vote yes on 31. i'm kristen z. thanks for joining us. you're watching getting answers live on abc 7 every day. we talk with experts about issues important to the bay area and we get answers for you in real time. tectonic shake-ups in the tech industry today twitter now hiring back some employees cut in last week's layoff bloodbath meta reportedly sending out thousands of pink slips this week and mastodon gaining popularity in the wake of users quitting twitter in droves. a cnet reporter will join us with the scoop. also us health officials are making plans to deploy fema if hospitals get even more overwhelmed what the could be the worst flu season in years, dr. monica. gandhi will be here to share how

you can protect your family from the flu rsv and covid but first tomorrow is election day and one of the most high-profile state propositions is prop 1 governor newsome starred in one of the ads urging voters to support it. in state after state fundamental freedoms are vanishing women are under attack. but this november we say not here prop 1 will enshrine reproductive rights in the california constitution. so clinics the right to reproductive freedom while california is not the only state that has the abortion issue on the ballot joining us live now to discuss how this issue may. or may be energizing voters is san jose state university and menlo college lecturer, donna. crane donna. thanks for joining us. thanks for having me. yeah, we should just also point out that you have been in lobbyist in the past focused on advancing abortion rights. so you do know a lot about this. i want to ask you this after the supreme court overturned bro and got rid of the federal guarantee of abortion rights some state

legislatures have passed laws on it. we saw then the past few months, but now it's the voters turn in several states walk us through the propositions on the table. okay. well there are five and of the five there are really three that matter. so most importantly of course, we're here california has prop one which would enshrine abortion rights in our state constitution. the second one to look at is michigan, michigan has a similar measure that voters will be deciding on and michigan's is really really consequential because michigan has an abortion ban on the books and the courts have temporarily blocked it. it's worth saying it's almost a hundred years old. but the outcome of the michigan referendum will matter a lot to whether women get access to abortion care in their state and then the third one to talk about is, kentucky. kentucky has sort of the mirror image proposal to california and michigan's kentucky's says there

would be no right to legal abortion enshrined in their constitution their state constitution and right now kentucky has an abortion ban across the state and so even i suppose if kentucky votes four measure it would just double down on the policies kentucky voters. maybe that's a signal to the legislative that that law is not a touch where the voters are got it. all right, montana and vermont are the two other states that also have it on the ballot as you mentioned in some other states like michigan. there's more of a practical impact depending on how the vote goes in california. it's really almost more of a statement unless we expect the state to maybe later on make a set and hard turn to the right in terms of our politics. that is not expected, right? that's exactly right and i need to say something also here in some respect there. there's a part of these the votes on these five measures doesn't matter because congress decides that now that there's no

longer a roe versus wade to protect women's reproductive freedom. there's nothing that stops congress from now passing nationwide restrictions, which it has done before and which are almost today. so, you know california's voters and the voters on the other states we discussed can take some action to protect themselves from the state legislatures in the future, but not from congress the federal law always supersedes. i was just gonna say there are some republicans who are ready talking about that trying to pass such a law if they were to regain, you know, the house and senate still a long road, even if they so but if we did have such a prop in shrines in the california state constitution, would that be useful or still relatively useless if there was a federal law banning abortion? well, so for people who care about reproductive who approach choice it would be somewhat useful because what it would do is it would protect pregnant people and california in california from future governors or legislatures. that might be hostile to

reproductive rights. it would not protect people here from the federal government. all right. well, i want to ask you this 70% of californians in polls say they'll vote for it. so it does seem like a slam dunk why so much money raised and spent on this prop if that is the case and why do you get hillary clinton and governor newsome big names pouring so much time into highlighting it. you know, it's a great issue and we know i can give you some of the answers but not all of them historically. this issue has just been a real touchdown of a real a real measure of where elected officials stand on the question of women's equality. so it just has a really high profile and that tends to draw hot political talent the you know, the people that we've seen out in california campaigning for proposition one have in some way shape or form build their whole political careers around this issue in part. it's also important to say that you know, the political establishment is going to be

looking at the performance of these measures across the state and you know political officials and parties they are very responsive to voters. and so i think everyone who cares about reproductive freedom wants to see prop one outperform the polls and everyone who feels the other way would like to see it come in a little bit lower than where the polls are. hoping that that will send signals to the broader political establishment. you hear some analysts talk about using issues such as abortion to really energize the base right whether it's right or the left and that could make a difference in say close congressional races. maybe even here in california. do you see that as part of it? well, i'm not sure that i say that as part of california's turnout equation. i think that we have enough other measures on the ballot that people are interested in that. this is not the one that's really gonna motivate people a tremendously. however, we in some other states that didn't have big questions on the ballot. i'm thinking of kansas in

particular and kansas voted just weeks after the dogs decision kansas actually turned out more of them turned out to vote for the measure that was on their ballot than to vote in the primaries for governor. so it has been motivating in other places. yeah, totally a big factor in california is race. anybody who's seeing the link of our ballot knows we get a lot of stuff to vote on. right, you know in terms of how big of a factor it really is nationwide look in may, you know when this was all coming out there was a lot of interest and it was neck and neck with economy as the number one issue for voters, but in recent weeks, i think a new york times poll showed only 4% of voters that abortion was their primary issue economy a whopping 26 percent. so i guess i'm asking you why do you think the issue theta so quickly in terms of importance in priorities? when well frankly 50% the population is women yeah, this has been a sort of a fascinating

race or season political season to watch for people like me because just every day brings giant new pieces of information to digest and pick apart. the i've been look at listening to focus groups in key states across the country and what you hear is that abortion remains a very high top of mind for voters and that it is the dobps decision was very unpopular nationwide, but you hear people prioritizing other issues more highly and so i think that's what's happened. i think in some respect the abortion question has kind of remained where it was in terms of salience, but other issues have taken on even higher priorities so specifically i'm talking about the economy about inflation gas prices those questions. those are search past it. all right, we'll get more answers on some of these voter motivation questions, i guess after tomorrow donna crane. thank you so much for the conversation and insight

appreciate it. thank you very much. coming up next to tech giants in the bay area are handing their employees layoff notices or emails if you will twitter, and now meta are reducing staff. we'll take a look at some of the big changes and the broader impact. these layoffs could have that's n

valley has been as shocking as it's been dizzying. all right. hang on one second place. we're having a quick just a little technical issue. i am not able to find e4. is that something you can put into the prompt or just tell me what was what story we're introducing? ah, here it is. okay. just want to let you know that

we have been putting off thinking about the retirement plans for 1k because it's been looking so bad abc news reporter alexis christopher's takes a look at what you should be thinking about for your plan right now. with the stock market down significantly this year and with inflation at levels. we haven't seen in decades americans are worried about their retirement accounts for a noose to robbie editor at large at cnet money says, it's important to check your account, but not too frequently if you feel nervous checking your portfolio. don't do it all the time. certainly not i think once in a while periodically once every quarter and especially now is a good time as we're getting close to the end of the year uncertainty in the markets shouldn't force you into quick decisions about what to do with your money don't make changes because you're watching tv and you're watching stocks fall. just remember that that is par for the course as we are investing for decades towards retirement. the good news is that there are

more positive days in the market than there are negative days over the long run if you do want to make changes get some help don't go alone work with someone who is an expert. who is certified who's experienced who can really guide you towards this change potentially that you want to make torabi says there is free help available if you have a 401k account, there's an 800 number or a website attached to that portfolio the company that manages and operates that portfolio outside of your company the plan sponsor. they will have resources for their plan participants free resources if you need to talk to somebody to just get a better understanding of what is going on in your portfolio alexis christopher is abc news, new york. now to the chaos that continues at twitter. some workers are reportedly being asked to return according to bloomberg. some of them were laid off by mistake. at least that's what twitter says and now more changes are on the way after new owner elon

musk tries to boost revenue abc news reporter being a roy has the latest. nearly half of twitter's workforce now gone after new owner elon musk gave out the pink slip to thousands friday some reportedly being invited back to work by musk deemed two essential to be let go even though they were already laid off and now musk announcing even more changes saying the company will start permanently suspending any accounts that engage in impersonation without clarifying parity comedian kathy griffin had her account suspended sunday after switching her twitter name to elon musk and changing her picture to his though suspensions musk says will come without warning now that widespread verification is rolling out the company will begin charging $8 a month for premium features, including keeping that blue check mark to show your account is verified people have gotten this for free on twitter. they're not gonna pay for that's gonna be much problem and

turning around what's really been a troubled asset for the last decade this all happening. has musk tries to bring in more revenue for the company. the billionaire revealing twitter is losing 4 million dollars a day ad revenue also down is some major companies temporarily pause advertising on the site many waiting to see how things shake out under this new leadership. the easy part was buying twitter given these richest person in the world. the herculean hard part is gonna be fixing it and a number of tech giants are announcing layoffs including facebook's parent company. better which is reportedly planning to notify its employees of widespread cuts this week. arena roy abc news, new york all right. we'll take a short break and we'll be back with more.

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silicon valley has been shocking dizzying as we mentioned earlier and we want to get a little deeper now into the fact that twitter had laid all these people off thousands of them

right and now there's word that some of them are being asked to come back and also there's meta news. that's facebook's parent company allegedly ready to drop the ax on thousands of its employees this week joining us live now to talk more about the latest and an alternative social media platform. that's actually picking up a lot of steam cnet reporter abrara. al-hedy abroad good to see you. thank you for having me. i appreciate it. yeah, so what is this about twitter now hiring back some just laid off employees. yeah, this is kind of surprising news. so we found out late last week that twitter had laid off about half of its staff reportedly and now their reports that twitter is now looking to rehire dozens of those employees that had been let go and there are two reasons for this. apparently some of them were laid off by mistake and the rest were let go before management realized how necessary their expertise was in order to build the products that elon musk wants and so this is kind of just the latest plot twist in just a wild, you know last few months that we've been seeing at

twitter. we're not sure how many people that affects in san francisco here, right? could your be that i'm sorry. yeah, wondering how many of those people being brought back are in san francisco. do we have any ideas like that? we don't have any of those details a lot of you know, really a lot of the details are unknown and this is just kind of a lot of reports that are coming out. i'm sure we'll hear more updates as we go. but yeah, it's not clear how many of those specifically are people in the bay area, but we know the bay area was likely very hardly hit by this round of layer the headquarters, right? what's the employee reaction? i don't know if you've had a chance to talk to some x employees. will they actually want to come back? it's hard to say, you know, a lot of people are speaking on terms of anonymity because you know, it's a very delicate situation and so, you know, we haven't necessarily been able to speak to anyone and it's hard to even get in touch with twitter's communications department because a lot of those people have been let go as well, but you kind of just you go on twitter and you see a lot of people who are let go and and they're kind of sentiment of of sadness that this chapter has

come to a close for them, but i'm sure we'll be hearing more from people as the days and weeks progress. are you hearing about any inconsistencies in the way that laid off employees are being treated because anecdotally certainly on twitter you're seeing some people talk about hey, i wasn't offered severance and other people said i was and is everybody being kept on for three months do we know? yeah, it's interesting too. that's another thing. that's kind of unclear. you know, elon musk took to twitter and said people who were let go are getting three months of sovereigns and you know, it's not clear. that's that's just from him. we're not exactly sure all the details there, but it is really hard a lot of employees are banding together and filing what could be a class action lawsuit because under the warren act it says that corporations big companies have to give 60 days advance notice if they're going to do mass layoffs, and that wasn't the case here employees found out very very soon after very soon for the layoffs took place, right? that's why they're these class action lawsuits. we'll see how they play out. i want to move on to meta now

because we're getting news today that it will also lay off thousands of people. that's facebook's parent company. it's got 89,000 employees worldwide. also a lot of them here in the bay area. do you know how deep the cuts might go and when the news will become official this week, this is another instance where it's a lot of reported information and we're hearing that it could be several thousand employees and if it is it could be the first kind of large-scale light off that we've seen at meta. i mean, it's it's done fairly. well so far and it's 18 year history, but you know things are kind of going downhill for a lot of social media companies and this does not exclude meta a lot of these companies are losing ad revenue and looking for ways to cut costs so we could as soon as wednesday find out if these layoffs will be happening. i tell me if they check these boxes, right usually when companies need layoffs. you mentioned revenues down. did they grow too quickly? it's the thing about the pandemic is a lot of these tech companies grew too quickly a lot of us were so reliant on social media to stay in touch and rely

on a various digital platforms. and now that we're going back to normal a lot of these companies now have to grapple with that growth that they experience during that period so user base may be down as well. right and ads down. okay, so facebook shares therefore have tanked. it was almost $300 a share. i think a year and a half ago now it's down to 95 and falling. can you talk about that trend and and what's happened and that's going to continue. yeah, you know it's interesting because because meta facebook's parent company is, you know very much pushing the metaverse right now in the metaverse hasn't really taken off. it doesn't really exist in the capacity that meta wants it to and so it's i mean, it's paired with the fact that facebook has faced a lot of privacy issues and concerns and so people are kind of hesitant. they don't really know if they want to be in a metaverse owned by the company. that is the parent of facebook. and so yeah meta stock is down 73% since the beginning of this year and we'll just have to see if it's able to really execute this vision that it has for itself.

is mark zuckerberg under a lot of pressure from shareholders to make changes? if so, what types of changes do you think are in the works? i think one of the biggest things is really convincing users that this is something that they want and need, you know, trusting meta slash facebook recognizing that you know if they come into agreement with the idea that the metaverse is somewhere we want to be is it really somewhere we want to be we're already dealing with things like zoom fatigue as do. we really want to be in a matter of verse also, so it's going to be interesting to see how facebook kind of adapts to what people want and if it's able to align with what the company wants right or do i want those trolls coming after me in the metaphors, but they have a lot of products right instagram. what's up oculus? i mean is any of it doing well? yeah, i mean it's it's hard to say, you know, instagram is facing a lot of competition from tiktok right now instagram is kind of playing catch up with tiktok really because tiktok is where you go for short form video and we've seen instagram really try to emphasize reals

and and, you know video content really on your feet. you'll probably notice it if you scroll how much of it is just video instead of photo, you know, facebook is down users. you know, it doesn't have as many the growth and users is really lagging. in fact, they saw a drop there and then oculus. i mean they came out with a really expensive headset recently. we'll have to see people adopt that if they if that's something they want to shell out 1500 dollars for but you know, we'll see if people really do want to really embrace virtual reality as much as meta wants them too back to twitter it now says it will wait till after the midterm elections to introduce changes to its verification process. what's the latest you're hearing on that? that's right. so twitter over the weekend had showed there were version notes for the app in the app store that said that you know, you could now pay the eight dollar monthly subscription for twitter blue and get that blue check mark next to your name and get that verification but a lot of people internally were concerned that if twitter just began rolling out this verification before the midterm elections people could manipulate the

truth and that blue check mark next to their name and just you out misinformation and people would think it's real because we're trained to see that blue check mark and think. oh, this is authentic so they actually did hold back and say that they're not going to release that feature and just make it fully available to everyone with that fee until after the elections. okay. hey have you i'm just wondering many people have said they're leaving twitter. i guess we won't actually know the user numbers now that the company is private. they don't have to tell us but is there any sense of that actually happening in jobs? and where are they going? yeah, so a lot of people i guess just anecdotally we've seen a lot of people say that they're ready to leave twitter, but there's this other platform called mastodon, which you know, i had never actually been familiar with myself up until recently but a lot of people are leaving twitter to go here. it's essentially a decentralized version of twitter so it only has about 4.5 million users, which is actually a sizable amount but compared to the you know over 200 million on twitter. it's still growing but it's over a hundred and twenty thousand user last four days since one

bought twitter and essentially a bunch of separate servers where people can you know, find areas that they're interested in and communicate with each other and it's it's, you know decentralized so it's not owned by one big corporation or anything right? not one man, making all the rules right, but i wonder in terms of content moderation because people talk about you know, is that a safe space now, is it a place for truth or misinformation if it's decentralized like that? what is the implication for how that's managed? yeah, this is also a real concern because people already complain about this on on twitter. so what would it be like on this platform? well, the thing here is that you know, because it's decentralized the server owners can't be forced to adhere to any content moderation practices, but essentially what the owner of this platform says is whenever hate speech servers do pop up other servers kind of just band together and block them. so they're essentially ostracized from communicating with other people, but there's no like official metric here to really ensure that that there isn't, you know, hate speech but people kind of just take it upon

themselves to to try to block all that. i guess that calls on people having the good sense to to stand together when they need to so we'll see what happens with that but it certainly is like you said picking up a lot of users lately a bar. thank you so much always great talking with you. appreciate it. thank you for having me. i appreciate it. and a reminder folks you can get our live newscast breaking news weather and more an election news with our abc 7 bay area streaming tv app. it's available on apple tv google tv fire tv and roku just search abc 7 bay area and search abc 7 bay area and download it now. this is what voting yes on prop 31 means. yes on 31 ends the sale of candy flavored tobacco products. yes, stops big tobacco from targeting our kids. yes, protects kids from nicotine addiction. vote yes on 31.

this is what voting yes on prop 31 means. yes on 31 ends the sale of candy flavored tobacco products. yes, stops big tobacco from targeting our kids. yes, protects kids from nicotine addiction. vote yes on 31. getting answers today. we'll be here every weekday at 3

answering questions with experts from around the bay area world news tonight with dave ramirez next and i'll see you back here at 4. s. this system headed for the north ears. house speaker nancy pelosi, her first interview on the attack and on her few sure in congress. the key raceness the battlegrounds down to the wire. the pennsylvania showdown between john fetterman and dr. mehmet oz. president biden and former president obama in pennsylvania making the case for fetterman. dr. oz joining pennsylvania by former president trump, the closing argument they made together. in georgia tonight another dead heat. senator raphael warnock and his

republican challenger