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Speaker 1: Good morning everybody, and welcome to the Daily OS. It

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Speaker 1: is Thursday, the seventh of October. My name is Sam Kazlowski.

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Speaker 1: Joining me in the studio is Zarisidler. Our deep dive

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Speaker 1: today is going to be about the dramas surrounding Facebook.

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Speaker 1: This week there's been a big leak and now a

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Speaker 1: response from the CEO, Mark Zuckerberg. Firstly, though to COVID

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Speaker 1: numbers in Victoria, there were fourteen hundred and twenty cases

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Speaker 1: of COVID nineteen. New South Wales dipped below six hundred

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Speaker 1: and recorded five hundred and ninety four and in the

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Speaker 1: Act there were twenty eight new cases.

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Speaker 2: Yesterday we found out who the new New South Wales

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Speaker 2: Nationals leader and who the new Deputy Premier of New

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Speaker 2: South Wales is. His name is Paul Tool and he

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Speaker 2: is now in the job after John Barrelaro resigned on Monday.

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Speaker 2: Bronnie Taylor, who we interviewed a couple of weeks ago,

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Speaker 2: was also appointed as the National's deputy leader.

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Speaker 1: The Victorian government has purchased more than two million rapid

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Speaker 1: antigen tests that will be trialed across the state's healthcare system.

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Speaker 1: We've put up a really good video about how these

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Speaker 1: tests actually work. I highly recommend giving it a watch.

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Speaker 1: Victorian Health Minister Martin Foley said it was part of

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Speaker 1: the government's quote moved towards a different way of managing

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Speaker 1: this virus as a vaccinated population.

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Speaker 2: New Zealand Central Bank has raised interest rates for the

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Speaker 2: first time in seven years. It's seeking to slow down

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Speaker 2: rising inflation in the country. The cash rate was increased

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Speaker 2: by a quarter of a percentage point to zero point

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Speaker 2: five percent. And if this is all Gibberius to you,

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Speaker 2: hop over to today's newsletter where we break down what

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Speaker 2: interest rates.

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Speaker 1: Are and today's good news. It's a massive day for

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Speaker 1: the COVID nineteen vaccine statistic nerds. Australia has hit an

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Speaker 1: important vaccine milestone, with more than eighty percent of the

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Speaker 1: population aged over sixteen having received at least their first

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Speaker 1: dose of a COVID vaccine. There's been two pretty major

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Speaker 1: Facebook stories in the news this week. They're not exactly related,

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Speaker 1: but what they have done together is create an environment

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Speaker 1: where Facebook is really under the pump. Today we're not

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Speaker 1: going to be talking about the outage that made us

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Speaker 1: all panic a couple of days ago, but rather we're

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Speaker 1: going to be talking about the Facebook Files and a

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Speaker 1: whistleblower whose name is Francis Hogan. So about a month ago,

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Speaker 1: the Wall Street Journal released an investigation called the Facebook Files.

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Speaker 1: The investigation was prompted by a document leak, and the

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Speaker 1: document leak included research reports, online employee discussions, and drafts

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Speaker 1: of presentations to senior management. It was accompanied a couple

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Speaker 1: of days ago by an interview on CBS's sixty Minutes,

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Speaker 1: not the Australian version of sixty Minutes, by Francis Horgan,

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Speaker 1: who was a previous Facebook employee. She sat down and

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Speaker 1: discussed these documents that she leaked to the Wall Street

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Speaker 1: Journal and to US law enforcement. Horgan's role within Facebook

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Speaker 1: was as a project manager. She specifically worked on tackling

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Speaker 1: misinformation on the platform, so she's very well placed to

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Speaker 1: speak to the internal workings of the tech behemoth.

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Speaker 2: There was quite a lot that was involved in this league.

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Speaker 2: We learned quite a bit about how Facebook runs. What

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Speaker 2: are the significant revelations from this leak.

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Speaker 1: There's a couple that jump out to me. Firstly, that

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Speaker 1: Instagram's internal research allegedly found the platform had a harmful

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Speaker 1: effect on teenagers, especially young girls. Secondly, that celebrities are

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Speaker 1: treated differently on Facebook. Thirdly that the response to employee

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Speaker 1: concerns involving human trafficking was often quote weak, and lastly

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Speaker 1: that some Facebook shareholders even went as far to launch

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Speaker 1: a lawsuit against the company. Now, just in the last

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Speaker 1: twenty four hours, we've heard a lot more information from

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Speaker 1: Francis Horgan and also a reply from Facebook, and we

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Speaker 1: wanted to break both of those down for you. So yesterday,

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Speaker 1: the Facebook whistleblower and former product manager, Francis Horgan testified

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Speaker 1: before a Senate subcommittee in the US about Facebook's handling,

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Speaker 1: particularly of data of children and other users. Her key

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Speaker 1: message to Congress was that they must intervene to solve

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Speaker 1: the crisis created by her former employer. There's a couple

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Speaker 1: of key learnings that we can take away from her

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Speaker 1: appearance in front of the Senate subcommittee. Firstly, that there's

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Speaker 1: more internal research at Facebook that we don't know about. Secondly,

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Speaker 1: I think it's really important to acknowledge what she said

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Speaker 1: about Facebook's inability to effectively police anti vaccine misinformation, and

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Speaker 1: we've seen that come up time and time again in

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Speaker 1: our new cycle. And thirdly that the call was strongly

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Speaker 1: on governments to act, and we saw somewhat of a

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Speaker 1: unified response from Republican and Democratic lawmakers in terms of

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Speaker 1: taking action to stop the harms caused to teenagers on

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Speaker 1: Facebook in particular. In short, the key line of argument

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Speaker 1: being mounted by US politicians is that if Facebook knew

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Speaker 1: about the dangers internally, then that's enough that they need

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Speaker 1: to now act externally.

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Speaker 2: One of the tangible solutions that the whistleblower offered in

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Speaker 2: front of the committee was to increase the age at

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Speaker 2: which people can access the platforms, so raising that age

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Speaker 2: threshold from from thirteen two seventeen.

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Speaker 1: Here's a little bit of the testimony to give you

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Speaker 1: a flavor of how it all went down.

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Speaker 3: But I'm here today because I believe Facebook's products harm children,

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Speaker 3: stoke division, and weaken our democracy. The company's leadership knows

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Speaker 3: how to make Facebook and Instagram saver, but won't make

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Speaker 3: the necessary changes because they have put their astronomical profits

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Speaker 3: before people.

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Speaker 1: Soon after Francis Horgan's testimony concluded, we saw a response

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Speaker 1: in written form from Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook. Ultimately, Zuckerberg

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Speaker 1: fiercely defended his company and fiercely negated some of these

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Speaker 1: key claims. He said, at the heart of these accusations

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Speaker 1: is the idea that we prioritize profit over safety and

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Speaker 1: well being. That's just not true. Zuckerberg continued that Facebook

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Speaker 1: cares deeply about issues like safety, well being, and mental health,

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Speaker 1: and it's difficult for him to see coverage that misrepresents

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Speaker 1: our work and our motives. It was an interesting response

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Speaker 1: from Facebook that didn't go through the claims one by

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Speaker 1: one to refute them, but ultimately tried to discredit the

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Speaker 1: entire testimony as false.

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Speaker 2: It's really interesting to consider all of this information, and

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Speaker 2: to also consider Instagram's decision last week to pull its

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Speaker 2: idea of Instagram Kids. All of this, taken together, shows

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Speaker 2: that there is increasing pressure on the social media giants

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Speaker 2: to regulate their own platforms and to somehow safeguard younger users.

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Speaker 1: We'll leave it there for today's podcast, but I thought

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Speaker 1: i'd mention a really awesome initiative that Daily Os is

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Speaker 1: running this week. If you sign up to our newsletter

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Speaker 1: before Friday, we'll plant a tree on your behalf in

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Speaker 1: how to sign up, and we'll do the digging