which wasn't our ideal location.

We enjoyed living in Melbourne — but it wasn't right for us in the long term

I'm so glad we had our time in Melbourne. We had two of our three kids there, met incredible people, and made lasting memories.

However, it wasn't right for us in the long run. We ended up moving to the small town of Bright, located in the foothills of the Australian Alps.

I miss the food, culture, and shopping in Melbourne, but life is a lot easier and cheaper for us in our small town.

• David Martin and Harry Shen are chefs from St Vincent's Care, a nursing home in Melbourne.
• The chefs understand that not all nursing homes have the budget, but they hope to raise standards.
• Their efforts come as nations worldwide are facing aging populations.

David Martin can still recall the conversation that changed his career path.

He was 25 and had spent the past decade working in the restaurant and fine dining scene. The hours were brutal — up to 16 hours a day — and he was on the verge of burnout.

His parents brought up the idea of working in a nursing home. They had a cousin who worked in that industry and suggested he try it.

"I told them, 'Why would I want to go to aged care? That's where people retire. My skills will go to waste,'" Martin recalled. Still, with an open mind, he decided to give it a shot.

He hasn't looked back since. Martin, now 35, is an executive chef manager at St Vincent's Care, a nursing home facility in Australia.

By his side is Harry Shen, 39, a senior head chef who also left the restaurant scene to try something different. They share the same vision: to raise the standard of food in aged healthcare.

Apart from working under top chefs, including Donovan Cooke, Shen had also picked up shifts at Australian nursing homes in the past. It was during that time that he noticed frozen food was often the norm.

So when he saw a job posting from St Vincent's for a chef to elevate nursing home food, it stood out.

"This is something I also wanted to do. To change things," he told Business Insider.

A premium offering

With Shen on board, Martin and his team worked during the pandemic to reinvent meal plans at one of St Vincent's healthcare centers in Kew, a suburb of Melbourne. The facility doubles as an aged care home and a hospital.

It's a more premium nursing home option. According to St Vincent's Care's website, a stay at a standard room in the facility costs 171 Australian dollars a night, or around $111 — almost double the basic daily fee for nursing homes in Australia, which is AU$63.57. The room has an ensuite toilet, and residents can access a café, cinema, and hairdressing salon within the facility.

A typical meal plan at St Vincent's is as follows: In the morning, residents are offered a continental breakfast and a tea cake of the day. For lunch, they have a main with a selected sauce, a starch, and two vegetables.

They end the meal with a sweet — warmed apple coconut strudels on some days and a green tea cheesecake on others — then round the day up with an afternoon tea snack and a generous dinner selection.

"We want to break the stereotype that aged care food is just a lump of food on a plate," Shen said.

Cooking for older residents does come with certain considerations. In particular, the chefs have to look out for residents who have dysphagia, a geriatric syndrome that affects swallowing. According to the Mayo Clinic, 10% to 33% of older adults have dysphagia and can face malnutrition as a result.

As such, the chefs provide a range of options for residents with different needs so that everyone — even those who struggle to swallow — can enjoy a hearty meal.

Nursing home food on the world stage

Martin and Shen wanted to show the world that nursing home food can — and should — be just as good as restaurant food.

In 2023, they decided to compete in culinary competitions together. After placing in several local competitions, they were approached to apply for the International Salon Culinaire, one of the world's top competitions for chefs. Previous winners of the competition include Gordon Ramsey and Michael Deane, a Michelin-star chef.

In March this year, the duo competed alongside top chefs worldwide over the three-day competition in London. Their dishes included coconut rice pudding with crème brûlée and seafood paella — food they can serve at a nursing home.

They emerged with two silver medals. But more than the accolades, they hoped that people would focus on the message they were trying to send.

The chefs are well aware that not all nursing homes have the same luxuries of staffing and budgets to prepare premium meals. Still, it's about setting a standard, they said.

"We want to make this industry better for now and into the future for our parents and grandparents to be respected in," Martin said.

"The main thing is the frame of mind. The chef can be creative, whether it's adding a bit more garnish for presentation or baking things in-house rather than buying," he continued.

A graying world

Shen and Martin's efforts come as nations worldwide are graying rapidly. In October, the World Health Organization called for an urgent transformation of care and support systems for older people. They projected that 1 in 6 people will be 60 or older by 2030. By 2050, this number will double to 2.1 billion.

In the US, the aging of the baby boomer generation means that the number of Americans ages 65 and older requiring nursing home care could increase by 75% by 2030, a recent report by the Population Reference Bureau found.

That's where the importance of food comes in.

Dr. Andrea Maier, a professor of medicine at the National University of Singapore's Centre of Healthy Longevity, told BI that raising food quality is especially important in nursing homes, where people are often at the final stages of their lives and need nutrition.

"If they don't have an appetite, they're losing muscle mass, and their health is deteriorating. So food needs to be fun." When food is fresh and well-plated, it gives residents motivation to eat, she added. "It's a double positive."

Then there are the emotional impacts of having a good meal.

"When you're in a care home, life is relatively unrushed. Dining is one thing that I think people look forward to other than engagement activities," said Wee Shiou Liang, an associate professor of Gerontology at the Singapore University of Social Sciences.

"So, that experience is even more important."

Martin and Shen now collaborate as co-creative directors on menus in St Vincent's homes across New South Wales and Victoria. They also manage and mentor chefs in the region.

Neither chef intends to return to the restaurant scene. Seeing their impact on their residents has moved them to stay.

Working in end-of-life care, Martin said each meal, pastry, or salad could be the last dish their residents eat.

"And that's big to me because if you can give comfort to someone when they're in serious pain, that is a present to them," he said.

"They don't need to remember your name. They don't need to remember the dish. But if at that moment they realize they were at ease and were comforted by you — that's the heart of it."

• Paul Chai is an Australian dad with two teenage sons — one is 18, and the other is 14.
• Chai says his younger son doesn't make friends quickly and Snapchat has helped.
• He's not convinced that a social media ban on young teenagers is what Australian parents want.

My 14-year-old son often rolls his eyes when I talk politics, but he has taken a keen interest in the topic lately, since Australia's government has decided to ban everyone in the country from accessing social media until they turn 16.

He got his own phone and started using social media earlier than I would have liked. It was 2021, he was 12, and Melbourne had been in lockdown for over six months. Melbourne's lockdown during the pandemic added up to 262 days, the longest cumulative lockdown in the world.

At the time, my wife and I decided that giving our son a phone seemed less harmful than months of isolation. Looking back, he has become quite attached to his device.

I recognize that social media can harm children. It can do the same to adults, to reputations, and to democracy. But what concerns me about my country's new policy, which was announced on November 21, is the lack of nuance and public discussion.

Losing the good with the bad

With his parents' help and guidance, my son now has what I consider a pretty healthy relationship with social media. He is online, but he also loves travel, gets out a lot with friends, runs in Parkrun, and plays drums in a couple of bands.

Online, he uses TikTok to discover new music, Snapchat to keep up with friends who live far away, and Signal to communicate with his grandparents who live abroad. He and I share a love of movies, and I enjoy how he is almost always ahead of me when it comes to the latest releases and entertainment news that he finds online.

We have a family group chat on WhatsApp that helps us manage our daily lives and allows us to share memes with each other.

My son is worried the ban will cut him off from far-flung friends. He has also talked about wanting to get his first job as soon as he turns 15 and wonders if he will face barriers to work communications. His older brother, who just turned 18, has been receiving his work shifts via social media chats for a few years.

Australia's government has said the social media ban will apply to Facebook, Snapchat, Reddit, Instagram, and X. Certain chat-based social media, including Messenger Kids, WhatsApp, Kids Helpline, Google Classroom, and YouTube, will not be banned. A decision on other messaging apps — like Signal, Discord, and Google Chat — has not yet been made.

"We know social media is doing social harm," Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said in the November media release. "This is a landmark reform. We know some kids will find workarounds, but we're sending a message to social media companies to clean up their act," he continued.

The government has announced that tech companies have one year to stop minors from logging into their social media platforms or risk up to 49,500,000 Australian dollars, or $32,000,000, in fines.

Albanese also said that neither underage users nor their parents will face punishment for violations.

But what I worry about is that the ban will sweep away all the positives of my son's online life in an attempt to tackle the negatives.

In June, just a few months before the social media ban was passed, Australia's eSafety commissioner, Julie Inman Grant, suggested that a ban on social media for kids may not be a cure-all. "Social media may also provide a range of opportunities that are protective of mental health, such as inclusion, social connection and belonging," the commissioner said, per The Guardian.

Grant's statement reminded me of my own son using social media to build friendships. It also made me think of the under-16 LGBTQ+ Australians and rural communities who have formed friendships and found acceptance online.

Is this what parents want?

While I have read a lot about Australian parents supporting this ban, it was only recently that I came across someone who agreed with it.

A father I spoke to, who was in favor of the ban, has a teenage daughter. He told me that she's obsessed with her phone and has even threatened to self-harm if it were taken away from her. He said that a nationwide ban will help him wean her off her online addiction.

Within my community, most parents I've discussed this with have said they don't want the government to control their parenting any more than they do their bodies.

My son doesn't make friends quickly, and many of his current friendships have grown stronger online. I don't see it as a replacement for their IRL get-togethers but as a complement.

Many of us who grew up without social media tend to romanticize our childhoods. While I did a fair bit of running around the neighborhood with mates as a kid, I also remember spending hours on the phone talking to girlfriends when I was a teenager.

I also had pen pals in America with whom I would spend hours corresponding; in-person communication is not the only way to form strong bonds.

• After visiting over 50 countries, I've learned which spots are great for escaping the cold winter.
• The Gold Coast in Queensland, Australia, is a great sunny spot for outdoor activities.
• I loved getting to experience the rich history and great beaches in Cape Town, South Africa.

Though many people take their big trips in the summer, the winter is a great time for a grand escape. I've always been someone who needs sunshine and warmth in my bones, so when winter rolls around each year, I plan a sun-soaked getaway to escape the cold.

I've traveled to more than 50 countries and have come across a few destinations offering a winning combination of stunning scenery, memorable experiences, and warm weather.

Here are four places I'd recommend checking out in the winter months.

The Gold Coast in Queensland, Australia, is sunny practically all year round.

With beautiful beaches and plenty of theme parks, the Gold Coast in Australia's Queensland is filled with things to do.

The Gold Coast has a sub-tropical climate with about 300 days of sunshine a year, so you're likely to encounter optimal weather for outdoor activities.

My favorite activity here was walking the trail from Tallebudgera Creek to Burleigh Heads, which goes through Burleigh Head National Park. I witnessed plenty of scenic ocean views along the way and often stopped to watch the surfers catch a wave.

If you have any interest in monkeys, Ubud in Bali, Indonesia, is the place to go.

If chill island vibes, monkey spottings, and melodious insect cacophonies appeal to you, Ubud is the place to go.

One of the top attractions is the Sacred Monkey Forest Sanctuary, home to more than 1,200 monkeys. You can explore ancient temples and meet the local long-tailed macaques in their natural habitat.

Just make sure you follow the rules and don't take any food or water bottles with you. I learned that lesson the hard way when one enormous monkey leaped on my backpack, giving me the fright of my life.

Another highlight for me was sitting on our veranda at the Green Field Hotel while overlooking the rice fields at sunrise and listening to the cricket orchestra.

My 8-year-old son and I sat out there one morning for about two hours while everyone else was asleep, chatting and enjoying the sounds of nature around us.

For a nice, easy nature hike, check out Campuhan Ridge Walk. I loved the scenery and took my 4-year-old with me. At one point, we stopped for a rest on the trail, and I looked up to find the biggest spider I'd ever seen lurking right above us — so keep your eyes peeled.

Bonito, Brazil, is an incredible snorkeling destination.

Bonito, which means "beautiful" in Portuguese, lives up to its name. The town is in the southern region of the Brazilian Pantanal, the world's largest tropical wetland. We stopped here on our way from Rio de Janeiro to Bolivia and fell in love with this hidden paradise.

Surrounded by lush forests, Bonito has amazing crystal-clear rivers where you can spot an abundance of fish while snorkeling.

During our trip, a massive thunderstorm rolled in above us when we were snorkeling. Watching the fish dart around underwater as raindrops landed on my back was such an awe-inspiring experience.

I loved exploring wineries and beaches in Cape Town, South Africa.

When it comes to epic coastal scenery, warm people, delicious food, and historical sites, Cape Town delivers.

One of our favorite spots was Groot Constantia, the oldest wine estate in South Africa. We had a mouth-watering lunch and did a wine tasting before learning about the history of Cape farmers at the Manor House Museum and walking through the grounds.

Cape Town's sun-soaked beaches were also postcard-perfect. The water can be pretty chilly, however, even in the summer. I only dipped a toe in, but if you enjoy a little cold-water therapy, feel free to dive right in.

Evan Duby had been a real-estate broker for just a few years when he decided to try an unusual method of selling a home. Five buyers were offering to pay similar amounts for one of his listings, a one-bedroom co-op unit in a leafy Brooklyn neighborhood with an asking price of $485,000. Rather than instructing the house hunters to submit their best offers and cross their fingers — as is customary in the US — Duby, with his client's permission, convened an auction. The buyers gathered on a conference call, where they signaled their willingness to pay as Duby raised the price in $5,000 increments. The home sold for $505,000. The sellers walked away satisfied, as did the winning buyers; the losing bidders were disappointed, but at least they knew where they stood. For Duby, it was a revelation.

"I don't know what possessed me," Duby tells me. "I was just sort of trying to see, is there a better way to do this?"

Trying to buy a house can feel like playing a game of poker in which one player holds all the cards. When the seller's agent tells you they're weighing another bid, or even 30 other bids, there's no way to tell if their claim is bluster or fact. When you lose, you may not know whether another $10,000 would have sealed the deal or if your insistence on an inspection tanked your chance. The nagging uncertainty isn't limited to buyers. Even in a hot market, a seller may leave the closing table unfulfilled. Did their request for "highest and best" offers actually yield the highest and best? It's hard to say.

It doesn't have to be this way. In Australia, about a third of homes sell via auctions that wrap up in a matter of minutes. Sellers get to see exactly how far buyers are willing to go to nab their dream home; buyers gain a clear picture of what it takes to win in the market. The openness and simplicity stand in sharp contrast to America's system, in which buyers write blind offers and then pray theirs meets the mark.

In the US, open auctions are usually reserved for swanky mansions or, more often, distressed properties facing foreclosure or extensive repairs. Mention an auction and people are likely to ask what's wrong with the house, or how lavishly expensive it is — or, simply, why? Real-estate agents haven't been too keen on making the process more transparent: Conventional wisdom says that asking buyers to submit their best and final offers will elicit the highest price. A FOMO-filled buyer, the thinking goes, may unknowingly blow the competition out of the water and deliver a windfall for the seller.

Despite all that, the idea of open auctions is more tantalizing than ever. Buyers and sellers are exhausted from years of opaque bidding wars — even these days, with the market substantially cooler than it was a couple of years ago, a lack of inventory means homes may still draw multiple offers. The real-estate industry is notoriously resistant to change, but recent class-action lawsuits have rewritten the rules about how buyers pay their agents and opened the door for more overhauls down the line.

Capitalizing on this feeling, a small cadre of companies are trying to bring versions of the Australian model to the States. They face an uphill battle. Duby, who recently started GoEx, a venture-capital firm focused on real-estate tech, is squarely in the ripe-for-change camp, but even he'll admit it's hard to shift the status quo. For roughly a decade after that first auction, he continued to broker deals the conventional way — for American sellers, Aussie-style auctions were a tough sell. But just because they haven't caught on in the States doesn't mean they're destined to remain a pipe dream. Duby imagines a not-so-distant future in which prequalified buyers bid for homes online as if they were picking up a rare watch on eBay.

"I don't see why we don't do that," Duby tells me. "I don't see how that doesn't help."

The man could be mistaken for a pastor: crisp gray suit, arms stretched toward the heavens, a crowd gathered before him. But he's here to sell real estate, not religion.

"Reflect on this absolutely fantastic opportunity in front of you," he booms in a distinctly Aussie drawl. "Not me — the house!"

With that, the auction begins. The property at stake is a quaint one-story home surrounded by a white picket fence in a suburb of Melbourne. The bidding starts at 1.26 million Australian dollars, but the price climbs as the auctioneer needles buyers to dig deeper: "You know you want to!" In the end, it sells for more than 1.5 million Australian dollars, or about $980,000. The whole thing takes less than half an hour.

I watched all this unfold on TikTok, where the account @AuctionReporters maintains a steady stream of these strangely addictive dispatches from Australia's real-estate market. Every now and then a video like this will go viral among Americans who balk at the ritual. An open auction is so vastly different from the secretive practice here in the States that it can break our brains — in a reply to a similar video on X, someone posted, "this is real???"

Real-estate auctions are a time-honored tradition in Australia, dating back more than 200 years to its days as a British colony. Their popularity varies based on location and the strength of the market: In boom times for home sales, more sellers turn to the gavel — a study by Kenneth Lusht, a professor at Pennsylvania State University, found that in some pockets of Melbourne, auctions accounted for as much as 80% of home sales during periods of particularly strong demand. A later study of sales from 2011 to 2019 in the states of New South Wales and Victoria, home to more than half of the country's population, found that 30% to 40% of listings went to auction during that period.

Auctions are risky, to be sure. Homeowners publicly disclose the terms and privately set a reserve price, or the minimum amount they'd accept — if the bidding doesn't reach that figure, the house doesn't sell. A study published in 2022 described such a house as carrying a "stench of failure" and found that it was more likely to sell at a discount later. An auction is basically impossible to stop once it's in motion, and sellers may not always be pleased with the results. But in times of healthy demand for homes, auctions can deliver benefits for sellers looking to ride out the frenzy. The study on the risks of auctions also found significant upsides: Successful sales tended to achieve prices that were 1.2% higher than comparable "private treaty" sales, in which sellers set an asking price and then wait for bids to roll in. A separate 2010 study of a broad swath of Australian home sales also found that auctions tended to yield higher selling prices than the alternative.

It's hard to imagine regular homes in the US trading hands this way. But a handful of companies have proposed a middle ground between the public spectacle of Australia's auctions and America's behind-closed-doors strategy. Final Offer, in Massachusetts, is one online marketplace that mediates auction-ish sales. A real-estate agent can list their seller's property on the platform, specify their asking price and their terms, and input a "final offer price" and specific terms of sale, or the amount a buyer can agree to pay in order to stop the bidding and win outright (similar to eBay's "Buy It Now" feature for auctioned items). When a buyer makes a qualifying offer, the clock starts ticking: The seller can choose to reveal the price and terms of any offer in contention, and interested buyers can try to exceed the bids before the window closes.

Here's a real example: Late this summer, the owner of 5818 Ipswich Road, a two-bedroom home built in 1951 in Bethesda, Maryland, listed it on Final Offer for $650,000. Buyer 1 submitted an offer of $658,125, and the seller agreed to take it if no better offers came in over the next three days. Other buyers soon entered the picture: Buyer 2 bid $661,500. Buyer 1 responded by going $3,000 higher. Over the next two days, Buyers 3, 4, and 5 threw their hats in the ring, and the price climbed above $800,000. At the eleventh hour, Buyer 6 emerged with a bid of $810,573. Then came the kicker: Buyer 1 made the "final offer" of $850,000, ending the bidding process. The entire saga is available for anyone to see on Final Offer's website.

In real estate, it turns out, a little transparency goes a long way. "You're giving buyers information they've never had before about what the seller really wants," says Tim Quirk, who cofounded Final Offer and serves as its chief strategy officer. In a typical sale, spurned buyers rarely walk away knowing what would have won — maybe with that knowledge they would have been willing to up their price or adjust their terms, perhaps waiving an inspection and agreeing to buy the home as is. And sellers, even when they take a deal, never quite know if someone might have gone even higher if they knew what they were up against. "What ultimately ends up happening is you get remorse on both sides of the table," Quirk tells me.

Final Offer is still small — Quirk said that a little more than 1,000 homes had sold on the platform in the two years since it started. Sellers on the site don't have to disclose the prices and terms of offers that come in and can opt to let buyers see only that other offers have been made. But Quirk tells me more than 80% of sellers choose to make the bids public.

SparkOffer, which last year was acquired by Auction.com, is another platform that aims to give buyers a sense of their competition. The site shows buyers how many offers they're competing with and is beta testing a new feature that assigns each bid a score based on its price and proposed terms; when other bids come in, buyers get to see how their score stacks up. They don't know the exact details, but they'll at least have a sense of where they stand and what it might take to climb the ranks. Sellers get to outsource the messy back-and-forth of negotiations to a platform that prods buyers to sweeten their offers — while preserving the possibility that a buyer may unwittingly overbid.

Neither Quirk nor Mike Russo, the founder of SparkOffer, thinks of his platform as an auction exactly. For one, home sales aren't just about price. When a buyer makes an offer, they can propose contingencies, or conditions that need to be met in order for the sale to close. They might request an inspection and ask the seller to make repairs if something comes up. They could retain the right to back out of the deal if an appraiser values the home lower than expected. The buyer could also ask for concessions, or some money back from the seller to cover stuff like closing costs. At the height of the pandemic-era homebuying frenzy, some desperate buyers threw caution to the wind and waived these contingencies — they were simply tired of losing. Bottom line, not all buyers are equal in the eyes of a seller.

To reach widespread acceptance in the US, an auction-esque model would have to let sellers choose the terms that work best for them. Most important, new marketplaces would have to convince American sellers — and their agents — to turn away from tradition. That kind of cultural shift is a tall order. "I don't think the American consumer is ready for auctions yet," says Rob Hahn, the CEO of Decentre Labs, a company he started in 2022 to bring online real-estate auctions to the masses.

But it's unclear who really benefits from the system we have. Buyers rarely get feedback that could help them make stronger offers in the future. Maybe as a seller you'll get lucky and a buyer with blinders will overpay for your house — but that approach is shortsighted, since most sellers have to turn around and purchase another home. The biggest beneficiaries, Duby tells me, may just be real-estate agents: When buyers and sellers are shuffled through this murky process, they'll look for a professional guide.

Australia isn't a perfect analog for the US. The country doesn't have a system of local databases where most homes are listed — as we do in the States with the multiple listing services — which makes it tougher for buyers to find homes. And while most sellers are represented by agents, most buyers are not. But still, hardly anyone is proposing we copy and paste this Australian tradition. The country's real-estate market does tell us, however, that another way is possible.

American consumers may not be ready for auctions yet, Hahn told me. "But it doesn't mean that it's not going to happen at some point."

James Rodriguez is a senior reporter on Business Insider's Discourse team.

• Australia's government approved a law that would ban social media for kids under 16.
• The legislation puts the onus on tech companies to keep children off their platforms.
• But how exactly companies are supposed to comply remains a big question.

Australia's government agreed to a sweeping social media ban this week in an attempt to protect young people from online harm, though exactly how tech companies like TikTok, Meta, and Snapchat would verify users' age remains a giant question mark.

The law gives tech companies one year to figure out how to keep children under 16 from using their social platforms or risk up to $32 million in fines.

The legislation is among the strictest of its kind as countries around the world increasingly target social media as the next frontier for child safety laws.

"The law places the onus on social media platforms — not parents or young people — to take reasonable steps to ensure these protections are in place," Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said in a November 21 press release.

The country's House of Representatives overwhelmingly supported the bill in a 102-13 vote on Wednesday, while Australia's Senate voted 34 to 19 in favor of the legislation on Thursday.

Some pornography websites and online gambling platforms have implemented ID checks in recent years to comply with a wave of legislation requiring online age verification in several US states, asking users to submit a selfie with a government-approved ID.

Australia's new law specifically bars social media companies from asking for users' IDs in an effort to protect privacy rights.

Julie Inman Grant, Australia's eSafety commissioner in charge of implementing the new law, told The New York Times that age verification technologies are improving daily and expressed faith in tech companies' ability to comply.

"They've got financial resources, technologies and some of the best brainpower," she told the outlet. "If they can target you for advertising, they can use the same technology and know-how to identify and verify the age of a child."

A government-commissioned trial looking into technologies that could be used for age verification, including biometrics, is underway in Australia and is set to deliver its report next summer.

Google and Meta had lobbied to delay the vote until the commission delivered its report. Snap Inc., which owns Snapchat, said "device-level age verification" was the best possible option to meet the requirements. Meanwhile, X CEO Elon Musk suggested the legislation was "a backdoor way to control access to the internet by all Australians."

Other critics of the legislation, including opposition lawmakers and some mental health experts, have expressed concern that the bill could have unintended consequences, especially for marginalized young people who have historically used social media to find online support.

Support for the legislation appears to be high in the country. A YouGov poll released ahead of the vote last week found that 77% of Australians backed the ban.

"This is a landmark reform," Albanese said. "We know some kids will find workarounds, but we're sending a message to social media companies to clean up their act."

The Australian government has withdrawn a bill that would have fined online platforms up to 5% of their global revenue if they failed to stop the spread of misinformation. The bill, which was backed by the Labor government, would have allowed the Australian Communications and Media Authority to create enforceable rules around misinformation on digital […]

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• I'm Australian but spend part of the year in New Orleans, and there's been some culture shock.
• American coffee isn't exactly my style, and biscuits are something totally different in the US.
• I easily got a driver's license in the US, which is good since there are drive-thrus everywhere.

Long before my first visit to New Orleans, I fell in love with the US city's historic culture. As an Australian, I never thought I'd get to call The Big Easy home, but now, I split my year living between the two countries.

Adjusting to life in New Orleans was an eye-opening experience, full of unexpected surprises and plenty of head-scratching moments.

Here are some of the biggest culture shocks I've encountered as an Aussie in the US.

I'm still getting used to American coffee

I never realized just how serious Australians, especially Melburnians, are about their coffee. I'm used to a certain standard and flavor.

Luckily, there are a handful of places that serve great coffee in the States — but I emphasize the word "handful."

After five years, it still astounds me to see Americans embrace sugary, syrup-filled drinks that barely resemble what I consider coffee.

Additionally, I can't believe drip coffee is still a thing here. It's a rarity where I'm from in Australia.

I thought it was way easier to get a driver's license in the US

In Australia, getting my driver's license was a drawn-out process involving learner's permits, over 120 hours of logged driving with a licensed driver, and a strict test.

In the US, getting my license felt like a breeze by comparison. I just had to sit in a theory class for a few hours and then spend eight hours behind the wheel with an instructor.

After that, my test was driving around the block, parking, using my turn signal, and boom, I had my license. The ease was both impressive and a little scary, considering they were letting me drive on what was recently the wrong side of the road to me.

The rules around getting licenses vary from state to state, and many Americans under the age of 18 have to undergo a more formal course/testing process. But I'm still shocked by how different my two experiences were.

I'm still getting used to linguistic differences around food

Navigating the language differences between the US and Australia, especially with food, is like playing a guessing game.

Imagine my surprise when I ordered biscuits for the first time in the US and got something more closely resembling scones. I was expecting what I now know to call a cookie.

I wonder if I'll ever stop ordering some chips and realizing too late that I should have said "fries." In Australia, both fries and chips are called chips — we just differentiate by saying "hot chips" for fries.

Things also get lost in translation with my accent

My Australian accent has caused some wild misunderstandings in the US.

From getting "Greary" written on my coffee cup instead of "Ree" to a drive-thru worker at Taco Bell thinking I was attempting to order pizza when I just said, "I have a mobile order," it's a daily game of "Guess What I Said."

It keeps things entertaining, to say the least, and it's also why I love being able to order via an app whenever I can.

Southern food has been a culinary awakening

New Orleans cuisine is an adventure for the taste buds. I've learned to embrace savory grits (I'd usually add sugar and eat them as porridge back home), and I've grown to love gumbo's rich flavors.

I fell in love with Southern food shortly after my arrival in the States. Still, walking into a whole new world of gastronomy was an adjustment.

There are some dishes — like white beans — that I just can't make my palate enjoy, and I have days when I long for the local fish-and-chip shop back home.

There's a drive-thru for everything in New Orleans

In New Orleans — and in many cities in the US — you can pull through the drive-thru for pretty much everything, from coffee shops to bars.

The strange looks I got from locals while taking a photo of a drive-thru bank for friends back home were amusing, and the concept of picking up a daiquiri to-go felt wild to me at first.

Now, I'm kind of hooked. It's the ultimate lazy convenience.

Americans use so much ice

Compared to what I'm used to in Australia, everything is supersized in the US. A "small" soda feels like a bucket to me.

However, I really don't understand why Americans love their drinks filled to the brim with ice.

Once you take that out, there's hardly any liquid, no matter how big the cup is.

Tipping culture is so confusing to me

The first time I came to the US, my biggest worry wasn't getting through immigration or having the right documents — it was tipping.

It sounds silly now, but I still find the practice of figuring out what percentage of my total I should leave behind confusing.

In Australia, tipping service workers isn't expected, and base wages are typically higher.