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Looks Like Joseph Peterson Left Epik

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Going by his Linked In profile, it looks like Joseph Peterson, Director of Operations at Epik.com has left Epik. His Profile now says, "Looking for a New Role". His experience lists Epik as March 2017 - April 2019

I use Epik as my preferred Registrar and enjoyed my interactions with Joseph. I wish him the best.
 
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I wish him the best as well!
 
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no one noticed the timing? it's right after / during the Rob thread....

is this an indication that he didn't want to back Rob up anymore or...?
 
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Joseph had sent me this he wanted a place to point to for his statement when I posted he left Epik back on 4/1 https://www.thedomains.com/2019/04/01/joseph-peterson-leaving-epik/


Yes, it's true that I decided not to continue at Epik. It wasn't an easy choice, since I've had a very positive experience working at the company. I like my colleagues and my boss. The job of running a registrar is interesting. No 2 days are ever alike. Epik products, features, and services are already strong and improving steadily. Customers are happy. In many areas, Epik has been an innovator. Growth opportunities are abundant, and I've enjoyed strategizing for Epik's success.

I wasn't planning to leave at all. There was scandal, it's true, in 2018 when Epik permitted Gab.com to be transferred after the domain was suspended at GoDaddy. We withstood that initial controversy. Within the Gab forum, there is racist content that I consider utterly vile and abhorrent, even dangerous. But I have always taken a hard stance in favor of free speech and advocated for due process and registrar neutrality with respect to legal content. Since my views on de-platforming and censorship coincide with Rob's, it was easy for me to support his decision, once I learned of it, to allow Gab.com to exist in public view. And I still fully support that decision.

The scandal lingered, however. Whereas for me Gab.com was just 1 domain among hundreds of thousands of domains at Epik, a controversial website that repelled me and to which I paid no attention whatsoever, for Rob the Gab forum was more important. With good intentions, Rob engaged actively with Gab members and promoted the site as part of a broader alt-tech / free-speech cause. Rob wants to make the web more open, websites more resilient, and browsing more private. Epik has developed products in those areas. Hence Rob found legitimate common ground with Gab members who distrust Big Brother and who have been exposed to censorship.

Rob being politically and socially conservative, he also found enough overlap with Gab members that he could participate in discussions and share his individual opinions. Even though Rob doesn't share the racism exhibited by some Gab members, he was able to tolerate them, perhaps as a christian with a wish to convert and soften. Unfortunately, this proximity to racist views allowed the press, which was already hostile toward Gab and angry with Epik for having kept Gab alive, to caricature Rob unfairly as an antisemite and white nationalist whose free-speech concerns were merely a subterfuge for spreading alt-right propaganda. That is false. As a progressive, my own views are very different from Rob's. But I have always observed Rob to treat others with respect, including muslim employees, jewish board members and colleagues – anyone. Diversity of opinion and background has always been actively welcomed by Rob at Epik.

None of this would have led me to resign were it not for some unfortunate public comments Rob made about the recent New Zealand massacre. Specifically, Rob disseminated a video of the shooting, expressing doubts about its authenticity. Acting as an individual, Rob has every right to share his opinion. And I'm inclined to believe, with Rob, that footage should not be censored everywhere online. But for any CEO to invite such political controversy is unwise. And this particular case was especially damaging for Epik, since we had inherited the Gab scandal after a similar shooting in a Pittsburgh synagogue. So this unnecessary action now linked the Epik brand to 2 massacres targeting minority groups.

Though Rob did not mean to give offense, this incident did bother me. Distrust of the mainstream media might lead someone like Rob to question the received narrative without any ill will toward muslims. And yet, even though Rob himself is as innocent disbelieving this footage as he is disbelieving in the moon landing, narratives dismissive of white nationalist terrorism strike me as insidious. Since Epik has multiple muslim employees and I myself have ties to the muslim community, the casualness with which Rob made these comments struck me as insensitive. One of the memes he shared inside Gab (which was later shown to me) was also insensitive toward muslims, though I must point out that such misconceptions are shared by half the population of the USA. More importantly, Rob shows himself to be tolerant and friendly toward muslims in actual life.

Insensitivity is not intolerance. Rob made a mistake and has already shown a willingness to listen to concerns raised after this scandal by muslims and others. I would not quit based on insensitivity or a mistake. Both can be fixed. Rob has always been open and receptive to input.

Rather, I came to the conclusion that some of the public identifies Epik with Gab and with alt-right politics to such an extent that repositioning Epik as a mainstream brand will be difficult. The abstract principles of registrar neutrality and free speech, which I care about as much as Rob does, are now, in Epik's case, entangled with questions of political ideology. That is to say, the public suspects that free speech has a sinister covert agenda. Disentangling free speech from political views is possible, but the explanations are long and often disbelieved. In practice, most people draw superficial conclusions without fully understanding the circumstances of Epik's involvement with Gab or even the distinction between Rob's personal views and Epik positions.

This recent scandal emerged as a result of my boss's private political views while I was focused on Epik features, products, and services. It is difficult to work effectively under those conditions. It is unclear how I should defend the Epik brand when it is being attacked for private opinions, which I don't share and which have nothing to do with Epik really. The public insists nonsensically that Rob = Epik, and I'm not Rob. Even worse, many seem to think Gab = Rob = Epik, which obligates me to distinguish between Rob's views and the views of racists in Gab, neither of which are mine or Epik's.

Dealing with the scandal has proved to be a distraction from my primary role at Epik, and it interferes with my responsibility to present Epik as a neutral registrar. Also, given Epik's investment in innovative services related to website resiliency and privacy, it is inevitable that controversial websites in the future will cause this current scandal to resurface in the media, which has already written distorted, overtly hostile articles. Given this baggage, I prefer to step down and begin fresh in some other role.

Epik is a good company that I would recommend to anyone seeking a registrar or an employer. I continue to respect Rob for taking a courageous stand against de-platforming and censorship. A registrar's role in fostering free speech online remains dangerously undervalued, and Rob's decisions and motivations deserve more support and understanding from the domain industry. Gab is only 1 domain among hundreds of thousands of domains at Epik. To ensure continuity for Epik customers and staff, I will be staying on at Epik for awhile to complete unfinished tasks and projects, hand over responsibilities, and train my replacements. Epik customers will continue to receive what I genuinely believe is the best support offered by any registrar in the industry. Rob set that standard personally.
 
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Joseph had sent me this he wanted a place to point to for his statement when I posted he left Epik back on 4/1 https://www.thedomains.com/2019/04/01/joseph-peterson-leaving-epik/


Yes, it's true that I decided not to continue at Epik. It wasn't an easy choice, since I've had a very positive experience working at the company. I like my colleagues and my boss. The job of running a registrar is interesting. No 2 days are ever alike. Epik products, features, and services are already strong and improving steadily. Customers are happy. In many areas, Epik has been an innovator. Growth opportunities are abundant, and I've enjoyed strategizing for Epik's success.

I wasn't planning to leave at all. There was scandal, it's true, in 2018 when Epik permitted Gab.com to be transferred after the domain was suspended at GoDaddy. We withstood that initial controversy. Within the Gab forum, there is racist content that I consider utterly vile and abhorrent, even dangerous. But I have always taken a hard stance in favor of free speech and advocated for due process and registrar neutrality with respect to legal content. Since my views on de-platforming and censorship coincide with Rob's, it was easy for me to support his decision, once I learned of it, to allow Gab.com to exist in public view. And I still fully support that decision.

The scandal lingered, however. Whereas for me Gab.com was just 1 domain among hundreds of thousands of domains at Epik, a controversial website that repelled me and to which I paid no attention whatsoever, for Rob the Gab forum was more important. With good intentions, Rob engaged actively with Gab members and promoted the site as part of a broader alt-tech / free-speech cause. Rob wants to make the web more open, websites more resilient, and browsing more private. Epik has developed products in those areas. Hence Rob found legitimate common ground with Gab members who distrust Big Brother and who have been exposed to censorship.

Rob being politically and socially conservative, he also found enough overlap with Gab members that he could participate in discussions and share his individual opinions. Even though Rob doesn't share the racism exhibited by some Gab members, he was able to tolerate them, perhaps as a christian with a wish to convert and soften. Unfortunately, this proximity to racist views allowed the press, which was already hostile toward Gab and angry with Epik for having kept Gab alive, to caricature Rob unfairly as an antisemite and white nationalist whose free-speech concerns were merely a subterfuge for spreading alt-right propaganda. That is false. As a progressive, my own views are very different from Rob's. But I have always observed Rob to treat others with respect, including muslim employees, jewish board members and colleagues – anyone. Diversity of opinion and background has always been actively welcomed by Rob at Epik.

None of this would have led me to resign were it not for some unfortunate public comments Rob made about the recent New Zealand massacre. Specifically, Rob disseminated a video of the shooting, expressing doubts about its authenticity. Acting as an individual, Rob has every right to share his opinion. And I'm inclined to believe, with Rob, that footage should not be censored everywhere online. But for any CEO to invite such political controversy is unwise. And this particular case was especially damaging for Epik, since we had inherited the Gab scandal after a similar shooting in a Pittsburgh synagogue. So this unnecessary action now linked the Epik brand to 2 massacres targeting minority groups.

Though Rob did not mean to give offense, this incident did bother me. Distrust of the mainstream media might lead someone like Rob to question the received narrative without any ill will toward muslims. And yet, even though Rob himself is as innocent disbelieving this footage as he is disbelieving in the moon landing, narratives dismissive of white nationalist terrorism strike me as insidious. Since Epik has multiple muslim employees and I myself have ties to the muslim community, the casualness with which Rob made these comments struck me as insensitive. One of the memes he shared inside Gab (which was later shown to me) was also insensitive toward muslims, though I must point out that such misconceptions are shared by half the population of the USA. More importantly, Rob shows himself to be tolerant and friendly toward muslims in actual life.

Insensitivity is not intolerance. Rob made a mistake and has already shown a willingness to listen to concerns raised after this scandal by muslims and others. I would not quit based on insensitivity or a mistake. Both can be fixed. Rob has always been open and receptive to input.

Rather, I came to the conclusion that some of the public identifies Epik with Gab and with alt-right politics to such an extent that repositioning Epik as a mainstream brand will be difficult. The abstract principles of registrar neutrality and free speech, which I care about as much as Rob does, are now, in Epik's case, entangled with questions of political ideology. That is to say, the public suspects that free speech has a sinister covert agenda. Disentangling free speech from political views is possible, but the explanations are long and often disbelieved. In practice, most people draw superficial conclusions without fully understanding the circumstances of Epik's involvement with Gab or even the distinction between Rob's personal views and Epik positions.

This recent scandal emerged as a result of my boss's private political views while I was focused on Epik features, products, and services. It is difficult to work effectively under those conditions. It is unclear how I should defend the Epik brand when it is being attacked for private opinions, which I don't share and which have nothing to do with Epik really. The public insists nonsensically that Rob = Epik, and I'm not Rob. Even worse, many seem to think Gab = Rob = Epik, which obligates me to distinguish between Rob's views and the views of racists in Gab, neither of which are mine or Epik's.

Dealing with the scandal has proved to be a distraction from my primary role at Epik, and it interferes with my responsibility to present Epik as a neutral registrar. Also, given Epik's investment in innovative services related to website resiliency and privacy, it is inevitable that controversial websites in the future will cause this current scandal to resurface in the media, which has already written distorted, overtly hostile articles. Given this baggage, I prefer to step down and begin fresh in some other role.

Epik is a good company that I would recommend to anyone seeking a registrar or an employer. I continue to respect Rob for taking a courageous stand against de-platforming and censorship. A registrar's role in fostering free speech online remains dangerously undervalued, and Rob's decisions and motivations deserve more support and understanding from the domain industry. Gab is only 1 domain among hundreds of thousands of domains at Epik. To ensure continuity for Epik customers and staff, I will be staying on at Epik for awhile to complete unfinished tasks and projects, hand over responsibilities, and train my replacements. Epik customers will continue to receive what I genuinely believe is the best support offered by any registrar in the industry. Rob set that standard personally.
Its unfortunate the term "scandal" is used so loosely. The "scandal" is not Rob having unique views, the real scandal is those that disagree with his views trying to perpetuate indifference and cause financial harm. Truly unfortunate.
 
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That’s ridiculous. That’s as if to say that all those who posted anything against what the Monster did/said had some ulterior financial motive or were all competitors.

Many current Epik customers posted disagreement with what the Monster did said. Many who have never been Epik customers posted disagreement with what the Monster did said. Many former Epik customers posted disagreement with what the Monster did said. There was no underlying corollary such as you suggest and I’m amazed that anyone intelligent as you are would think so.
 
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Joseph had sent me this he wanted a place to point to for his statement when I posted he left Epik back on 4/1 https://www.thedomains.com/2019/04/01/joseph-peterson-leaving-epik/


Yes, it's true that I decided not to continue at Epik. It wasn't an easy choice, since I've had a very positive experience working at the company. I like my colleagues and my boss. The job of running a registrar is interesting. No 2 days are ever alike. Epik products, features, and services are already strong and improving steadily. Customers are happy. In many areas, Epik has been an innovator. Growth opportunities are abundant, and I've enjoyed strategizing for Epik's success.

I wasn't planning to leave at all. There was scandal, it's true, in 2018 when Epik permitted Gab.com to be transferred after the domain was suspended at GoDaddy. We withstood that initial controversy. Within the Gab forum, there is racist content that I consider utterly vile and abhorrent, even dangerous. But I have always taken a hard stance in favor of free speech and advocated for due process and registrar neutrality with respect to legal content. Since my views on de-platforming and censorship coincide with Rob's, it was easy for me to support his decision, once I learned of it, to allow Gab.com to exist in public view. And I still fully support that decision.

The scandal lingered, however. Whereas for me Gab.com was just 1 domain among hundreds of thousands of domains at Epik, a controversial website that repelled me and to which I paid no attention whatsoever, for Rob the Gab forum was more important. With good intentions, Rob engaged actively with Gab members and promoted the site as part of a broader alt-tech / free-speech cause. Rob wants to make the web more open, websites more resilient, and browsing more private. Epik has developed products in those areas. Hence Rob found legitimate common ground with Gab members who distrust Big Brother and who have been exposed to censorship.

Rob being politically and socially conservative, he also found enough overlap with Gab members that he could participate in discussions and share his individual opinions. Even though Rob doesn't share the racism exhibited by some Gab members, he was able to tolerate them, perhaps as a christian with a wish to convert and soften. Unfortunately, this proximity to racist views allowed the press, which was already hostile toward Gab and angry with Epik for having kept Gab alive, to caricature Rob unfairly as an antisemite and white nationalist whose free-speech concerns were merely a subterfuge for spreading alt-right propaganda. That is false. As a progressive, my own views are very different from Rob's. But I have always observed Rob to treat others with respect, including muslim employees, jewish board members and colleagues – anyone. Diversity of opinion and background has always been actively welcomed by Rob at Epik.

None of this would have led me to resign were it not for some unfortunate public comments Rob made about the recent New Zealand massacre. Specifically, Rob disseminated a video of the shooting, expressing doubts about its authenticity. Acting as an individual, Rob has every right to share his opinion. And I'm inclined to believe, with Rob, that footage should not be censored everywhere online. But for any CEO to invite such political controversy is unwise. And this particular case was especially damaging for Epik, since we had inherited the Gab scandal after a similar shooting in a Pittsburgh synagogue. So this unnecessary action now linked the Epik brand to 2 massacres targeting minority groups.

Though Rob did not mean to give offense, this incident did bother me. Distrust of the mainstream media might lead someone like Rob to question the received narrative without any ill will toward muslims. And yet, even though Rob himself is as innocent disbelieving this footage as he is disbelieving in the moon landing, narratives dismissive of white nationalist terrorism strike me as insidious. Since Epik has multiple muslim employees and I myself have ties to the muslim community, the casualness with which Rob made these comments struck me as insensitive. One of the memes he shared inside Gab (which was later shown to me) was also insensitive toward muslims, though I must point out that such misconceptions are shared by half the population of the USA. More importantly, Rob shows himself to be tolerant and friendly toward muslims in actual life.

Insensitivity is not intolerance. Rob made a mistake and has already shown a willingness to listen to concerns raised after this scandal by muslims and others. I would not quit based on insensitivity or a mistake. Both can be fixed. Rob has always been open and receptive to input.

Rather, I came to the conclusion that some of the public identifies Epik with Gab and with alt-right politics to such an extent that repositioning Epik as a mainstream brand will be difficult. The abstract principles of registrar neutrality and free speech, which I care about as much as Rob does, are now, in Epik's case, entangled with questions of political ideology. That is to say, the public suspects that free speech has a sinister covert agenda. Disentangling free speech from political views is possible, but the explanations are long and often disbelieved. In practice, most people draw superficial conclusions without fully understanding the circumstances of Epik's involvement with Gab or even the distinction between Rob's personal views and Epik positions.

This recent scandal emerged as a result of my boss's private political views while I was focused on Epik features, products, and services. It is difficult to work effectively under those conditions. It is unclear how I should defend the Epik brand when it is being attacked for private opinions, which I don't share and which have nothing to do with Epik really. The public insists nonsensically that Rob = Epik, and I'm not Rob. Even worse, many seem to think Gab = Rob = Epik, which obligates me to distinguish between Rob's views and the views of racists in Gab, neither of which are mine or Epik's.

Dealing with the scandal has proved to be a distraction from my primary role at Epik, and it interferes with my responsibility to present Epik as a neutral registrar. Also, given Epik's investment in innovative services related to website resiliency and privacy, it is inevitable that controversial websites in the future will cause this current scandal to resurface in the media, which has already written distorted, overtly hostile articles. Given this baggage, I prefer to step down and begin fresh in some other role.

Epik is a good company that I would recommend to anyone seeking a registrar or an employer. I continue to respect Rob for taking a courageous stand against de-platforming and censorship. A registrar's role in fostering free speech online remains dangerously undervalued, and Rob's decisions and motivations deserve more support and understanding from the domain industry. Gab is only 1 domain among hundreds of thousands of domains at Epik. To ensure continuity for Epik customers and staff, I will be staying on at Epik for awhile to complete unfinished tasks and projects, hand over responsibilities, and train my replacements. Epik customers will continue to receive what I genuinely believe is the best support offered by any registrar in the industry. Rob set that standard personally.

this is not so good logic. I love Epik still, but to say that Epik =/= Rob is untrue.

Epik is a private company, it's not a company with a board of directors that make decisions as a team... nor does it have shareholders that take equal ownership of the company in some way.

What I mean is, Rob is the owner and final decision-maker. It's not like anyone can fire Rob because it's his company.

Or I might be wrong in this? Maybe Epik has privately traded shares that give other shareholders some majority ownership over the company and thus do a checks and balances over Rob's decisions?

But to me it's more like, everyone works for Rob, including the "board." And they can advise him to do things, but he can choose to follow or not. He can also choose to fire board members or not.

So it's not like a publicly traded company like United Airlines, where its former CEO was simply elected and not the actual owner. When that CEO messed up during the incident when he mis-apologized to the passenger forcibly thrown off the flight... he resigned. And they have major shareholders that weigh in on decisions on a binding-level.

But i suppose I don't know enough about Epik and corporate business to say if all this is true. But if it is, then yes... Epik = Rob?
 
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That’s ridiculous. That’s as if to say that all those who posted anything against what the Monster did/said had some ulterior financial motive or were all competitors.

@xynames it is really beneath you, no matter your take, to lower yourself to ridculing Rob via his name..."the Monster"

State your opinions, but be classy. Apart from the Rob threads, you are, as far as I have seen.
 
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As for absolute statements, I do absolutely believe that NASA has never been to the moon. I also know for sure that the Bible describes a fixed, non-moving earth. There is an abundance of evidence that shows that this is indeed true even though it conflicts terribly with indoctrination.

Disagreeing with statements like these does not automatically mean that the person who disagrees has any financial motive or is a competitor of Epik's. lol


EXample:
I believe Frank is a current Epik customer, when he spoke of Rob Monster:
the only one who vilified you was:
YOU
 
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Disagreeing with statements like these does not automatically mean that the person who disagrees has any financial motive or is a competitor of Epik's. lol
Correct, you can disagree with it and not have a financial motive. However, originally there was a disagreement about a video and several people tried to cause financial distress by calling for the domain industry to abandon a business based on a person's opinion. This was unfair and unjust. It was intolerant and disrespectful. It can also be argued to be illegal based on potential damages caused.
 
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Again, so what?

People can't picket Chik-Fil-A because they disagree with the founder's anti-gay stance?
 
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"Financial motive" implies that people could care less about the issue at hand and are simply trying to hurt a business opportunistically, for some reason, such as if they are competitors, or hired by competitors to create a fake picket line, for example. Nothing like that happened here.

Some people didn't like what was going on, and protested. So?
 
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Again, so what?

People can't picket Chik-Fil-A because they disagree with the founder's anti-gay stance?
I haven't examined Chik-fil-A for a possible defamation case. Although, what I have seen happen on domain blog posts and here could be argued to be defamatory.
 
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Your post implied that people were trying to hurt Epik financially without any underlying reason. That wasn't the case, was it? People just didn't like the stuff the guy did and said, so they protested against it, and suggested that others stay away from the business too. Classic picketing.
 
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Can we get back to the topic at hand; Jospeh Peterson leaving Epik?
 
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"Rather, I came to the conclusion that some of the public identifies Epik with Gab and with alt-right politics to such an extent that repositioning Epik as a mainstream brand will be difficult. "
Interesting comment there from Joseph, as supplied by Equity.

He's a good writer, best of luck to him.
 
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Good luck Joseph, it's a shame that this kind of thing has been overblown and also that the media doesn't blink an eye when it comes to Christianity being attacked, Oh wait the media is Anti-Christianity though. It is also anti religion in general. Since when is teaching correct morality hate speech? Since when was politically correct EVER correct it's pure insanity.
 
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to lower yourself to ridculing Rob via his name..."the Monster”.
I call him the Monster because that’s his name. The guy thinks the earth is flat and that we never went to the moon. There are a lot of things I could call him but I continue to use his name.
 
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Rob being politically and socially conservative
Yeah, thats a nice way of putting it.

I think most people who are "politically and socially conservative" don't give support for Storm Front or the hate factory that GAB is.

Oh well, moving on.....
 
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I call him the Monster because that’s his name

I call BS. If his name was Smith or Jones, you wouldn't be calling him THE Smith or THE Jones. But props for the creative spin.
 
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Anyone may call me by my last name, and in fact over the years many have called me "the _____" as a token of respect and awe at my achievements.

It's the Monster's name, and as I've already said, I could call someone who thinks the earth is flat and that we've never been to the moon a lot of things, but instead I continue to call him by his surname.

To be honest when I first saw that surname I thought, that must be a moniker, so I refrained from referring to him by that, but when I figured out that indeed that is his surname, I started using it, why not? It's his name!
 
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