Big Take

Bloomberg Investigative reporter Olivia Carville has spent months delving into TikTok, the hugely popular video social network. In November, she joined the podcast to talk about children who have died copying dangerous video challenges of the kind that can be seen on the app. Today, Olivia is back to talk about her latest story about TikTok for Bloomberg Businessweek.  It follows the life of a 16-year-old girl from Florida whose provocative videos have won her millions of followers–and many detractors who say TikTok shouldn’t allow this kind of content from minors on the platform.  Learn more about this story here: https://bloom.bg/3Ph6mJz Listen to the first conversation with Olivia about TikTok’s problem moderating the dangerous challenges HERE. Listen to The Big Take podcast every weekday and subscribe to our daily newsletter: https://bloom.bg/3F3EJAK  Have questions or comments for Wes and the team? Reach us at bigtake@bloomberg.net.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Our insatiable appetite for meat, eggs and cheese means there are billions of chickens, pigs and cows the world over. One consequence: animal agriculture is a leading contributor to greenhouse gas emissions and pollutants like ammonia and nitrogen. In Europe, governments are starting to crack down—demanding farms dramatically cut the size of their herds to meet environmental goals. Farmers are, to put it mildly, furious.  Bloomberg reporter Diederik Baazil joins this episode from Amsterdam to talk about how farmer’s protests against the new rules are boiling over in the Netherlands. And Wes also catches up with reporter Agnieszka de Sousa, Bloomberg’s “food czar” based in London,  for a look at how this problem has spread across Europe–and possible ways to fix it.  Learn more about this story here: https://bloom.bg/3FgxSSL Listen to The Big Take podcast every weekday and subscribe to our daily newsletter: https://bloom.bg/3F3EJAK  Have questions or comments for Wes and the team? Reach us at bigtake@bloomberg.net.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Taylor Swift fans are suing Ticketmaster after ticket sales for her concert tour had issues. The US Justice Department is investigating Ticketmaster for potentially driving out competitors and raising prices. Bloomberg experts discuss Ticketmaster's troubles and the push in Washington to regulate big companies.

The secretive Al Nahyan family of Abu Dhabi has amassed a fortune of $300 billion–and they’re investing it around the globe, in everything from green energy and healthcare to Manchester City Football Club, SpaceX and Rihanna’s lingerie line. Bloomberg reporters Devon Pendleton, Ben Bartenstein and Nicolas Parasie join this episode to talk about the family’s global reach. Learn more about this story here: https://bloom.bg/3P3ChNz Listen to The Big Take podcast every weekday and subscribe to our daily newsletter: https://bloom.bg/3F3EJAK  Have questions or comments for Wes and the team? Reach us at bigtake@bloomberg.net.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In the early, scary days of the coronavirus pandemic, before vaccines, patients hospitalized with severe cases were often put on ventilators to keep them alive. That invasive treatment saved a lot of people. But the heavy sedation that sometimes went along with it has left many of them with debilitating side-effects. Doctors are now taking a hard look at how they’ve used sedation–and rewriting the rules for treating patients who require it. Dr. Wes Ely, a critical care physician with Vanderbilt University and a sedation expert, joins this episode to talk about the lessons he and his colleagues have learned from Covid. Jason Gale, a senior editor and biosecurity correspondent at Bloomberg who has reported extensively on the pandemic, also joins to tell the story of one woman whose life was saved, but may never be the same. Learn more about this story: https://bloom.bg/3VCOH1h  Listen to The Big Take podcast every weekday and subscribe to our daily newsletter: https://bloom.bg/3F3EJAK Have questions or comments for Wes and the team? Reach us at bigtake@bloomberg.net.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Democrats kept control of the US Senate in November’s midterm elections. So why is the political world so obsessed with who’ll win Tuesday’s Senate runoff election in Georgia between Democrat Raphael Warnock and Republican Herschel Walker? Bloomberg’s US politics editor Mario Parker, White House correspondent Nancy Cook and National editor Craig Gordon join Wes to answer that question–and explain how this single seat will determine the outcome of political battles heading into the 2024 presidential election.Listen to The Big Take podcast every weekday and subscribe to our daily newsletter: https://bloom.bg/3F3EJAK  Have questions or comments for Wes and the team? Reach us at bigtake@bloomberg.net.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Senior executive editor John Liu joins Wes from Beijing to talk about the protests happening across China, as anger at the government’s Covid Zero policy boils over. John walks through why and how the demonstrations began, what the government is doing to tamp them down and what he saw and heard on the streets. Learn more about this story: https://bloom.bg/3H5cVNt  Listen to The Big Take podcast every weekday and subscribe to our daily newsletter: https://bloom.bg/3F3EJAK  Have questions or comments for Wes and the team? Reach us at bigtake@bloomberg.net.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Online gambling is enormously popular in the UK. Millions of people spend hours a day playing  catchy games on their phones that keep them spinning–even when they’re losing big. No surprise that online gambling addiction is a serious issue.Now, some US states are loosening their gambling laws. And with it comes concerns that the problems gamblers in the UK are experiencing will soon play out on an even larger scale in America. Bloomberg reporters Gavin Finch and Harry Wilson join this episode to talk about the UK gambling boom, and what’s in store for the US. We also hear from Stewart Kenny, a co-founder of the gambling company Paddy Power, who walked away from the industry and is now one of its most vocal critics. Learn more about this story here: https://bloom.bg/3iq35LM  Listen to The Big Take podcast every weekday and subscribe to our daily newsletter: https://bloom.bg/3F3EJAK  Have questions or comments for Wes and the team? Reach us at bigtake@bloomberg.net.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

A heads up: This episode is on a difficult subject and some of it isn’t easy to listen to. You might want to listen with headphones if children are nearby. In just a few short years, TikTok has become as ubiquitous as Instagram, Facebook and Twitter. The brief videos and fun dance challenges that TikTok’s one billion users post on its app often become viral sensations.  But there’s a darker side to the platform, and one TikTok is having a hard time fixing. Young children who aren’t supposed to have full access to the app are finding ways around the company’s safeguards and logging on. When they do, they're exposed to some content that's not suitable for kids, including viral videos that challenge users to do dangerous things– sometimes, with tragic results. Bloomberg senior reporter Olivia Carville joins this episode to discuss her investigation of how kids are using TikTok–and what the company is doing about it.   You can read Olivia’s full investigation here: https://bloom.bg/3isBcmo  Listen to The Big Take podcast every weekday and subscribe to our daily newsletter: https://bloom.bg/3F3EJAK  Have questions or comments for Wes and the team? Reach us at bigtake@bloomberg.net.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

As China seeks to grow its economy and increase its global influence, it’s lending billions of dollars to help governments around the world fund big, expensive projects that otherwise would be out of reach. In Asia, Africa–and, notably, in Latin America, next door to the US.  That money could pay off politically, too, in the ongoing rivalry between Washington and Beijing.  For a look at China’s global projects–and what its leaders hope to accomplish with them–Rebecca Choong Wilkins joins this episode. She’s a Bloomberg government reporter based in Hong Kong. We then talk with Jonathan Gilbert, a reporter based in Buenos Aires, who describes what happens when China comes calling with lots of cash. And Dan Ten Kate, who oversees Bloomberg’s government coverage in Asia, stops by to explain why the US has been so slow to respond to China’s advances in the region. Read more about this story: https://bloom.bg/3ijEYOS  Listen to The Big Take podcast every weekday and subscribe to our daily newsletter: https://bloom.bg/3F3EJAK  Have questions or comments for Wes and the team? Reach us at bigtake@bloomberg.net.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.