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Speaker 1: A lot of people are calling it social media's tobacco moment.

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Speaker 1: Big Tech spent years saying their platforms were harmless, while

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Speaker 1: the internal research showed they knew exactly what they were doing.

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Speaker 2: The jury agreed this is just the beginning.

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Speaker 1: A jury rule that meta platforms and Google are legally

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Speaker 1: responsible for harming a young user's mental health. This case,

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Speaker 1: it focused on platforms like Instagram and YouTube and the

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Speaker 1: claims they were designed to be addictive, especially for kids.

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Speaker 1: There was a plaintiff, a young woman said she became

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Speaker 1: addicted as a child and claimed that the apps contributed

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Speaker 1: to her depression, anxiety.

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Speaker 2: And other issues. And the jury agreed.

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Speaker 1: So both of those companies were negligent and they didn't

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Speaker 1: warn their users about the risks, and even their design

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Speaker 1: choices played a major role in the harm.

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Speaker 3: This is a really big deal and it got some

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Speaker 3: traction in the news media yesterday, but probably not enough

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Speaker 3: for how big of a deal this is.

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Speaker 4: Because now now this was a state level case.

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Speaker 3: This was not a federal case, so this is California,

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Speaker 3: so that kind of helps social media companies contain the

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Speaker 3: fallout a little bit. But what I think you can

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Speaker 3: expect going forward here is probably a flood of lawsuits

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Speaker 3: that are going to take place here because now they've

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Speaker 3: got some legal precedent, and that's a big part of this.

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Speaker 3: Keep in mind here, so much of what happens in

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Speaker 3: a courtroom is legal precedent. Okay, what happened when something

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Speaker 3: happened before, and what did it look like before, and

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Speaker 3: how did those judges rule at that point in time.

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Speaker 3: Social media company specifically, this is really one of the

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Speaker 3: first times where they've been held liable for these specific problems,

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Speaker 3: and so this is all new. So now you're going

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Speaker 3: to see a ton more lawsuits. I'm sure you'll see

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Speaker 3: some federal lawsuits. You know, you're going to see appeals

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Speaker 3: on this. But most of what this means going on

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Speaker 3: forward going to be great for lawyers. Lawyers are going

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Speaker 3: to do fantastic with all of this. But it's far

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Speaker 3: from settled, that's for sure.

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Speaker 1: So the financial outcome about six million dollars in total damages,

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Speaker 1: roughly four point two from Meta, one point eight million

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Speaker 1: from Google.

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Speaker 2: And you're right, this is a big deal.

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Speaker 1: It's like a test case for thousands of other lawsuits

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Speaker 1: that will most likely come and it really could change

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Speaker 1: how the tech companies design their apps going forward, they

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Speaker 1: they might try to make them be more difficult to

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Speaker 1: use or even uglier, less colorful, and maybe it will

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Speaker 1: even change push notifications.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, now, got to be clear about this.

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Speaker 3: This lawsuit was brought against Meta, which includes Facebook and Instagram,

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Speaker 3: and it was brought against Google, which operates YouTube as well.

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Speaker 3: Some of the other social media companies had already settled

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Speaker 3: with this plaintiff, so kind of keep that in mind.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, TikTok and Snapchat, they were involved earlier, and they

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Speaker 1: settled before the.

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Speaker 3: Trial, and so you're going to see a lot of that.

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Speaker 3: You're going to see more of these come to trial.

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Speaker 3: You'll probably see some of them settled by social media companies.

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Speaker 3: Some will go to a full jury trial, and we'll

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Speaker 3: see what happens as that rolls around.

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Speaker 4: But this is.

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Speaker 3: It's a really big deal, and we really, like we

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Speaker 3: talked about, this is all.

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Speaker 4: New, so we really don't know where it's going to

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Speaker 4: go from here.

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Speaker 3: But I love your big tobacco comparison, because if you

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Speaker 3: remember when all those settlements happened with the various states

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Speaker 3: back in the eighties and nineties, it was really that

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Speaker 3: one first settlement that took place, and then it was like, okay,

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Speaker 3: all the rest of the states saw dollar signs and

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Speaker 3: they were like, I'm gonna settle with Big Tobacco and

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Speaker 3: get me some of that sweet, sweet big Tobacco money.

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Speaker 3: And then Big Tobacco did that across the whole board.

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Speaker 3: It seems to me that that if there is a

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Speaker 3: path going forward, if you can make any prediction about this,

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Speaker 3: it seems to be that the Big Tobacco settlements in lawsuits,

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Speaker 3: that looks like it may be the most likely process

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Speaker 3: going forward here for these social media Well.

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Speaker 1: And think about what happened after the Big Tobacco moments.

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Speaker 1: They had to put warning labels on all of the

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Speaker 1: cigarette packages. So now is social media going to come

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Speaker 1: with a warning label?

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Speaker 3: You know what I mean? That's part of the settlement.

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Speaker 3: There's a ton of different things, like you just mentioned.

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Speaker 3: Not all of the settlements include strictly monetary settlements.

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Speaker 4: That's certainly a big part of it.

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Speaker 3: But there were some non monetary parts of that settlement

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Speaker 3: that went forward. But what Big Tobacco did at the

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Speaker 3: time another thing big is it settled with all these

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Speaker 3: states and basically insulated themselves.

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Speaker 4: From future lawsuits.

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Speaker 3: Now You don't have to feel sorry for Meta or

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Speaker 3: Google or any of these social media companies. They got

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Speaker 3: billions and billions of dollars and they can handle any

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Speaker 3: sort of payouts that come along with it. But it

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Speaker 3: will be interesting to see that as this moves forward.

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Speaker 3: If the social media companies just settle with all of

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Speaker 3: these states and the federal government, then they kind of

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Speaker 3: got I don't want to call it a free pass

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Speaker 3: going forward, but they have a path going forward.

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Speaker 1: So Meta says that they will appeal. Of course they will.

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Speaker 2: We will continue to defend ourselves vigorously, as every case

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Speaker 2: is different, and we remain confident in our record of

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Speaker 2: for detecting teams online.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, they've got more lawyers than most countries have citizens.

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Speaker 1: The verdict, though, does seem like it is a crack

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Speaker 1: in the dam and things most likely will change in

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Speaker 1: regards to social media because of this. More lawsuits, possibly

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Speaker 1: more regulations are expected because of this.

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Speaker 4: Well, yeah, you're right.

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Speaker 3: The social media companies, this is certainly a wake up

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Speaker 3: call for them because they see a huge risk to

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Speaker 3: their finances going forward. So at the very least you'll

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Speaker 3: probably start to see some small changes with social media

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Speaker 3: apps and they'll make some adjustments because they want to

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Speaker 3: insulate themselves from any potential risk going forward as best

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Speaker 3: they can, and that's certainly going to be part of this.

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Speaker 4: I do think that.

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Speaker 3: I do think that this is, like you said, the

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Speaker 3: crack in the dam. Look, these companies all have billions

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Speaker 3: of dollars, and with that they can buy the.

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Speaker 4: Best lawyers in the world. What I think they're.

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Speaker 3: Hoping for is, Okay, let's get this one on appeal,

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Speaker 3: and then let's shut down as many of these as

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Speaker 3: we can going forward so that crack in the dam

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Speaker 3: doesn't turn into the dam bursting and flooding, the little.

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Speaker 2: Taps opening up. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: There was another settlement that was reached over claims from

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Speaker 1: the Biden era about pressuring social media companies.

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Speaker 2: The lawsuit was brought by.

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Speaker 1: States like Missouri and Louisiana, and the claim was that

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Speaker 1: government officials pushed platforms like Facebook and YouTube to remove

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Speaker 1: or limit certain posts. Topics included things like COVID nineteen

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Speaker 1: and elections, and a settlement was reached in that the

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Speaker 1: government signed a ten year consent degree admitting that it

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Speaker 1: colluded with big tech to silence Americans on COVID on

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Speaker 1: the Hunter Biden laptop on the twenty twenty election. I mean,

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Speaker 1: that's that's pretty incredible that you've got the US government

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Speaker 1: signing a ten year consent degree admitting that it colluded

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Speaker 1: with big tech.

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Speaker 2: We all knew it was, and now they're admitting that

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Speaker 2: they did.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, this goes back to, you know, what happened during

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Speaker 3: COVID under the Biden era. And I think that part

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Speaker 3: of what we need to mention this is that this

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Speaker 3: is now a Trump run US government that of course

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Speaker 3: they're going to be more open to settling with this

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Speaker 3: and calling out how the Biden administration did all of

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Speaker 3: these things that were wrong. My guess is that if

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Speaker 3: you know, Kamala Harris won the election in twenty twenty

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Speaker 3: four and not Donald Trump, you probably wouldn't have seen

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Speaker 3: this settlement from the federal government. But this is a

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Speaker 3: big deal, and you know, we've got to keep bringing

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Speaker 3: it back to the fact that Elon Musk bought Twitter.

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Speaker 3: Opened that allowed somebody who was interested in the truth

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Speaker 3: to be able to buy one of these social media companies,

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Speaker 3: get in there and then release all of that communication

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Speaker 3: that took place between Twitter and the federal government, and

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Speaker 3: then that opened up to the other social media companies

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Speaker 3: sharing their communications as well.

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Speaker 1: So calling something misinformation doesn't make it unprotected speech. That

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Speaker 1: quote should be on a billboard outside every newsroom in America.

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Speaker 1: The government doesn't get to decide what's true. Calling something

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Speaker 1: misinformation doesn't make it unprotected speech.