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Speaker 1: Before we start today's show, I want to let you

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Speaker 1: know we're going to talk about suicide and some other

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Speaker 1: tough subjects. If you or someone you know needs help

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Speaker 1: with thoughts of suicide or self harm. A list of

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Speaker 1: helplines is available at Opencounseling dot.

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Speaker 2: Com, Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, Radio News.

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Speaker 1: On March twenty fourth, twenty twenty two, Jordan DeMay, a

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Speaker 1: high school senior in Marquette, Michigan, was getting ready to

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Speaker 1: leave the cold Upper Peninsula behind for spring break in Florida.

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Speaker 1: That night, he was at his girlfriend's house.

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Speaker 3: They were kind of saying the goodbys. As I'm sure

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Speaker 3: you can imagine at that age, to be a part

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Speaker 3: was a really big deal.

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Speaker 1: That's Olivia Carville. She's an investigative reporter at Bloomberg.

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Speaker 3: So he was over at her house. He kissed her

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Speaker 3: good night. He drove home and started to peck for

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Speaker 3: his trip for Florida.

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Speaker 1: The next day, when Jordan got back to his dad's house,

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Speaker 1: he had a message on Instagram from someone he didn't know,

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Speaker 1: a teenage girl.

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Speaker 3: Initially, she just wrote to her and said, hey, that.

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Speaker 1: Wasn't out of the ordinary. Jordan was a high school

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Speaker 1: football and basketball star, and he often heard from people

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Speaker 1: he didn't know.

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Speaker 3: He was repeatedly in the local newspaper for his athletic successes,

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Speaker 3: so he was well known in that community and right

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Speaker 3: across the Upper Peninsula.

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Speaker 1: The message he got that night was from someone with

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Speaker 1: the username Danny Roberts.

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Speaker 3: He replied asking who she was. She said that she

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Speaker 3: was from Texas but now doing school in Georgia, and

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Speaker 3: they started chatting just about a regular kind of teenage things,

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Speaker 3: school life, and he was doing his laundry.

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Speaker 1: Danny and Jordan kept chatting, and a couple hours into

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Speaker 1: their conversation it took a turn. She told Jordan she

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Speaker 1: liked playing sexy games.

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Speaker 3: She then sends him a naked photograph of herself and

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Speaker 3: asks for one in return, but she sets some conditions

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Speaker 3: on what she wants that photo to look like. She

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Speaker 3: wants it to have his face in it, and she

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Speaker 3: wants him to have a cute face or a cute expression.

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Speaker 3: Goes down to his bathroom and he takes a selfie

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Speaker 3: in the mirror, exposing himself, and he sends that back

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Speaker 3: to Danny.

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Speaker 1: And then everything changed.

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Speaker 3: From via forward, the conversation spirals into what I can

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Speaker 3: only describe, as you know, one of the most dark,

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Speaker 3: sadistic message exchanges I've ever witnessed. Reading through the transcripts.

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Speaker 1: Today on the show What Happened to Jordan de May

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Speaker 1: Inside a horrific and fast growing form of cybercrime targeting teens.

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Speaker 1: I'm David Gerra, and this is the big take from

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Speaker 1: Bloomberg News. The morning after Danny Roberts started that conversation

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Speaker 1: with Jordan on Instagram, Jordan's mom saw he texted her

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Speaker 1: during the night. Jordan was staying at his dad's house.

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Speaker 2: I woke up about six o'clock in the morning to

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Speaker 2: get ready for work and get my kids off to school,

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Speaker 2: and I saw a text message from that came in

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Speaker 2: the middle of the night that said mother, I love you.

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Speaker 1: That's Jordan's mom, Jennifer Buda.

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Speaker 2: I texted him back immediately said I love you too.

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Speaker 2: I hope you got a good night's sleep. I continued

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Speaker 2: to get ready, drove my children to daycare. It was

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Speaker 2: about seven o'clock, so I know that Jordan should be

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Speaker 2: up about that time, and he didn't respond to me.

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Speaker 2: And Jordan always responded to me, so I sent him

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Speaker 2: another text that said, are you okay, and as I

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Speaker 2: got home, I still had not received a text, and

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Speaker 2: something didn't feel right with me, so I sent him

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Speaker 2: a third text that just said Jordan.

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Speaker 1: I found out.

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Speaker 2: That Jordan was gone seven forty in the morning.

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Speaker 1: She got the news from Jordan's dad, John DeMay, went

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Speaker 1: to check on Jordan that morning and found that he

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Speaker 1: died by suicide.

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Speaker 4: The first twenty four to thirty six hours, you know

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Speaker 4: that it was challenging to try to process what even happened.

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Speaker 4: I mean, we were just so flabbergasted that we were,

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Speaker 4: you know, the giant question mark why, you know, we

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Speaker 4: just couldn't figure it out. And we were going through

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Speaker 4: all these scenarios and it was he, you know, breaking

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Speaker 4: up with his girlfriend of something going on, and what

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Speaker 4: happened is someone come at him. I mean, we just

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Speaker 4: had no idea.

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Speaker 3: There were really no indications that Jordan had depression, that

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Speaker 3: he was suffering from unhappiness, that he struggled with mental health.

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Speaker 3: All those red flags that you might assume to see

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Speaker 3: in a suicide case just weren't here.

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Speaker 1: Reporter Olivia Carville says his death confused investigators. No.

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Speaker 3: I remember talking to the lead detective who actually went

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Speaker 3: on to really solve this case. When he walked into

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Speaker 3: Jordan's b the morning of his death, he understood the

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Speaker 3: what of the case. This is how he described it

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Speaker 3: to me, and by what I mean, what am I seeing?

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Speaker 3: I'm seeing this looks like a suicide case. But the why,

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Speaker 3: the why that happened wasn't clear. And he looked around

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Speaker 3: Jordan's bedroom and as a detective, you look for clothes,

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Speaker 3: and all he saw was a bag packed for Florida

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Speaker 3: with swimsuits and sunscreen. His cell phone. The alarm on

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Speaker 3: his cell phone kept going off, So why would he

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Speaker 3: have set his alarm if he didn't intend to go

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Speaker 3: to school the next day or didn't intend to wake

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Speaker 3: up the next day. Every indication was that Jordan was

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Speaker 3: planning to wake up the next morning. And I think

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Speaker 3: that was really confusing for the detective, and that gave

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Speaker 3: him pause or made him realize there might be more

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Speaker 3: to this than what's just on the surface.

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Speaker 1: Instagram transcripts helped law enforcement piece together what happened in

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Speaker 1: those early morning hours. Well, Jordan was chatting with someone

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Speaker 1: with the username Danny Roberts.

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Speaker 3: As soon as that nude picture is sent, that flirtatious

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Speaker 3: teenage girl disappears, and what is left behind is someone

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Speaker 3: cruel who torments Jordan, who tells him that now that

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Speaker 3: he has this nude photo, they're going to ruin his life.

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Speaker 1: Olivia obtained excerpts of those transcripts and she read us

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Speaker 1: the next message Downy sent Jordan, I.

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Speaker 3: Have screenshot all your followers and tags and can send

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Speaker 3: this nudes to everyone and also send your nudes to

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Speaker 3: your family and friends until it goes viral. All you

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Speaker 3: have to do is cooperate with me and I won't

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Speaker 3: expose you.

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Speaker 1: What Danny wanted was money.

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Speaker 3: Initially, the amount that they agreed to was three hundred dollars.

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Speaker 3: As soon as he sent that money, they came back

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Speaker 3: asking for more than they wanted, eight hundred dollars, and

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Speaker 3: Jordan actually sent a screenshot of his bank account showing

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Speaker 3: that he only had fifty five dollars in it, and

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Speaker 3: he said he was willing to send everything he had

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Speaker 3: to prevent them from sending that photo to his girlfriend,

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Speaker 3: and they replied saying no deal. And then there was

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Speaker 3: this back and forth around three am, and.

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Speaker 1: At this point Jordan started to sound really terrified.

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Speaker 3: Jordan, why are you doing this to me, I am

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Speaker 3: begging for my own life Danny ten nine eight. I

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Speaker 3: bet your girlfriend will leave you for some other dude, Jordan,

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Speaker 3: I will be deared like I want to kill myself.

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Speaker 3: Danny Sure, I will watch you die a miserable death. Jordan.

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Speaker 3: It's over you winbro. I'm killing myself right now because

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Speaker 3: of you. Danny. Good, do that fast, or I'll make

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Speaker 3: you do it. I swear to God. I have no

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Speaker 3: idea what was going through his mind, but from reading

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Speaker 3: the messages that he was sending, it's clear that he

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Speaker 3: was losing hope and he didn't know where to go

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Speaker 3: from here, so he made the decision to delete that

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Speaker 3: entire message history with the Danny Roberts account. So around

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Speaker 3: three point thirty am, Jordan sends two text messages, one

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Speaker 3: to his mum, one to his girlfriend, and then he

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Speaker 3: kills himself.

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Speaker 1: The entire conversation took less than six hours. So who

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Speaker 1: was Danny Roberts. That's after the break. Before the break,

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Speaker 1: we heard about a conversation on Instagram Jordan de May

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Speaker 1: had before he died by suicide. In less than six hours,

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Speaker 1: Jordan went from packing for his spring break trap to

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Speaker 1: taking his own life.

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Speaker 3: Everyone is just in shock, and the police start that investigation.

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Speaker 3: Jordan's body is removed from the house and no one

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Speaker 3: knows what's happened. His phone gets sent to the Computer

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Speaker 3: Crimes Unit for a forensic analysis, but it takes a

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Speaker 3: few days to get that response back, so law enforcement

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Speaker 3: are looking for clues in other areas.

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Speaker 1: And reporter Olivia Carville says, while that's happening, Jordan de

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Speaker 1: Maaye's friends and family, his teachers and classmates, and his

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Speaker 1: girlfriend Kyla trying to process what's happened. Kyla can't keep

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Speaker 1: up with all the messages she's getting on her phone.

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Speaker 3: People are calling her, texting her. They don't believe that

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Speaker 3: Jordan's really dead. News of his death is spreading, and

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Speaker 3: she's getting contacted by strangers on social media, and she's

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Speaker 3: with a friend of hers, just trying to reckon with

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Speaker 3: what's happened. And she sees all of these messages coming

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Speaker 3: through in the steady stream, and she starts opening some

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Speaker 3: of them. And it was around three o'clock that afternoon

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Speaker 3: that she opened one from an Instagram music called Danny Roberts.

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Speaker 3: The message contained no words, had just had a photograph,

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Speaker 3: and that was the node photo that Jordan had seen

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Speaker 3: the previous night.

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Speaker 1: Kyla and Danny start to exchange messages. Here's Olivia reading

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Speaker 1: from that transcript.

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Speaker 3: Kyler, what is this about Danny? Do you know him? Kyler?

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Speaker 3: Do you? Danny? Answer me? Kyla? Who are you? Danny?

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Speaker 1: I beat?

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Speaker 3: You know him? Kyler? That's my boyfriend. Why Denny? I

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Speaker 3: swear I will ruin his life with this? Kyler? He

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Speaker 3: killed himself last night. Please don't Danny. Do you want

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Speaker 3: me to ruin his life? Kyler? He's gone. No.

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Speaker 1: It goes on like this. Then Danny tries to extort Kyla.

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Speaker 3: Denny, do you want me to end this and delete

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Speaker 3: the picks? Yes? Or no? Cooperate with me and this

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Speaker 3: will end. Just do as I say and all this

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Speaker 3: will end.

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Speaker 1: For law enforcement, this exchange was a critical clue.

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Speaker 3: They saw the nature of that blackmail and the back

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Speaker 3: and forth. The detective immediately thought this could be the why,

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Speaker 3: the why Jordan de May decided to end his life,

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Speaker 3: so he filed preservation requests to Meta to try and

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Speaker 3: pull data from the platform to show what was said

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Speaker 3: between Jordan Demay's account and the Danny Roberts account, and

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Speaker 3: as soon as he had that account and he saw

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Speaker 3: what was discussed between the two. He searched for the

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Speaker 3: IP address of that Danny Roberts account and it led

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Speaker 3: him directly to Lagos, Nigeria, and.

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Speaker 1: What law enforcement discovered was two brothers in their early

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Speaker 1: twenties were posing as Danny Roberts. Court record show Samson

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Speaker 1: and Samuel Lagoshi had bought hacked Instagram accounts, including one

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Speaker 1: belonging to the real Danny Roberts. In their emails, there

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Speaker 1: was a word for word script of what was in

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Speaker 1: the messages sent to Jordan. Olivia says these kinds of

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Speaker 1: sample extortion scripts have been widely shared on the Internet

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Speaker 1: by a group called the Yahoo Boys, and that.

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Speaker 3: Comes from the email address that they use to try

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Speaker 3: and swindle Westerners. Back in the day, decades ago, there

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Speaker 3: was the Yahoo email scam or the Nigerian Princes. They

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Speaker 3: have evolved. This is the latest scam effort from this

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Speaker 3: loosely affiliated online gang and now instead of using traditional

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Speaker 3: romance scams or praying on the elderly, they are directly

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Speaker 3: targeting teenage boys across North America. These scammers are sharing information,

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Speaker 3: encouraging one another on what to say, how to say it,

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Speaker 3: how do I act like a teenage girl, how do

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Speaker 3: I make this believable, how do I turn the conversation flirtatious,

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Speaker 3: how do I get that naked photo? And how do

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Speaker 3: I blackmail effectively?

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Speaker 1: Olivia found videos on TikTok and YouTube in which people

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Speaker 1: are sharing these blackmail scripts and encouraging one another. You

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Speaker 1: can hear how matter of factly the scammers explain how

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Speaker 1: to extort people.

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Speaker 2: In today's video, I'm going to explain about blackmailon opted.

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Speaker 4: These are the pictures that you need to start the job.

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Speaker 1: Both companies said in written statements that they'd remove posts

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Speaker 1: related to this scam that had been brought to their

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Speaker 1: attention and vowed to continue to take down such content,

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Speaker 1: but we found similar content still exists on both TikTok

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Speaker 1: and YouTube. Olivia read a report by Paul Raphile. He's

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Speaker 1: an analyst at the Network Contagion Research Institute who's documented

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Speaker 1: hundreds of thousands of posts on social media like these.

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Speaker 3: He found a post of exactly what was sent to

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Speaker 3: Jordan to May, down to the typos, and they had

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Speaker 3: more than half a million views.

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Speaker 2: I was completely surprised.

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Speaker 1: Jordan's mom Jen, butda you know the FBI.

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Speaker 2: Had put out a press release the day before this

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Speaker 2: happened to Jordan, warning parents, and you know that was

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Speaker 2: all brand new information to me.

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Speaker 3: The FBI has said they're aware of more than twelve

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Speaker 3: thousand victims across North America right now. They're putting out

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Speaker 3: PSAs to try and stop it, which is what they think,

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Speaker 3: you know, the only thing we can really do to

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Speaker 3: try and prevent or curb this crime.

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Speaker 1: But Jordan's parents do think there's something else that could

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Speaker 1: prevent this from happening to other families. They want social

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Speaker 1: media platforms to take action. Jordan's parents have filed a

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Speaker 1: lawsuit against Meta, Instagram's parent company.

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Speaker 4: They're literally allowing criminals to thrive on them, and they're

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Speaker 4: not doing enough to prevent it. They've been to congressional

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Speaker 4: hearings time and time again as the same song and dance,

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Speaker 4: and they're protected by a federal law in section two

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Speaker 4: thirty that basically gives them carte blanche liability that says,

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Speaker 4: no matter what happens on our platforms, we're not held

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Speaker 4: liable no matter what we do. So sorry that crime

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Speaker 4: is happening, but it's not our problem.

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Speaker 1: In a statement, Meta's global head of safety said sextortion

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Speaker 1: is a horrific crime and the company has spent years

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Speaker 1: building technology to combat and to support law enforcement in

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Speaker 1: investigating and prosecuting the criminals behind it. And Olivia says

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Speaker 1: the platforms have been taking action.

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Speaker 3: They have been doing things like sending sextortion focused warnings

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Speaker 3: to users of their products. They have been using artificial

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Speaker 3: intelligence to try and detect suspicious accounts. They have been

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Speaker 3: just recently, Meta announced it was going to use AI

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Speaker 3: to blur nudity in photos that are sent between accounts

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Speaker 3: and doing what they can from a trust and safety

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Speaker 3: standpoint to try and proactively stop this crime. But you know,

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Speaker 3: the bad act is a savvy and as soon as

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Speaker 3: a guardrail is put up, they come up with ways

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Speaker 3: to evade it, get over it, get under it, and

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Speaker 3: the crime keeps changing as the social media networks create

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Speaker 3: ways to prevent it.

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Speaker 1: Meta says it tracks new trends so it can quote

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Speaker 1: regularly improve its tools and systems. The case, filed by

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Speaker 1: John DeMay and Jen Butda, is part of a group

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Speaker 1: lawsuit alleging social media companies have harmed children by designing

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Speaker 1: addictive products. Meta said the company can't respond to questions

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Speaker 1: about pending litigation. There's also a criminal case involving the

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Speaker 1: two brothers who targeted Jordan. To May, they were extradited

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Speaker 1: from Nigeria to the US, and last week they pleaded

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Speaker 1: guilty to conspiring to sexually exploit teenagers online. I talked

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Speaker 1: to Jordan's parents after those guilty please. They'd driven from

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Speaker 1: Marquette to watch the court proceedings in person.

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Speaker 4: The emotional part was just, you know, wrapping her mind

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Speaker 4: around that these two guys that I'm looking at in

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Speaker 4: the courtroom, you know, were the ones that were torturing

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Speaker 4: my son that night, and we're finally getting some emission

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Speaker 4: from them out of their own mouse.

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Speaker 2: I was hoping that someone would be held accountable for

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Speaker 2: what happened to Jordan, and yesterday with those guilty please,

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Speaker 2: someone is held accountable, and that is justice for Jordan,

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Speaker 2: justice for community. It will never bring my son back.

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Speaker 2: It does not change my life. It does not change

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Speaker 2: the pain I feel how much I miss my son

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Speaker 2: every single day. And overall, it's an extremely unfortunate situation

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Speaker 2: that involves not just our family, but the family of

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Speaker 2: these two individuals as well, and it's not good what

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Speaker 2: happened for anybody, and as a mom, I struggle with

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Speaker 2: feeling bad for their mom that she probably is really

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Speaker 2: missing them and she's an innocent bystander, just like I.

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Speaker 1: Am Jordan's mom. Jen says she hopes the outcome will

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Speaker 1: send a message to extortionists.

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Speaker 2: That you can be found, you can be brought here

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Speaker 2: and held accountable, and that are US Department of Justice

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Speaker 2: is willing to do that in order to keep our

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Speaker 2: kids safe.

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Speaker 1: But Jen Buda has a message of her own for

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Speaker 1: other families.

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Speaker 2: I want parents to sit down and have a very

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Speaker 2: open conversation with their children about who they talk to

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Speaker 2: on social media and if something doesn't seem right, it

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Speaker 2: doesn't feel right. If someone's asking you for money or

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Speaker 2: favors or pictures, you should question that. There needs to

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Speaker 2: be an ongoing conversation with kids, also letting them know

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Speaker 2: that if they are targeted by someone, it's going to

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Speaker 2: be okay, and to go for an adult, a trusted adult,

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Speaker 2: for help. Law enforcement does want to help you.

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Speaker 1: You are the victim.

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Speaker 2: You are not doing anything wrong and this is just

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Speaker 2: a small blip in your life that even if you

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Speaker 2: did send a photo, your life will go on and

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Speaker 2: nobody will recall that this happened.

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Speaker 1: If you or someone you know, it's help with thoughts

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Speaker 1: of suicide or self harm. A list of helplines is

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Speaker 1: available at opencoonseling dot com. This is The Big Take

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Speaker 1: from Bloomberg News. I'm David Gera. This episode was produced

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Speaker 1: by David Fox. It was edited by Caitlin Kenny and

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Speaker 1: Robert Friedman. It was mixed by Rishiba Jakol. It was

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Speaker 1: fact checked by Thomas lu Our senior producer is Naomi Shavin.

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Speaker 1: Our senior editor is Elizabeth Ponso. Nicole Beamster bor is

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Speaker 1: Our executive producer. Sage Bauman is our head of podcasts.

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Speaker 1: Thanks for listening. Please follow and review The Big Take

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Speaker 1: wherever you listen to podcasts. It helps new listeners find

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Speaker 1: the show. We'll be back tomorrow