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Speaker 1: This is a podcast from WOR.

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Speaker 2: Here again is Larry Menty with the WOR Saturday Morning show.

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Speaker 2: Welcome Back, Good News, TikTok doesn't appear to be a

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Speaker 2: threat to America anymore. Rich DeMuro, host of Rich on

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Speaker 2: Tech on WOR, explains, Rich, I'm sure you know about Discord.

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Speaker 2: Is it something that parents need to know about?

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Speaker 3: Well, yeah, I mean if you have kids and they

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Speaker 3: play video games online, they're probably begging you to let

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Speaker 3: them on Discord if you don't give them free rein

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Speaker 3: online like I don't do for my kids. But so

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Speaker 3: Discord is not inherently bad. But the problem is it

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Speaker 3: is a chat app, and it's a group chat app,

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Speaker 3: which means you know a lot of people are on there,

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Speaker 3: a lot of people are saying things, and they're usually

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Speaker 3: built around servers, and servers are pretty much little clubs

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Speaker 3: or communities that you join once you get on Discord.

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Speaker 3: So these servers can be about a video game, they

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Speaker 3: could be about something in real life, it could be

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Speaker 3: about any organization that you can think of can have

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Speaker 3: a Discord server and then people chat inside there. So

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Speaker 3: the problem is that it's not really monitored. That's the difference.

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Speaker 3: Because a lot of this stuff happens in private. It

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Speaker 3: is private messages between individuals or on groups, and so

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Speaker 3: that is kind of the big issue with this. But

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Speaker 3: it's not inherently bad or evil. It's just another tool

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Speaker 3: like anything else online. Of course, it's a place where

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Speaker 3: people can gather and exchange thoughts, and that's why it

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Speaker 3: can be used for good or for bad, like anything

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Speaker 3: else in this world.

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Speaker 1: Now, speaking of young people going online communicating TikTok, remember

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Speaker 1: three years ago was considering an existential threat against America,

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Speaker 1: the Red Chinese plot to take over America. Then the

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Speaker 1: politicians discovered it. Oh, it was great for elections. The

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Speaker 1: Americans came in, bought it up from the Red Chinese

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Speaker 1: Ellison and a few investors. I don't hear anything more

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Speaker 1: about it. Are you were now able to go on

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Speaker 1: on TikTok and condemn the Red Chinese government? Explain a

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Speaker 1: little bit where it is now?

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Speaker 3: Well, yeah, TikTok is now owned by an American company,

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Speaker 3: a group of investors, and so yeah, now the technology,

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Speaker 3: the underlying algorithm apparently is still partially owned by byte Dance,

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Speaker 3: which is the Chinese company that owns TikTok. But in

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Speaker 3: general the servers that power TikTok are now based in

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Speaker 3: the US. People were saying that after the takeover there

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Speaker 3: were certain things that were being censored on TikTok. I

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Speaker 3: did not experience that. I don't really use TikTok in

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Speaker 3: a huge way. Although, again, like any other tool online,

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Speaker 3: I can see the good and I can see the bad.

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Speaker 3: I think the bad part about TikTok is that there's

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Speaker 3: a lot of information on there. Not all of it

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Speaker 3: is factual, but then again, that could be anywhere online.

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Speaker 1: Hey, good news is that keep going?

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Speaker 3: So I mean the good news is TikTok has enabled

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Speaker 3: a lot of people to create a following and share

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Speaker 3: information as well.

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Speaker 2: Hey, Meda has done something interesting. They've rented some space

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Speaker 2: in New York. What does that mean? Why are they

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Speaker 2: running space in New York?

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Speaker 3: Yeah, so they had this experimental physical store on Fifth Ad.

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Speaker 3: They called it the Meta Lab. But reports now say

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Speaker 3: they have just signed a ten year lease for that location,

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Speaker 3: which means this is not a test anymore. This is

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Speaker 3: now a traditional store where you can go in and

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Speaker 3: try out AI glasses. You know those meta glasses that

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Speaker 3: are very popular. I wear them every weekend to run

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Speaker 3: they've got VR headsets and basically anything else that Meta

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Speaker 3: may come along with hardware wise. But the idea is that,

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Speaker 3: you know, Apple has all these stores worldwide. Meta has

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Speaker 3: just a handful in Los Angeles, Las Vegas, New York,

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Speaker 3: couple other places. But now it seems like these stores

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Speaker 3: are working and it's definitely a place where they want

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Speaker 3: people to come in test their physical technology and walk

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Speaker 3: out with it as well.

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Speaker 1: Which because the news cycle has changed dramatically because of

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Speaker 1: the war in Iran. Not long ago we saw that

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Speaker 1: Mark Zuckerberg was on trial for Meta. He was actually

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Speaker 1: giving testimony. What was that about and has that been

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Speaker 1: resolved yet?

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Speaker 3: Well, you know, the addictive nature of Instagram is what

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Speaker 3: a lot of people have been talking about. There's been

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Speaker 3: a pretty prominent trial happening where this woman ensued all

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Speaker 3: of the social media companies. We're talking TikTok, we're talking Snapchat,

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Speaker 3: we're talking Instagram and YouTube. And some of those companies

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Speaker 3: settled out of court, the TikTok of the world and

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Speaker 3: also Snapchat. They said, you know what, we're not getting

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Speaker 3: involved in this. We're just gonna settle. But Meta is

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Speaker 3: fighting and they're saying, look, we don't build this stuff

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Speaker 3: to be addictive. Zuckerberg got on stand. I think they

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Speaker 3: someone at Meta said that sixteen hours online doesn't necessarily

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Speaker 3: mean you're addicted, which I mean, come on, that's a

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Speaker 3: lot of time to be online. Here's the thing, Like I,

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Speaker 3: I truly believe that these apps are engineered to take

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Speaker 3: advantage of these young brains that are not nearly developed yet.

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Speaker 3: And also adults have problems. If you look at adults

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Speaker 3: walking around, you look at any line at a Starbucks,

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Speaker 3: people are on their phone. They're swiping up and down.

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Speaker 3: And that is the way we now interact as a society,

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Speaker 3: for better or for worse.

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Speaker 2: It's a strange suit though, because there's a fine line,

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Speaker 2: you know, and when you can push your product, what

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Speaker 2: you're allowed to do to your push your product, and

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Speaker 2: how far can you go? And I guess that's going

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Speaker 2: to be decided in this lawsuit.

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Speaker 1: You know what.

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Speaker 3: One last thing I think, Yeah, I think that's the

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Speaker 3: important part is did they intend for these apps to

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Speaker 3: be addictive? Did they send emails to each other that said, hey,

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Speaker 3: let's amp up this feature, let's make these notifications better,

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Speaker 3: Let's get this to be stickier for young people. If

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Speaker 3: they find that out, then yes, that is a problem.

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Speaker 2: You know, I'm an Apple guy, right, so this concern

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Speaker 2: about iPhones and advanced spare spywear targeting iPhones is really concerning.

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Speaker 2: Can you tell me about that?

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Speaker 1: Yeah.

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Speaker 3: What's concerning about this, it's called Dark Sword, is that typically,

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Speaker 3: you know, when iPhone exploits come out, they're very highly targeted, right,

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Speaker 3: They're they're targeting heads of states, they're targeting journalists, they're

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Speaker 3: target targeting high profile individuals. Now someone released into the

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Speaker 3: wild this Dark Sword program that pretty much anyone can

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Speaker 3: download and try to, you know, get on someone's iPhone.

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Speaker 3: And the problem is it just takes a website, So

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Speaker 3: all you have to do is visit a bad website

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Speaker 3: and now your phone.

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Speaker 1: Can be infected.

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Speaker 3: The good news is this is only affecting earlier versions

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Speaker 3: of iOS, So if you haven't updated, I would say

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Speaker 3: definitely update. Apple put out software updates that will fix this.

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Speaker 3: But it's just scary. It's a scary thing because we

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Speaker 3: are now seeing more exploits hit the iPhone and faster

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Speaker 3: and reaching more people potentially. But this morning I did

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Speaker 3: find there is a secret software update to do on

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Speaker 3: the iPhone which I've never seen before. It's an a update,

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Speaker 3: they call it. And so if you go into Settings,

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Speaker 3: Security and Privacy Background Security Improvements, you can see that

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Speaker 3: tiny little software update Apple pushed out. I would definitely

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Speaker 3: install that. And by the way, I found an app

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Speaker 3: that you can use to scan your phone for spyware.

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Speaker 3: It's called the I Verify app. And I've linked them

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Speaker 3: both up on my website. If you go there, tap

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Speaker 3: the star at the top. I made it nice and

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Speaker 3: easy to find those two links because I do think

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Speaker 3: this is very important. We actually shared it also because

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Speaker 3: bad information looked so interesting.

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Speaker 1: We shared it on all the seven ten wor social

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Speaker 1: media sites as well. Now I hope rich you can

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Speaker 1: help me.

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Speaker 4: When I first came on board two weeks ago, I

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Speaker 4: spoke to Natalie and I spoke to Larry, and I said,

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Speaker 4: my favorite social networking platform you can reach me on

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Speaker 4: is MySpace, and they looked at me like I was

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Speaker 4: coming out in the Museum of Natural History.

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Speaker 1: Does anybody use MySpace any longer like I do?

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Speaker 3: I Curtis, I don't know if you if you actually

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Speaker 3: still use my Space. I hope not, because I'm not

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Speaker 3: sure that there's even a place I mean, the website

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Speaker 3: still works. But my favorite feature, I mean, and we've

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Speaker 3: gone through so much of this stuff. My favorite feature

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Speaker 3: about my space was that it showed you how you

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Speaker 3: were linked. Remember, it showed you how you were a

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Speaker 3: linked to like friends and be like, you're like eight

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Speaker 3: people away from this person or whatever, you know, the

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Speaker 3: degrees of separation. So I did like that feature, but

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Speaker 3: I think it's time to retire that and maybe pick

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Speaker 3: up a new social media account.

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Speaker 2: You're not really on MySpace? Yeah, are you kidding?

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Speaker 1: No one know why I have no friends.

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Speaker 2: Rich DeMuro rich on Tech has heard Sunday nights from

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Speaker 2: eight to eleven pm on wor. You can also reach

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Speaker 2: out to him at rich on Tech on Instagram.

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Speaker 1: This has been a podcast from wr