We live in a world where this kind of behavior is all too common. Im sure many of you in this room have your own story. I know i do. Nobodys victim is a book that gives the sufferers of these crimes they face and name and identity which for so long they have been shrouded in darkness, gaslight and not taken seriously. Goldberg gives stories of that of a 15yearold girl who was sexually assaulted at school and been suspended when she reported what happened to her. Theres also a woman whose ex made bomb threats in her name and a man whose former boyfriend posted his information on a dating application inviting strangers to his home and work for sex. This book is an analysis of victims rights in a time when digital harassment is getting worse by the day and its a warning call for whats to come if we dont take action now. Moderating tonights event is Margaret Talbot and essayist, nonfiction writer and staff writer for the new yorker. Please help me welcome to politics and prose Margaret Talbot and carrie goldberg. [applause] this is so great to be here with you. In 2015 i did a profile for the new yorker magazine and got to spend a lot of time in her office and with her wonderful crew, and i have to say that she does work on some grim and frightening cases and brings a vibrance thats fun and the people that work with her are so committed and its actually it ended up being a fun story. One of the things i learned that was new to me when i started the story, i mean a lot of things, it opened my eyes. Revenge porn is a nonconsensual term, because although one motivation for distributing intimate photos that we have been shared in the context of a relationship is revenge and that is a common scenario and there are also people that do this kind of thing for profit and there are a variety of motivations unfortunately. The other thing that was a shock to me is the extent of the sort of vicious extent and persistence with which some of the campaigns of pronouncement by trolls and others are carried out online. So i just wonder if you can tell a story from one of your clients to give a little more detail and kind of more context of what we are talking about. First of all, thank you everyone for coming. It is still surreal that people are coming to listen to the conversations about it. And meeting margaret was a lifechanging experience for me. When i first got an email from you saying what we are considering to run a profile on me, how many words . [laughter] think of me as a fly on the wall. I was always having to yell stop talking and get back. [laughter] that was literally a direction for her associate, adam, whos one of his jobs was looking at a lot of [inaudible] to take it down a nonconsensual porn basically. Okay, lets talk about a story. Enddoublequote i create this flippant. We have the categories of offenders that we see over and over again and its like they are acting from the same playbook. They basically will stop at nothing to destroy his targets life and im using the male pronoun because usually the offenders are theyll. They are not afraid of cease and desist orders were orders of protection or the law and pernicious type of issues we have to resolve for somebody that is completely lawless using the internet as a weapon. One case is a woman who was a server at a restaurant and i got the call from a College Friend of mine who said this woman she worked with was viciously harassed. When we first connected, she was so scared that i was the offender and we had to do all these things to prove my phone number wasnt his and she had every reason to be terrified. She met this man when she was posting an ad looking for a roommate, she was with three people anthepeople and they neeh roommate. This nice guy from the academy came to look at the apartment and little did she know that her computer was on and she was at the room and in a few minutes he somehow gained access to her entire online life and then life started getting really crazy for her where her online diary is where being sent to everybody in her social circle. Her medical records relating to abortions she had had hundreds of people were giving details of her most dramatic moments but then it just continued. She knew that it was this roommate but she thought okay im just going to leave. So she went back home and suddenly her father, her mother was getting hacked, her fathers email was being impersonated so that it looked like he was sending child pornography and this guy was creating kolaches with the clients pictures and sending them from these impersonated accounts, and he was very technically savvy. We caught the fed to come in, that he was really good at using all this different software. The torrent browser and vpn to mask his ip address into different kinds of overseas email services. Even though multiauthenticated couldnt really find proof. Was she going to the police during this time . Sh she got to the police come and then he i mean, it was so allconsuming, and then he started impersonating him sending bomb threats, just targeting the hell out of them and sending bomb threats to the school on an almost daily basis completely absorbing. So some from her and some anonymously. Flooding is a thing that happens to our clients and a lot of gamers and stuff, where somebody basically makes a 911 call saying margaret is holding up her family for hostage and shes got all these semi automatic weapons that shes going to kill everybody. So it creates this emergency, and then lawenforcement and people come with their guns drawn to your home and its really dangerous because people have gotten shot and killed from Law Enforcement responded to those situations. It happens a lot on streaming platforms where somebody is playing a videogame and then somebody else swamps the then it plays out live. So, i mean its a scorched campaign on the client and we found a few kinks in the armor and he got arrested and actually he was sentenced to 17 and a half years for cyber harassment, but it was really the child pornography, impersonating her cyber harassment is not judges dont give big sentences for that. This wasnt really her, like so many cases when it was just one woman under attack, it really wasnt a big deal, but when communities when the town started getting targeted, then it got taken more seriously. Right. Right. It was both in massachusetts . Yes. That is where he did get a long sentence that you were able to, you know, help the client in a very real way to bring somebody to justice. And often, very often that is quite difficult to do and there are a lot of reasons for that. A lot of obstacles to Holding Internet companies accountable, individuals accountable to getting the Police Involved which the police often dont understand the forensics or they are not able to do the forensics involved in tracing some of these anonymous people and so on. One of the big ones for you is section 230 in the communications piece, one of the big obstacles that you have to deal with it id sure there are people in this room because we are from washington, d. C. , but maybe you can explain what it is coming int and those that may ne familiar. Thank you for asking. [laughter] how many people deal with section 230, the small that went into effect in 96. It went into effect in 96 and it was a 26 wor 26 word law that by said Interactive Computer Service are immune from liability for information content provided by a thirdparty. So, basically it was the biggest threat was defamation, people talking trash about somebodys business saying your broadcast company has bugs in it and rather than going through the detainer saying that the plaintiff was also in the platform and so, at the time, lawmakers were discovering the threat of biography on the internet and realized pornography could become this big issue and kids might find biography, so there was a law passed that basically banned pornography from the internet and included this little phrase coming into the following year in 1997, the pornography law you may have noticed this pornography on the internet [laughter] it was found unconstitutional. What survived was the section 230 of the law. So over the years, in the last 23 years, this little law that was really intended to protect companies from publication like the publication of obscenities have become so bloated by the court that basically any company that has any sort of relationship with the internet seems to be able to seek protection from liability under it for any kind of lawsuit. And its really scary, because it basically Means Companies over the years have become the most data rich, wealthy companies in the history of the universe, and now they are like basically beyond the reach of the court system. People always make fun of how facebook and google are more powerful and wealthy or then a lot of governments, but in some ways they are a sovereign where the court cant even touch them. I will talk about harris thats a good example. I talk about this in the book a lot, in real life, i talk about it nonstop. [laughter] our client, matthew harris, in 2016 he was recently out of a relationship with an abusive, controlling man who went on a scorched type of attack and decided he was going to devote his life to destroying matthew. Classic psycho behavior. His weapon was dating applications, said he would create on grinder and jack profiles of matthew with matthews picture and say that matthew was interested in really hardcore sex and head of drugs to shar share and impersonating matthew he would set up dates that matthews home and job. So then would come in real life to matthew to have sex with him, and it wasnt once or twice. It was 1200 times. It was just showing up at his work, his dogs, all hours of the day and night. Eventually he put a sign on his front door saying this is a fake profile. Grinder patrons, leave me alone, but it didnt work. People thought he was resisting, it was play. The exboyfriend was like im going to say that its part of the game. Im going to say somebody is impersonating me. But come back, bought when i tell you to go away come back five minutes later. I mean it was really frighteni frightening. The offender would get more and more clever sometimes. People were coming an would como kick matthews ass or sometimes he would set up six dates in the bathroom at work that he would go to the bathroom if somebody would follow him there. Matthew did what anybody would do. He went to the police, like 12 times, 80 plus 14. Its a different kind of humiliation and dismissiveness that you get when you are a man making these kind of police reports, because women have our own way of reporting, but he was told to just deal, be a man and take care of it. Whats wrong with you. To man up. He got an order of protection, and nothing was working. This guy was on a rampage. So, really grinder was not an exclusive position to help. They control the goddamn app. There was geological information driving people to his home. When people comin coming were co scary, he would ask to see their phone and take pictures of the Text Messages so we could use it for proof and it would show on the ave. , 200 feet away or 10 feet away. It would show the distance somehow between matthew and the offender. So there was technology that was being used to exploit the grinder technology, and he was contacting them and asking them to remove these. Yes if so, finally so finally when he came to me i was working with twitter and facebook and when i found out i was a knight in shining armor and was going to call up the counsel of the company and solve this problem for him and it would go away in a couple of hours, they ignored me, and so we sued them. I was aware of the wall of the communications piece of the act and grinder would say that they were not liable for this conte content. Im going to sue them for negligence into their product design. They didnt have the correct technology to identify users, which that is insane. Its really sophisticated stuff. It is a certainty that if you have a dating app that facilitates in real life encounters than certainly from time to time it is going to be abused by rapists, child predators come in if you dont get a design into your app, a way to control that, then it is in the stream of commerce something that is dangerous and ineffective. So this is the case about a product liability. And you are not immune from liability from that. The judge thought that we were full of shape and dismissive and did it really early on they said its immune from liability because it is all third party content. I think by far the most expansive reading of section 230 because this was not a publication. We were not suing them in their capacity of publishing thirdparty content. Its not like they were a website and this is just words that somebody had posted. Is anybody working to get rid of section 230 . Im glad you asked. On august 7 the submitted a petition to the same court into the whole issue was booted off and ready to go. It just needed one of the 80 or 90 cases. There was some draft legislati legislation. Right now over the last six months there is so much more conversation about it. Like i cant even keep up with it on twitter. If we lose section 230 and each on the internet is dead forever. There is no indication of that. Sometimes people do bring up that argument that some of these forms of harassment constitute Free Expression when i did this article i interviewed people and they said you could carve out important exceptions, but what do you think . It is an issue of access to justice have thought about free speech. We are the individuals to lose out if we cant put accountable somebody or something it this is all about being able to sue an entity. Whewhen using the entity you already have to be able to show that it caused the harm, but there were damages. So that is a really high burden already. I know that most of us dont plan on waking up tomorrow and suing facebook or twitter or google but this is important for all of us because pressure and fear of being sued is what creates what motivates companies to develop safety features and why they put seatbelts and airbags in our cars because the pressure from product liability. So much of the safety features around us in every domain like crabs or car seats is because of a lawsuit. They have no reason to care about the reason that companies can be weaponize they ask the companies what are you doing to protect women and people from the views of your platform. Its outside of the reach of the court. It is a necessity that they dont deserve. [applause] i will Say Something this is a different arena, how many states now have laws about nonconsensual porn . New york finall new york finally just tested. 46. We have central legislation called the shield act that is pending in dc. There were three states that had ihave it so that is one area where it is really wonderful how the activity of it was a fewer number of activists working on that issue and how it just swept the nation five years ago everybody was like its free speech. Although speech on the internet if you criminalize revenge porn. That is the case in the people working on these issues. Its not going to break free speech or the internet, but it is good to protect a lot of people from some terrible forms of progress meant. I know that we have questions from the audience, but i want to ask you also when i was reporting the peace in 2015, it was before the election and i wonder how much of your work has taken on a political and some people being harassed by the nationalists and others and i wonder how much, how do you see cases where those florida forms of harassment may be interpersonal or political are emerging a little bit or if it is just changed in general what kind of trolls you deal with and whaitwhat kind of issues you are facing. I definitely think that having a rapist harasser troll as president utterly empowers others the leader of the land is arresting and saying horrible things to people on twitter then everybody else thinks thats okay. Its true its causing radicalization. We have seen that with the massive shootings and where they are live stream or the manifesto is being posted on the internet and being disseminated. It is also related. We have had a lot of cases. We have people that Say Something regrettable on the internet and then they are mobbed for it and that is terrifying and scary. It gets access and its really hard and this is another reason that we have to put pressure on the platforms. There is a thousand people threatening and harassing you on a platform because the cops dont want to get involved and its one thing for one person to be making a thousand threads because you can go after that one person that is a thousand bd people are making one threat, you go after one person and still 999 and plus, you know, the tweets, they dont want to go after somebody on the other side of the country. These are small crimes to them and his demeanor is read there have been a couple of i guess they were civil suits were a couple of federal judgments against, for example, the guy that was founder of the daily reform who in fact one of the people that won a judgment against him was first female student at aclu in a real estate person in montana gotten into some kind of disagreement and became the victim of the antisemitic harassment. When the word gets out he didnt show up for his deposition. Those are great cases we have cases representing abortion providers and theyve also been the target of extreme hard i spent and publications of amplifying those voices. They were viciously harassed and then all the material was slightly exposed and so i think the more cases we bring against anonymous trolls, the better are the platforms that are amplified. Right. Im going to turn to some of the audience questions here. Heres one. What do you think is the primary trigger that possesses somebody to stalk, harass and create fear and a woman or women that they target and why . What do you think is the primary . Usually narcissistic parasites who cant cope with injury i have no interest in knowing what motivates them. Thats somebody elses job. I just need them to stop. Here is a segway. What do you do for selfcare . [laughter] he never gets asked that question. Im asking, i actually covered this in my book, to be consistent. Exercise, wellbutrin, sex. Sounds good. The holy trinity. [laughter] what this is the council tries to the level of criminal stalking but ago just up to the line . Twenty alternative 20 accounts . If somebody has 20 accounts that they are using but maybe it is up to the line if someone wants to clarify, go ahead. That isnt enough information for me. Some people you can get rid of with a nasty letter and other people you need protection and have to go to court. It has to do a lot with looking at who the offender is and what they have to lose than the fact of the case. If somebody doesnt have a job or family or a home, they are much more inclined to go off the deep end than somebody that has got anger. Tell us the first lines of some of your best letters. Its good. I you have to be careful because sometimes they will really escalate. You have to know the sweet spot and if this is really going to work and make things go okay. If i were to write a cease and desist letter on your behalf, i would say the negotiation is defended. You are giving away all the fun. Theres plenty more. [laughter] what would you say had bee has e prozac on his starting your wall for law firm . Being a lawyer and is holding the cases, that is so different from being a Business Owner. Its a completely different thing. I started a law firm like anybody. Its really lonely and emotional to start something that is so personal. It was really personal to me and i was at a very low point when i started it such seems kind of strange because we dont think of like giving big things when we are at a low point, but i did. I wanted it to succeed and i didnt know how to run a business. Since he became the lawyer that you have needed to its different than becoming the Business Owner and when i first started i was so eager to help other people that were in my position and i didnt really know how to run a business or keep things going to. It wasnt until i started getting bigger cases representing people where i was just like if i dont learn how to run a business, im going to betray these very young clients then the people that kicked them out when they reported it and their lawyer is going to be out of business by the time they actually could get justice. So, the hardest part was just like learning how to run a business and expand that we could help more people and train it find staff members, which i have. The best part of it is being in charge of the thermostat, really. [laughter] like not being cold in the office. I love that. Getting to say whatever, getting to write a book and getting to take what u. Want even if its not going to result in money but you think its really important. When i was there in 2015 i think you had two other people working in the office out of your associated sort of parttime receptionist and now youre saying you have 13 i think. And im sorry, you know as it was set in the introduction, but im glad that you are able to fulfill that need because there still are not that many lawyers doing that kind of work and sexual privacy if you want to give it a relative term that you do and there are others around the country, but you were and are a pioneer in the field. Im going to skip this one because it says the areas that you specialize in and i feel like we have covered about. This is a more general one what motivates you to continue your work advocating for victims . I never once considered. People are hiring us on important cases that we think we have to solve and there are so many new iterations of ways to destroy another person that we see everyday in our office and we actually have the tools. This is an extension of the first question having the law firm is that people come to us in their most hellish moment and we actually know what to do and we can solve their problem and get them in order of protection and money or get them in jail or get that off the internet. Like we know how to do it. And so that keeps us going. Okay. Well there is another question behind me. In the introduction tonight a reference was made when the person that makes a complaint to get to the harasser is penalized how often does this happen . The it is common for the harassers to do counterclaims or petitions if you go and try to get an order of protection often the offender when i was under attack he was Filing False Police reports against me and i got arrested. The legal system is a great tool for offenders and its one of the most infuriating and hellish parts if you are being attacked by the system that is supposed to protect you. We see that so much right now as people are outing the rapist and going online and ar saying this happened to me. We see so many lawsuits against the victims for defamation and these offenders think that by suing for defamation is going to somehow make them more credible seems to me there are so many interesting aspects to this. I remember Something Else in reporting this if you were trying to take a picture down that has been circulating online and you can sometimes use copyright law that you have to have taken the picture so if it is a salty than you own the copyright to say someone took a photograph i got the skirt photograph or a photograph of you sleeping naked, somebody else took it they own the copyright so trained to use that method to get folks to take it down is tricky unless you can prove. Some illegal material isnt copyrightable and im really intrigued by that because i think that if you are the victim of a crime and its being disseminated like child pornography come if you dont own the copyright of it and you can send a letter to get it taken down. Copyright needs to automatically bet with the victim when its something criminal. Copyright is one of the things the internet respects. Some people would disagree with me. But even the sketchiest revenge porn websites overseas will actually be stacked a copyright takedown notice with some exceptions. If the website is on notice that this is infringing a copyright than they can actually be sued if they dont take it down. So, the threat of a lawsuit does matter. It is clear from the dnc a. Yes, it is just brute force. And it is one of the few tools that originally was available to the victims of nonconsensual porn. But the criminal law really just criminalizes the offender. About to prove things like the bigger social Media Companies have an advance on their platforms and so now they are like reporting tools and google also has a way for it to be removed from somebodys Search Engine results. If it was more effective know i wrote a piece about google recently and im sticking by it. [laughter] on that note, i know we should probably be winding up so that you can sign books for people. Thank you. [applause] if you guys would just fold up your chairs. [inaudible conversations] there is an impression that washington, d. C. Is a subsidiary of big business about the sort of popular news and as you push back very strongly against the data that you cited on lobbying so the big businesses and really spending here they spend on the advertising is that a measure of how the big business thinks it is trying to impose on washington or a measure its policy voters. Theres a lot of defense procurement and sometimes dominated by business and bad ways there are numerous cases of most of the money spent is spent on voters desire and you look at the white house, President Donald Trump what hes doing on trade, a very much disapprove and most american businesses disapprove in the rule of law. What hes doing or trying most businesses are against. Often against ceos demonizing them so it is a mixed complex picture in some areas. [inaudible conversations] good evening, everyone. Im so excited to see such a full house here and i know our authors are as well. Before i start, i just want to give a few housekeeping items. We are more than happy to have you taking photos but please turn the flash off so you dont wind our speakers and if you will put all of your cell phones f
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