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Speaker 1: It's the Happy Families Podcast. It's the podcast for the

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Speaker 1: time poor parent who just wants answers now now, and

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Speaker 1: then on the Happy Families Podcast, we try something different today,

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Speaker 1: a little bit of that difference. Hello, my name is

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Speaker 1: doctor Justin Coulson. Today, I guess you'd call it an

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Speaker 1: opinion piece, an of ed from yours truly on the

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Speaker 1: issue of tech, the tech giants, and how the tech

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Speaker 1: giants are anti kids, they don't care about your kids.

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Speaker 1: On February the second of this year, Australia's e Safety

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Speaker 1: Commissioner Julie Inman Grant wrote a blistering critique of the

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Speaker 1: world's tech giants and their response to discussions in the

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Speaker 1: USA about increasing protections for children. What I'm going to

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Speaker 1: share with you is what Julie wrote. I will mention

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Speaker 1: that she begins by talking about a US Senate committee

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Speaker 1: hearing with Mark Zuckerberg. I'm going to play part of

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Speaker 1: that a little later in this podcast episode. Here we

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Speaker 1: go from Julie Inman Grant in The Australian on the

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Speaker 1: second of February, platitudes but no real action to protect

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Speaker 1: our children. This week I watched as a US Senate

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Speaker 1: committee grilled CEOs from Meta X formerly Twitter, TikTok, Snap

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Speaker 1: and discord about measures they have in place to arrest

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Speaker 1: the global explosion in online child sexual exploitation and abuse.

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Speaker 1: While tech executives being called to testify on this issue

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Speaker 1: on Capitol Hill as a welcome development, the hearing was

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Speaker 1: just as notable for the important and pivotal players who

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Speaker 1: were not called to appear, including tech giants Apple, Google

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Speaker 1: and Microsoft. Unfortunately, what we heard from the leaders of

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Speaker 1: the companies who were there, including metaboss, Mark Zuckerberg, and

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Speaker 1: X's newly minted CEO Linda Yakarino, was more of the

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Speaker 1: same apologies and platitudes without any concrete commitment to take

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Speaker 1: immediate action to protect children. It came as no surprise

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Speaker 1: to me, says Julianmangrant that many of the assembled senators

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Speaker 1: emerged from this process frustrated, particularly as a number of

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Speaker 1: the CEOs continued to push back on supporting proposed new

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Speaker 1: US child protection legislation. As the head of Australia's online

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Speaker 1: safety regulator, I have some experience in this area. While

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Speaker 1: EA Safety was established as the world's first online safety

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Speaker 1: regulator in twenty fifteen, it wasn't until six years later,

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Speaker 1: after hitting brickwall after brickwall with the platforms, that the

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Speaker 1: Australian government gave us compulsory information collection powers. Through these powers,

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Speaker 1: we've spent the past two years surfacing a range of

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Speaker 1: online safety shortfalls and inconsistencies in child protection across more

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Speaker 1: than twenty seven tech services, including companies such as Apple,

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Speaker 1: Meta x, Microsoft, TikTok, Snap and Google. Our reports showed

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Speaker 1: many companies weren't even using available tools and technologies to

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Speaker 1: detect child sexual exploitation and abuse material, let alone detecting

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Speaker 1: grooming or live stream child abuse. What's more, there were

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Speaker 1: no real barriers to stop users creating new accounts and reoffending.

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Speaker 1: One of the biggest disappointments was to see Google and x,

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Speaker 1: two of the most widely known companies in the world,

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Speaker 1: did not fully comply with the notices I sent them,

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Speaker 1: failing to answer key questions even though they related to

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Speaker 1: crimes against children. While Google was given a formal warning,

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Speaker 1: I issued ex Corp an infringement notice of six hundred

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Speaker 1: and ten five hundred dollars due to the scale of

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Speaker 1: its non compliance. X Corp elected not to pay the fine,

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Speaker 1: and my office is now involved in civil proceedings with

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Speaker 1: the company in Australia's federal court, with the company also

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Speaker 1: challenging the validity of the notice through judicial review. This week,

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Speaker 1: the US Senate Chair Dick Durbin criticized tech companies for

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Speaker 1: conveniently rolling out new child safety announcements only days ahead

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Speaker 1: of the hearing. That included X's new Trust and Safety

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Speaker 1: Center of Excellence boasting one hundred new full time content

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Speaker 1: moderators focused on child protection. While I commend any child

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Speaker 1: safety improvements. Ex's announcement came after the company cuts more

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Speaker 1: than two thousand trusts and safety staff following the October

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Speaker 1: twenty twenty two acquisition, something revealed in the E Safety

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Speaker 1: Commissioner's latest transparency report. The unprecedented explosion in online child

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Speaker 1: exploitation we are witnessing is difficult for everyone to confront,

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Speaker 1: including tech executives, but we cannot bury our heads in

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Speaker 1: the sand. Australia will continue pushing ahead, plodding the tech

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Speaker 1: industry to account through our powers under the Online Safety Act.

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Speaker 1: But the US is where most of the major platforms

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Speaker 1: are headquartered, so measured tangible changes there could see a

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Speaker 1: meaningful difference in the online lives of children worldwide. What's

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Speaker 1: needed is firm commitments to tangible safety action. In the meantime,

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Speaker 1: we should continue putting pressure on tech companies to do

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Speaker 1: more and more and better and better when it comes

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Speaker 1: to protecting our children. The cost of continued in action

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Speaker 1: is simply too high. That's Julie inmand Grant, Australia's E

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Speaker 1: Safety Commissioner. Julie will be on the podcast with me

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Speaker 1: next week talking about some other issues, but let's just

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Speaker 1: discussed this for a moment. First off, leaders from several

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Speaker 1: major players didn't even bother to show up in the

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Speaker 1: US Senate hearings. They genuinely think that they're above the law. Apple, Google,

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Speaker 1: Microsoft execs all stayed away. Second, those who did show

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Speaker 1: up spent their time justifying inadequate and downright harmful decisions,

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Speaker 1: and they're acting like they're providing the world of service

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Speaker 1: and doing as all of favor. So after surveying twenty

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Speaker 1: seven this is according to Julian mcgrant. Surveying twenty seven

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Speaker 1: of the biggest names in tech, her office found that

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Speaker 1: many companies weren't even using available tools and technologies to

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Speaker 1: detect child sexual exploitation and abuse material, let alone detecting

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Speaker 1: grooming or livestream child abuse. And she says there were

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Speaker 1: no real barriers to stop users creating new accounts and

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Speaker 1: reoffending even if they were found. So Google is given

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Speaker 1: a demand noticed by the E Safety Commissioner's office, requiring

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Speaker 1: that they improve what they're doing. They ignore it. X

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Speaker 1: formerly Twitter find just over six hundred thousand dollars. They've

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Speaker 1: ignored it, and now it's before the courts. They're actually

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Speaker 1: saying no, no, you don't have the authority to fine us

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Speaker 1: because we're US based and you're in Australia. Like, what

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Speaker 1: is going on here in terms of the duty of care?

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Speaker 1: This is nothing but an abdication of responsibility. This is

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Speaker 1: mendacity at its finest. These companies are all happy to

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Speaker 1: roll out improvements quote unquote improvements and grab pr but

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Speaker 1: in all honesty, can we read what Julian and Grant

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Speaker 1: has shared and truly believe that these platforms are safe

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Speaker 1: for our kids? These companies and their leaders do not

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Speaker 1: care about you. They don't care about your kids. They

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Speaker 1: don't care about bad actors. They don't care about scammers

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Speaker 1: or pedophiles or abuses or bullies or anything that could

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Speaker 1: potentially impact their bottom line. If we talk about this

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Speaker 1: Senate hearing policy wise, nothing is going to come of this.

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Speaker 1: These are talk fests where politicians get to show boat

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Speaker 1: and make accusations and speak over the top of those

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Speaker 1: who have been called to testify, and they bang their

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Speaker 1: fists and they put on their tough guy acts and

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Speaker 1: they don't move the needle. There's this one. I'm going

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Speaker 1: to call it a grotesquely awkward moment. It's just terrible.

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Speaker 1: Senator Josh Hawley, this is a guy with a very

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Speaker 1: big voice. He's been talking a lot about men and

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Speaker 1: their challenges late in the US, wrote a book about it.

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Speaker 1: He demanded that Zuckerberg apologized to the parents in the

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Speaker 1: audience at the hearings for the harm that their families

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Speaker 1: have experienced through his platform. This is what happened. This

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Speaker 1: is the full context.

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Speaker 2: Here's some information from a whistleblower who came before the Senate,

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Speaker 2: testified under oath in public. He worked for you as

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Speaker 2: a senior executive. Here's what he showed he found when

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Speaker 2: he studied your products. So, for example, this is girls

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Speaker 2: between the ages of thirteen and fifteen years old, Thirty

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Speaker 2: seven percent of them reported that they had been exposed

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Speaker 2: to nudity on the platform unwanted in the last seven days.

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Speaker 2: Twenty four percent said that they had experienced unwanted sexual

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Speaker 2: advances they've been propositioned in the last seven days. Seventeen

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Speaker 2: percent said they had encountered self harm content pushed at

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Speaker 2: them in the last seven days. Now, I know you're

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Speaker 2: familiar with these stats because he sent you an email

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Speaker 2: where he lined it all out. I mean, we've got

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Speaker 2: a copy of it right here. My question is who

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Speaker 2: did you fire for this? Who got fired because of that?

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Speaker 3: Senator? We study all of this because it's important, we

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Speaker 3: want to improve our service. Well, you just told me

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Speaker 3: a second ago you studied it that there was no linkage.

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Speaker 3: Who did you fire? I said, you mischaracterized.

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Speaker 2: Thirty seven percent of teenage girls between thirteen and fifteen

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Speaker 2: were exposed to unwanted nudity in a week on Instagram.

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Speaker 2: You knew about it.

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Speaker 3: Who did you fire? Senator? This is why we're building

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Speaker 3: all Who did you fires?

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Speaker 2: Senator?

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Speaker 3: That's I don't think that that's who did you fire?

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Speaker 3: I'm not going to answer. That's because you didn't fire anybody, right,

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Speaker 3: You didn't take any significant actions it's appropriate to talk

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Speaker 3: about like it's not appropriate decisions.

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Speaker 2: Do you know who's sitting behind you. You've got families

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Speaker 2: from across the nation whose children are either severely harmed

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Speaker 2: or gone, and you don't think it's appropriate to take

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Speaker 2: up talk about steps that you took, the fact that

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Speaker 2: you didn't fire a single person. Let me ask you this.

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Speaker 2: Let me ask you this. Have you compensated any of

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Speaker 2: the victims? Sorry, have you compensated any of the victims?

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Speaker 2: These girls? Have you compensated them?

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Speaker 3: I don't believe so?

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Speaker 1: Why not?

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Speaker 2: Don't you think they deserve some compensation for what your

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Speaker 2: platform was done? Help with counseling services, help with dealing

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Speaker 2: with the issues that your services caused.

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Speaker 3: Our job is to make sure that we build tools

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Speaker 3: to help keep people safe.

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Speaker 2: Are you going to compensate them?

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Speaker 3: Senator? Our job and what we take seriously is making

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Speaker 3: sure that we build industry leading tools to find harmful

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Speaker 3: to make money, take it off the services to make money,

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Speaker 3: and to build tools that empower parents.

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Speaker 2: So you didn't take any action, You didn't take any action,

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Speaker 2: You didn't fire anybody. You haven't compensated a single victims.

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Speaker 2: Let me ask you this. So let me ask you this.

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Speaker 2: There's families of victims here today. Have you apologized to

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Speaker 2: the victims? I would you like to do so? Now?

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Speaker 2: Well they're here, you're on national television. Would you like

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Speaker 2: now to apologize to the victims who have been harmed

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Speaker 2: by your product? Show them the pictures? Would you like

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Speaker 2: to apologize for what you've done to these good people.

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Speaker 1: In charge? For everything that you fall down through. It's terrible.

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Speaker 3: No one should have to go through the things that

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Speaker 3: your families have suffered. And this is why we invest

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Speaker 3: so much and are going to continue doing industry leading

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Speaker 3: efforts to make sure that no one has to go

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Speaker 3: through the types of things that your families have had

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Speaker 3: to suffer.

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Speaker 2: Mister Zuckerberg, why should your company not be sued for this?

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Speaker 2: Why is it that you can claim you hide behind

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Speaker 2: a liability shield you can't be held accountable. Shouldn't you

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Speaker 2: be held accountable personally? Will you take personal responsibility?

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Speaker 3: Senator? I think I've already answered this. I mean this

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Speaker 3: is these try again. Will you take personal responsibility? Senator?

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Speaker 3: I viewed my job and the job of our company

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Speaker 3: is building the best tools that we can to keep

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Speaker 3: our community safe. Well you're failing at the time. Well, senator,

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Speaker 3: we're doing an industry leading effort. We build all tools.

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Speaker 2: Sence, your product is killing people. Will you personally commit

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Speaker 2: to compensating the victims. You're a billionaire. Will you commit

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Speaker 2: to compensating the victims? We set up a compensation fund

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Speaker 2: with your money. There, these are with your money, Senator,

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Speaker 2: These are complicated.

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Speaker 1: Yes.

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Speaker 2: No, that's not a complicated question though.

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Speaker 3: That's a yes or no.

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Speaker 2: Will you set up a victims compensation fund with your money,

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Speaker 2: the money you made on these families sitting behind you?

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Speaker 2: Yes or no, Senator, I don't think that that's my

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Speaker 2: job is sounds like good tools, you know. Make sure

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Speaker 2: your job is to be responsible for what your company

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Speaker 2: has done. You've made billions of dollars on the people

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Speaker 2: sitting behind them, you hear, You've done nothing to help them.

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Speaker 2: You've done nothing to compensate them. You've done nothing to

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Speaker 2: put it right. You could do so here today, and

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Speaker 2: you should. You should, mister Zuckerberg.

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Speaker 1: Okay, so I watched this car crash TV moment. I

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Speaker 1: don't know about you. I found myself squirming at the

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Speaker 1: appalling theater of it all. But I couldn't help but

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Speaker 1: think after that apology that a parent might have demanded

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Speaker 1: that Zuckerberg stand up and turn around and ask the

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Speaker 1: politicians who are bereting him, why haven't you done anything?

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Speaker 1: Because ultimately, this is a free market economy, and the

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Speaker 1: US government has allowed the free market to decide. The

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Speaker 1: lobbyists and the people with power have pushed those politicians around,

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Speaker 1: and the US government has let the tech companies bully them.

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Speaker 1: The US government has let the billionaires have full sway. Ultimately,

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Speaker 1: the US government has more control, more potential for power

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Speaker 1: over what's going on with our kids in the online

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Speaker 1: world than any other body on the planet. And they

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Speaker 1: are doing precisely nothing except show voting and grandstanding in

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Speaker 1: these big Senate committee hearings. They're having the hearing that

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Speaker 1: go nowhere. They're extracting fake, awkward apologies from tech execs

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Speaker 1: who aren't going to make anything happen until we get

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Speaker 1: some real legislation that helps kids. Zuckerberg, once he's given

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Speaker 1: his apology, he's going to get back onto his private

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Speaker 1: plan and fly back to his compound in Hawaii and

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Speaker 1: talk about his handgrown lamers and whatever organic vegetables he's

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Speaker 1: growing with his huge coiterie of servants and employees. The

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Speaker 1: Zuckerberg and Sandberg and Mask and all the other executives

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Speaker 1: at all these big tech companies are culpable, there's no

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Speaker 1: denying that. But the real culprits, the ones that are

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Speaker 1: at the very heart of this, are the politicians who

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Speaker 1: are failing to act. We're dealing with it an Australian

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Speaker 1: level where we just passed the buck to the USA.

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Speaker 1: That's what our Australian government does, and the USA it's

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Speaker 1: an exercise in cynicism. It's not just the platforms, it's

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Speaker 1: the politicians as well, who are ironically trying to create

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Speaker 1: a gotcha moment. It's going to go viral on the

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Speaker 1: very platform that they're trying to catch out with they

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Speaker 1: gotcha moment. But when ex and Google are plainly ignoring

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Speaker 1: our e Safety Commissioner's warnings and even fines, we're spinning

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Speaker 1: our wheels. We're going nowhere fast. Until Australia's feckless politicians legislate,

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Speaker 1: we are not going to see change. We can fix

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Speaker 1: so many of these problems so easy. Politicians claim it's

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Speaker 1: too complex, we can't do it. Those claims are overblown.

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Speaker 1: We've got rules around when kids can drive, when they

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Speaker 1: can drink alcohol, when they finish school. The online world

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Speaker 1: doesn't have to be any different. But our politicians won't

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Speaker 1: age gate anything at all, not even explicit content, not

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Speaker 1: even pornography. Where the federal alban Eazy government last year

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Speaker 1: walked away from a recommendation from Julian Moan Grant, the

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Speaker 1: e Safety Commissioner, to put an age gate trial on

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Speaker 1: explicit sites, the federal government walked away from that and

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Speaker 1: said no, no, no, we can't do it. It's too hard,

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Speaker 1: not going to go there. Bottom line, there are no

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Speaker 1: benefits to the world or to our children's lives from

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Speaker 1: social media at the young ages that they're given access.

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Speaker 1: Just aren't. And speaking of bottom lines, in the past

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Speaker 1: couple of weeks, right after those Senate hearings, Meta the

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Speaker 1: parent company of Facebook and Instagram and WhatsApp, and now

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Speaker 1: it's their record earnings. This was I think their chance

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Speaker 1: to warpaper over the disaster of the previous days of

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Speaker 1: ugly publicity in the Senate hearings. I'm not a business guy,

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Speaker 1: but this might be the best quarter of performance of

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Speaker 1: any company in the modern business world. Meta posted a

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Speaker 1: twenty five percent increase in quarterly revenue a total of

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Speaker 1: forty point one one billion dollars. That's forty billion with

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Speaker 1: a B in three months profits. This is a company

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Speaker 1: that has laid staff off. They dropped from eighty eight

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Speaker 1: thousand stuff to sixty six thousand staff, so about a

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Speaker 1: quarter of their staff gone, and it led to a

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Speaker 1: two hundred billion dollar gain in market capitalization in one day.

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Speaker 1: But they won't implement safety measures to stop our kids

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Speaker 1: from seeing pro anorexia content. They won't implement basic procedures

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Speaker 1: to block EYEPA addresses from known scammers and pedophiles. They

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Speaker 1: won't remove explicit content messages up our kids, and the

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Speaker 1: list goes on. They're putting staff off that could do

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Speaker 1: this stuff, and they're making forty billion dollars per quarter.

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Speaker 1: The mendacity, the mendacity of this company is astonishing. They

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Speaker 1: speak with such duplicity, They weaponize their armies of pr people,

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Speaker 1: and they effectively scrub the negative realities of their products

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Speaker 1: because at the end of the day, it's all about money,

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Speaker 1: the politicians, the shareholders, the economy. They'll let profitability rule

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Speaker 1: over the well being of our kids, because it's all

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Speaker 1: about money. So this has gone on long enough. What's

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Speaker 1: the upshot. We have government legislation and organizations to protect

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Speaker 1: our environment, we have government legislation and organizations to protect

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Speaker 1: our industrial relationships. We have commercial codes of conduct. We

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Speaker 1: have so many things that are out there that are

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Speaker 1: all about protecting people, jobs, environment and so on. But

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Speaker 1: big tech immune can't be touched. Their balance sheets are

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Speaker 1: bigger than the balance sheets of several countries in the world,

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Speaker 1: and governments just won't go near them. Cigarettes require warnings,

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Speaker 1: they highlight the smoking can kill you, but there's nothing

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Speaker 1: like that for tech. And that means that as parents

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Speaker 1: up against this enormous machine, we have to pick up

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Speaker 1: the pieces and take individual responsibility. Since we have these

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Speaker 1: ineffective elected officials who care more about tying to mendacious,

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Speaker 1: duplicitous tech billionaires than helping our kids. They're focus on

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Speaker 1: prosperity over protection, and ironically society, the society that they're

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Speaker 1: supposed to represent, is the poor for it. So what

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Speaker 1: do we do? Number One, here's got to recommend be

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Speaker 1: across your kids tech. Just know what they're doing, keep

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Speaker 1: them off it as long as you can, but when

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Speaker 1: you do give them the go ahead, be aware of

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Speaker 1: who they're talking to and what they're viewing. Number two,

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Speaker 1: be really firm on this. No screens ever allowed in bathrooms.

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Speaker 1: No screens ever allowed in bedrooms. It's just not safe.

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Speaker 1: Number three, Have regular and consistent conversations with your kids

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Speaker 1: about the risks that come with their tech, and invite

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Speaker 1: them to share what's going on with their friends and

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Speaker 1: their friends tech. Be up front, talk about things like capping.

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Speaker 1: That's what we talked about with the Australians centered counter

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Speaker 1: Child Exploitation in episode eight hundred and eighty seven of

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Speaker 1: the podcast. Talk to them about sextortion. We're talking about

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Speaker 1: that in a couple of weeks time with Julian and Grant.

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Speaker 1: But there's some other episodes as well that are out there.

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Speaker 1: Will link to them in the show notes. Don't water

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Speaker 1: it down or they won't understand the seriousness of it.

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Speaker 1: Tip number four. Make sure that they know that they

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Speaker 1: can come to you if anything, anything at all happens.

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Speaker 1: That's concerning the number of parents who have told me

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Speaker 1: my kids had this issue happen and they came to me.

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Speaker 1: It's just beautiful and these parents then get to have

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Speaker 1: really important and healing conversations with their children and better

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Speaker 1: decisions are made moving forward. The last thing you want

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Speaker 1: is for your kids to hide this from you. Make

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Speaker 1: sure they can come to you if anything happens that's concerning.

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Speaker 1: Other than that, get online to resources where you can

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Speaker 1: get help. The e Safety Commissioner's web page LinkedIn in

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Speaker 1: the show notes, the ACE web page that's the Australian

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Speaker 1: Center to Counter Child Exploitation. Just get there so that

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Speaker 1: you can know what's going on it really matters. And finally,

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Speaker 1: hope that tech executives grow a conscience or that politicians

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Speaker 1: grow a spine and start doing something at a society

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Speaker 1: wide level for the well being about kids. But don't

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Speaker 1: pud your breath. The Happy Families podcast is produced by

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Speaker 1: Justin Roland from Bridge Media. Craig Bruce is our executive producer.

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Speaker 1: If you'd like more information about making your family happier,

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Speaker 1: you can check out a text version of my opinion

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Speaker 1: piece at happy families dot com dot au. For more

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Speaker 1: information about how to keep your family safe and happy.

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Speaker 1: All the details at our social media pages. Ironically, but

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Speaker 1: better yet, sign up for our email at happy families

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Speaker 1: dot com dot au and will help you without all

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Speaker 1: the social stuff,