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Speaker 1: My name is Lily Madden and I'm a proud Arunda

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Speaker 1: Bunjelung Kalkutin woman from Gadighl country. The Daily oz acknowledges

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Speaker 1: that this podcast is recorded on the lands of the

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Speaker 1: Gadighl people and pays respect to all Aboriginal and Torres

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Speaker 1: Strait Island and nations. We pay our respects to the

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Speaker 1: first peoples of these countries, both past and present.

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Speaker 2: Good morning and welcome to the Daily os. It's Wednesday,

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Speaker 2: the ninth of November.

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Speaker 3: I'm Zara, I'm Sam and Zara. It is so nice

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Speaker 3: to have you back on the podcast.

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Speaker 4: Nice to be back.

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Speaker 3: Where'd you go?

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Speaker 4: I was in Thailand.

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Speaker 2: I was at a conference all about media innovation over

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Speaker 2: in Shanghai, and I have learned a lot.

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Speaker 4: I've gained a lot of perspective.

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Speaker 2: There were a number of speakers, you know, from countries

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Speaker 2: that no longer practice democracy, or where they have been

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Speaker 2: coups or where there have been invasions, and so I

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Speaker 2: was hearing all about how media is flourishing in those countries.

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Speaker 2: So I've learnt a lot, and I'm glad to be

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Speaker 2: back in Australia and just feeling very lucky and privileged

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Speaker 2: to live here and to practice our craft here.

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Speaker 3: Was there much chat about Twitter at that conference.

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Speaker 4: A segue, There was a lot of chat.

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Speaker 2: A lot of journos get their news from Twitter first

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Speaker 2: and foremost, and so of course the news about Elon

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Speaker 2: Musk was on everybody's lips. That was because he finalized

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Speaker 2: his deal to buy Twitter on October twenty seventh, and

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Speaker 2: since then, Elon Musk, the world's richest man, has thrown

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Speaker 2: the social media platform into what can only be.

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Speaker 4: Described as chaos.

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Speaker 2: He's fired the CEO, he's locked employees out of their

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Speaker 2: work emails with no notice, and he's fought.

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Speaker 4: With author Stephen King.

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Speaker 2: We're going to get into everything that has happened at

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Speaker 2: Twitter in today's deep dive, but first Sam take us

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Speaker 2: through the headlines.

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Speaker 3: A Senate Estimates Committee has heard that over oney one

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Speaker 3: hundred political staff is lost or moved on from their

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Speaker 3: job following the twenty twenty two federal election. Senior Finance

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Speaker 3: Department official David De Silva said that I seven hundred

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Speaker 3: and seventy people automatically lost their job because a parliamentarian

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Speaker 3: they worked for lost their seat, while over four hundred

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Speaker 3: either resigned from their posting or had a contract that

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Speaker 3: ceased shortly after the election.

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Speaker 2: Australian Chief Medical Officer Paul Kelly has indicated that there

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Speaker 2: could be a new COVID nineteen wave here in Australia.

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Speaker 2: In a statement yesterday, Kelly said that COVID nineteen cases

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Speaker 2: were increasing in Australia and that this was to be

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Speaker 2: expected as part of living with the virus into the future.

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Speaker 3: A class action against Medibank is being prepared by two

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Speaker 3: Australian law firms that believe the private health insurer's data

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Speaker 3: breach last month was a quote betrayal of Medibank's customer base.

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Speaker 3: Medibank confirmed this week that it believes nine point seven

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Speaker 3: million current and former customers had their personal information compromised

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Speaker 3: in a cyber attack, which includes names, phone numbers and addresses.

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Speaker 2: And some good news for your Wednesday morning. Wind farms

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Speaker 2: in the UK generated record amounts of electricity this month.

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Speaker 2: Wind farms across the UK generated over twenty gigawatts last week,

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Speaker 2: breaking a record set just the week prior.

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Speaker 3: Well, let's get into this elon musk Twitter saga. It

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Speaker 3: seems to be that there's a number of new developments

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Speaker 3: every single day. We've been kind of discussing when to

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Speaker 3: intercept it and talk about it on the podcast, and

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Speaker 3: it felt like a good day to do it today.

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Speaker 3: So we knew that the world's richest man and CEO

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Speaker 3: of Tesla was planning to buy the social media platform

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Speaker 3: Twitter for a while. Zara, this is going to be

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Speaker 3: a tricky task for you, But can you recap how

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Speaker 3: we got from that first announcement to today?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, so it started in January. It's hard to believe

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Speaker 2: this has all been going on that long. When Masks

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Speaker 2: started quietly buying shares of Twitter, which is a platform

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Speaker 2: he has spent a lot of time on since joining

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Speaker 2: in June two thousand and nine, and in March he

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Speaker 2: started criticizing Twitter on Twitter and running polls asking if

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Speaker 2: his followers thought the platform allowed for speech. A majority

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Speaker 2: of them then said no, And it still wasn't public

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Speaker 2: knowledge that Musk had a financial interest in Twitter until April,

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Speaker 2: when documents filed to the SEC, which is an independent

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Speaker 2: agency of the US federal government, showed that he had

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Speaker 2: actually massed nearly a ten percent stake in the company.

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Speaker 3: So in April we started to learn that he had

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Speaker 3: a financial interest in Twitter. What happened from there.

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Speaker 2: So Twitter's then CEO, Perague Agrawal offered Musk a spot

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Speaker 2: on the board, given that he'd now accrued such a

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Speaker 2: big stake in the company. But that seat on the

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Speaker 2: board came with a caveat that Musk had to stop

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Speaker 2: buying more shares, and we all.

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Speaker 3: Know Elon Musk is particularly good with instructions. Did he

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Speaker 3: stop buying shares?

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Speaker 4: I mean you could call it that.

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Speaker 2: He basically just made an offer to buy the whole company,

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Speaker 2: and that was for forty four billion dollars. And over

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Speaker 2: the next few months, we saw Elon Musk secure more funding,

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Speaker 2: put the deal on hold, get sued by Twitter counter suit,

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Speaker 2: and then finally reoffered to buy Twitter at the start

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Speaker 2: of last month. That deal went through at the end

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Speaker 2: of October, which brings us to now.

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Speaker 3: So Elin Musk bought Twitter. What did he do when

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Speaker 3: he got in there on his first day in the job?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I was flying at the time, and it's like

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Speaker 2: got onto a plane and Twitter, as I know it

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Speaker 2: changed forever and is irreparably different. So the company's chief

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Speaker 2: financial officer and two of its top legal advisors basically

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Speaker 2: got the chop within a few hours of.

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Speaker 4: Musk taking over. It was that quick.

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Speaker 2: The New York Times reported that at least one exec

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Speaker 2: was escorted from Twitter's headquarters, and then in the following

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Speaker 2: days there were just massive, massive layoffs. Approximately half of

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Speaker 2: Twitter's total global staff, which includes the entire human rights

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Speaker 2: team and many of those in charge of managing misinformation

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Speaker 2: before the US midterms, which we know are currently underway,

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Speaker 2: were fired. Some employees reported that they found out they

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Speaker 2: were fired when they tried to log into their work

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Speaker 2: emails and found that their passwords had been changed and Sam,

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Speaker 2: we spoke to someone who had had this exact experience.

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Speaker 2: Those who have been sparedn't you know exactly happy. One

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Speaker 2: current employee, who spoke anonymously to The Verge, a US outlet,

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Speaker 2: said quote, shit is going to start breaking.

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Speaker 3: I think that shit breaking is well underway. And we

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Speaker 3: know that Elon Musk has announced and is planning a

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Speaker 3: number of major changes to the platform. What are some

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Speaker 3: of those flagship changes he wants to see implemented?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, So the big one is that he's announced a

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Speaker 2: plan to offer verification, which is that blue tick next

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Speaker 2: to somebody's name to anyone for eight US dollars a month.

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Speaker 2: Musk said this would change the quote bullshit system of

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Speaker 2: lords and peasants for who has or who doesn't have

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Speaker 2: a blue check mark, and that it would also create

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Speaker 2: another revenue stream for Twitter. And I think this is

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Speaker 2: really interesting because for us, Sam, I mean, when we're

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Speaker 2: trying to find on source news, Twitter is, as I said,

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Speaker 2: often a place that we go to really quickly, and

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Speaker 2: a blue tick is a very clear visual queue that

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Speaker 2: the source that you are looking at is verified, is

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Speaker 2: a legitimate source. And so this will be a really

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Speaker 2: different chain for the platform. Musk originally proposed twenty US dollars,

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Speaker 2: but he appeared to change his mind after a Twitter

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Speaker 2: exchange with author Stephen King, who said he'd leave the

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Speaker 2: platform if he had to pay that twenty dollars for

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Speaker 2: his blue tick.

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Speaker 4: Sam, would you pay eight dollars for your blue tick?

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Speaker 3: I don't think I'd pay eight dollars for a blue tick.

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Speaker 3: It just does not a business expense. It doesn't really

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Speaker 3: feel that appropriate to me to just get it for

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Speaker 3: the sake of getting it. But I do understand that

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Speaker 3: after forking out that many billions of dollars elon, Musk

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Speaker 3: needs to work out ways to make his money back,

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Speaker 3: and revenue streams must be on his mind all day.

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Speaker 3: Are there other ways he's thinking of getting money out

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Speaker 3: of me as a Twitter user.

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Speaker 2: He's also floated the idea of allowing users to offer

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Speaker 2: premium content to paid subscribers, and specifically video. There has

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Speaker 2: been a leaked internal email that was reported by The

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Speaker 2: Washington Post that said that the company viewed this idea

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Speaker 2: as high risk, and there had been some speculation that

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Speaker 2: it could facilitate adult content. Aside from this, there are

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Speaker 2: other suggestions that incld food, allowing for paid dms to celebrities,

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Speaker 2: which is interesting, and bringing back short form video at

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Speaker 2: vine Zara.

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Speaker 3: You're a celebrity, would you allow people to message you

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Speaker 3: via DM for a fee?

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Speaker 4: What the message to me? For free?

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Speaker 3: That's lovely. You're just one of them, all.

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Speaker 2: Those people who are messaging me for my wise words.

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Speaker 3: And the other way that we know social media sites

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Speaker 3: make money is through advertising to pay their bills and

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Speaker 3: like us, yeah, we see a lot of this on Instagram, Facebook,

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Speaker 3: et cetera. What's going to happen with Twitter's advertising?

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Speaker 2: Well, many advertisers have threatened to stop advertising on Twitter

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Speaker 2: if it doesn't maintain policies to clamp down on misinformation,

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Speaker 2: and it is entirely possible that misinformation could be on

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Speaker 2: the rise since a lot of people are concerned that

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Speaker 2: Musks pay for verification policy that we've just been talking

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Speaker 2: about could help spread conspiracy theories. At this stage, it

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Speaker 2: is unclear how Mask plans to regulate misinformation. He's listed

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Speaker 2: free speech as a major reason for his time takeover,

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Speaker 2: but also said he wouldn't allow the site to become

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Speaker 2: a free for all healthscape. He's also said that any

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Speaker 2: accounts impersonating others without specifying they are a quote parody

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Speaker 2: account could be permanently suspended, and we did see that

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Speaker 2: happen already with a comedian.

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Speaker 3: We're going to take a short break. We'll be right back.

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Speaker 3: I think if we go back to the route of

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Speaker 3: why Elon Musk wanted to buy Twitter, or at least

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Speaker 3: why he told us that he wanted to buy Twitter,

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Speaker 3: it's this commitment to free speech. It does seem a

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Speaker 3: little counterintuitive now to be banning some accounts for parodies.

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Speaker 3: Tell me about that tension.

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Speaker 2: After buying Twitter, Musk released a statement on the platform

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Speaker 2: explaining that he wanted the site to be quote a

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Speaker 2: common digital town square where a wide range of beliefs

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Speaker 2: can be debated in a healthy manner without resorting to violence.

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Speaker 2: This week, he tweeted that quote Twitter needs to become

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Speaker 2: by far the most accurate source of information about the world, and.

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Speaker 3: He also said in the past that Twitter should be

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Speaker 3: a political right.

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Speaker 2: He has in the past he tweeted that he thought

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Speaker 2: that it should be free of political bias, and then

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Speaker 2: yesterday tweeted on the day of the midterms to independent

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Speaker 2: minded voters, shared power curbs the worst excesses of both parties. Therefore,

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Speaker 2: I recommend voting for a Republican Congress, given that the

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Speaker 2: presidency is democratic.

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Speaker 4: So there you have it.

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Speaker 2: The richest man in the world, who is also now

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Speaker 2: in control of what is being labeled the town square,

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Speaker 2: has gone and told people who he thinks they should

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Speaker 2: vote for. It's just a fascinating time to be operating

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Speaker 2: in this space.

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Speaker 3: I got to say, the places that Elon Musk finds

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Speaker 3: himself in, whether it's launching rockets, buying social media platforms,

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Speaker 3: inventing electric cars, he certainly does have a way of disrupting.

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Speaker 3: And whether this is a case of disruption for benefit

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Speaker 3: or detriment of US as a society will be proven

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Speaker 3: over the next couple of months. Now, if you are

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Speaker 3: a Twitter user and you are looking for a new

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Speaker 3: source of accurate information about the world, why don't you

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Speaker 3: follow us over on Instagram. You can also subscribe. You

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Speaker 3: can pay to d Yeah eight US dollars a DM,

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Speaker 3: or you can listen to Zara for free every day

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Speaker 3: here on the podcast. You can just subscribe and you'll

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Speaker 3: get her tones free of charge. Have a great day,

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Speaker 3: We'll be back again tomorrow.