00:15:22.720Carrie has a real connection to her clients.1.00
00:15:25.020She rages about the injustices they face on Twitter.
00:15:28.040She uses her own experiences to help them combat stigma and shame and let them know they're not alone.
00:15:33.240I feel very invested in in making the process of the litigation or getting justice tolerable because it can take years and you need you need them to be able to to feel like it's worth it.
00:15:50.380and it's um it's stressful at times and it can be very um invasive you know like when you're
00:16:00.160having to relive when you're only 16 17 you're having to relive this awful thing that happened
00:16:05.500to you when you're 13 you need you need to like feel like it's it's for something really important
00:16:11.080and um and also just getting back to what you were talking about Bridget about how um
00:16:19.880you know when we're young we can actually be complicit in some of the violation it makes me
00:16:30.100think about um how much more traumatizing it is to be a victim when you're when you're young and
00:16:37.280we we're not only have have our violators not developed uh the skill of empathy but the victims
00:16:44.900haven't figured out how to cope and it can feel like your whole world is crushing around you if
00:16:51.220if you are not only sexually violated but then all the students in your class you know think
00:16:58.560you're a joke and are spreading it and you know you're afraid your parents are going to punish you
00:17:03.400and you're afraid your school's gonna punish you and and like kids already don't have control over0.82
00:17:09.960over their lives. And then to be kind of socially ostracized or put in this category of other and
00:17:17.620have your friendships kind of crumble, that can create such desperation. And every single one of
00:17:26.840our young clients has been suicidal during those moments. It's just like, they don't have the
00:17:33.320coping skills. I didn't when I was that age. When Carrie was younger, she was victimized by
00:17:39.480abusive exes one had intimate images of her and vowed to use them to ruin her life this was before0.86
00:17:45.860revenge porn was even really a thing people didn't know how to talk about it or deal with it when it
00:17:50.780happened and lawyers didn't really know how to handle what she was going through in your book
00:17:55.960you talk about how you became the lawyer that you that you wish you had had in your 30s can you tell
00:18:01.300me a bit about that? Yeah. Um, well, I had some, uh, violence, you know, I was a victim of, of some
00:18:13.560dating violence and incident of sexual violence, uh, before I started my law firm. And, um, when
00:18:22.620I was trying to escape my ex-boyfriend's stalking and, and he was just besieging me with, with
00:18:34.140text messages and threats and, and false police reports. And it was never ending. Um, I had
00:18:42.160trouble finding a lawyer. Um, you know, I, I worked with somebody on the domestic violence
00:18:49.860piece. I worked with somebody on the bogus criminal complaints piece. But for everyone
00:18:56.440that I talked to, this was a real like abnormal case for them. And, you know, you don't want to
00:19:05.100be the outlier when it comes to getting legal help and having a lawyer, you know, be kind of
00:19:13.200learning as they go. And, and it was unpredictable for them, you know, what would happen or, or the
00:19:20.520kind of the profile of my offender was, was something really new to them. And, um, when I
00:19:27.140finally got my orders of protection and he pled guilty, which was six months after the breakup,
00:19:34.360Um, I quit everything and started my law firm a few months later when I was, you know, in
00:19:43.880retrospect, I was still in the midst of a lot of trauma, but, um, I started this law
00:19:51.720firm basically to become the kind of lawyer that I'd needed because I'd gotten this kind
00:19:56.780of involuntary education into, um, into, into the world of, of, you know, being stalked and having
00:20:06.720no control over what's happening in the internet. And I learned that in New York, we didn't have
00:20:12.780a law criminalizing, um, you know, somebody sending around your naked pictures. And so
00:20:20.240the internet component of, of the attack on me was, was the most scary thing that, um, the scariest
00:20:29.360part about it, because even after I got my order of protection, I knew that legally he could still
00:20:36.180be sending around my images. He, you know, as far as I know, he didn't, but, but there was always
00:20:44.100this like thing this that he had threatened to and and uh he had sent me emails saying that he
00:20:53.280with the picture saying that he'd blind copied um you know people that i was uh like other lawyers
00:21:00.140and judges and stuff um but it was like this constant anxiety that like i wasn't i wasn't
00:21:06.620protected even after all the legal issues had seemingly wrapped up0.98
00:21:12.720Carrie became one of the most prominent lawyers specializing in revenge porn and offers victims legal support and a pathway to justice, whatever that looks like for them.0.76
00:21:22.960Our expertise is dealing with people who've been stalked and harassed and victims of sexual assault and sexual trauma and getting justice for them.
00:21:33.260Sometimes it's just about getting an order of protection or helping advocate in the criminal justice system or just sending a cease and desist and getting the offender to go away forever.
00:21:43.080Other times it's we have to give the victim doesn't want to take any legal action, but just wants those images to be removed from the Internet.
00:21:52.660And then we also do sometimes have really big cases against the city of New York when there's a retaliation against a student or a big case against Grindr because we felt they were facilitating our client being stalked.
00:22:12.800But basically the idea is that every client that comes to us has either been attacked or is under attack.
00:22:23.740And we've seen all these behavioral profiles over and over again.
00:22:27.520And the more you do something, the more expert you get.
00:22:30.360And so we can predict, you know, well, by sending a cease and desist letter to this kind of behavioral profile who is mentally ill and unrelenting and obsessed, we can know that's just going to escalate things.
00:22:46.580um whereas oh this other person he he's threatening revenge porn but he's actually
00:22:53.100got a really stable job and um lives with with and has a kid and he's actually going to feel
00:23:01.260um scared of a threat because it could take things away from from him more after this quick break
00:25:17.380I was kidnapped and held captive for nine months.
00:25:20.900I survived, and I've spent my life exploring
00:25:23.600how other people survive what should have destroyed them.
00:25:27.200I'm Elizabeth Smart, and these are the Survivor Files.
00:25:30.820I just remember this low, taunting voice
00:25:34.440next to my ear saying shut up don't say anything every week i'm with survivors who live through
00:25:41.940the unthinkable i knew if he woke up without a doubt he was going to hurt me i started feeling
00:25:49.500that there was someone at the end of my bed and i just started screaming they are abducted stalked
00:25:57.580controlled and nearly silenced but these aren't stories about what's taken from them they're
00:26:03.320stories about what it takes to make it out alive. Listen to The Survivor Files with Elizabeth Smart
00:26:09.500on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
00:26:17.920Let's get right back to it. Carrie's case against the dating app Grindr was one of the biggest0.84
00:26:23.600fights of her career. In it, she sets her side on legislation called Section 230, which basically
00:26:29.640says that tech platforms can't be sued for what people say on those platforms. Now, free speech
00:26:35.400advocates like the Electronic Frontier Foundation say Section 230 is what makes the internet the
00:26:40.520internet. But Kerry says that's exactly the problem. Forgive me if I like bungle this from
00:26:46.140my kind of like layperson's research. I understand that it really comes down to Section 230, which I
00:26:51.480know that is something that you really, really have an issue with. You know, this is the section
00:26:56.300that allows tech companies to not be held liable for things that are said on their platform,
00:27:02.340the way that their platforms are used.
00:27:04.700Free speech advocates say that that section is like what makes the internet what it is.
00:27:09.640But you say that's exactly the problem, right?
00:27:11.900That we should be thinking about the internet in a different way.
00:27:14.620We should be building a different internet.
00:27:16.500I guess, how do we reconcile those two arguments, I guess?
00:27:21.000You know, is there some way to preserve free speech online while also not letting tech companies just like avoid accountability for the way that their platforms are are misused?
00:27:34.460Oh my gosh, I have so much to say to this, Bridget. And you framed it like better than I could. Our client, Matthew Herrick, was a waiter slash actor slash former reality star who lived in Manhattan in Harlem. And he had just ended a relationship with a really controlling and abusive man.
00:27:55.620And among the ways that that man stalked Matthew was he started creating fake profiles on Grindr, the gay dating app, and then luring people to Matthew's job and to his home using Grindr's geolocating technology and DMing with the unknowing people.
00:28:17.760and over the course of several months over 1300 individuals came in person to matthew's apartment
00:28:27.680and to his job thinking that they were there to have sex with him so imagine just like in the
00:28:35.580course of this interview if your buzzer rang three times with you know like so it was sometimes as
00:28:42.400many as 23 people a day Bridget and um and you know each time he he didn't know who it was going
00:28:51.460to be he didn't know if that person was going to be dangerous sometimes um Matthew's ex would
00:28:56.720would torment and taunt the visitors and say homophobic or racist things or say that Matthew
00:29:02.700had free drugs and so sometimes the the visitors would um come really angry or tweaked out um but
00:29:10.920always they were there thinking that Matthew had had rape fantasies and and stuff so I mean
00:29:16.840it was scary like it was it was a crime that was happening to Matthew day in and day out
00:29:23.660every single day and Matthew had gone to the police 10 times he'd gotten an order of protection
00:29:31.900that the offender was violating over and over again and nothing nothing mattered Matthew
00:29:38.380We flagged the accounts with Grindr about 50 times by the time we came along.
00:29:45.600And then I was, I had just worked with a bunch of big tech companies at the time.
00:29:52.340This is like the fall or the end of 2016.
00:29:58.740And I'd worked with a bunch of tech companies on their revenge porn policies.
00:30:02.200And so I was super like, I'll just call up Grindr's general counsel and get them to, to remove this, this user. And they ignored me too. And so I was like raging, raging with him. And we, um, ended up getting a restraining order against Grindr, um, saying that they had to remove this user, which, you know, it's not super common to get a restraining order against a tech company.
00:30:27.520um but we got it and grinder even ignored that the the visitors kept coming and we um as we
00:30:37.720you know plotted our lawsuit against grinder we had to worry about um the communications decency
00:30:44.320act section 230 which was this law as you mentioned that went into effect um back in
00:30:53.900uh 1995 when the internet looked nothing like it does now and um the law was actually you know
00:31:05.560it's just a 26 word law that was part of a bigger law that basically banned pornography on the
00:31:13.480internet but the other part of that law got got deemed unconstitutional in case you're wondering
00:31:19.840why we have porn on the internet. It's not constitutional to outlaw it, but this little
00:31:27.540section survived. And it originally was supposed to just make it so that, you know, if a bulletin
00:31:34.620board, which was basically the way that, you know, people talk to one another online, if
00:31:40.600somebody posted something defamatory on the bulletin board, there wouldn't be a lawsuit
00:31:47.340against the bulletin board, but the defamation would be user to user. And it kind of makes sense
00:31:53.640because then the platforms are not tasked with this burden of having to moderate all the speech
00:32:03.540and all the posts and stuff like that. But the issue is that over the last, you know,
00:32:12.30025 years, um, that law has been interpreted by our courts in this really expansive way.
00:32:21.000And so anytime, you know, Twitter or Facebook or anybody gets sued for something that's happening
00:32:27.040to a user, they say, we're not liable, um, because of section 230. Um, you know, like you can't hold
00:32:35.100us accountable for anything that one user does to another. And courts have, you know, said you're
00:32:41.300right because all the other cases before you didn't. It's important to emphasize that Carrie
00:32:47.140isn't just talking about what someone says on a platform. If a platform allows an abusive user1.00
00:32:52.140to impersonate you and set you up for a dangerous encounter in real life, it's a pretty big flaw.
00:32:58.680The issue is that the internet and apps and, you know, are so much different now than they were.
00:33:05.920We're not just talking about defamation. We're talking about, you know, geolocating technology
00:33:10.320and, you know, social media companies, which have so much functionability.
00:33:15.760And we're talking about, you know, dating apps, you know,
00:33:18.940and apps that are playing a role in matching users.
00:33:22.580And so, but we had to make it when we were filing this lawsuit
00:33:26.080so that we were not suing Grindr for anything that Matt's ex was doing to Matt
00:33:31.020because we knew it would get kicked out of court for violating Section 230.
00:33:35.800And so when Grindr's lawyers finally came to court
00:33:39.380and told us that they didn't have the technology to ban an abusive user,
00:33:48.480Like, you have the world's biggest dating app,
00:33:52.520and it's so foreseeable, biggest dating app, you know, for gay people.
00:33:57.920It's so foreseeable that sometimes it's going to be abused by stalkers, by predators,
00:34:02.700and you've not designed into it, like, a way to stop abusive users?
00:34:07.560Well, then you've released a dangerous product into the stream of commerce.
00:34:13.860And just like our product liability laws for cars that have airbags that don't go off or broken brakes or something, Grindr had created a dangerous product.
00:34:26.660We say you shouldn't have been on the market in the first place.
00:34:29.780And the fact that you are, well, that's how we're going to sue you.
00:34:32.940And Grindr still said, at the end of the day, you're still holding us liable for stuff this user's done to Matthew. It's not us. And the judge agreed with Grindr. And we appealed and kept losing at every stage and ultimately petitioned to the Supreme Court and lost.
00:34:54.620and um which happened you know this was from the beginning a real um it was a very experimental
00:35:04.280lawsuit like at the time that we filed it it was novel for us to even be for anybody to even be
00:35:10.400referring to um apps as products everyone was saying their services their services but but now
00:35:17.520this idea has caught on and, um, and it's kind of changed the way that, um, that we think about
00:35:26.720apps and internet products. And the fact that we did have such, you know, that Matthew experienced
00:35:33.960such a horrific thing and he couldn't get justice, that's actually helped us
00:35:42.480fight for legislation. And, and so, as you mentioned, you've got all these people
00:35:50.980on the other side that, and I don't actually think it's all these people. I think they're
00:35:55.900just very vocal and they're getting paid a lot of lobbying money from, from big tech.
00:36:02.620Is the internet we have now working for everyone? Is it the version of the internet we want?
00:36:07.720Is it one worth preserving as is? Carrie doesn't really think so.
00:36:11.040But they're saying that basically the Internet as we know it wouldn't exist without Section 230.
00:36:19.800And we're going to lose, you know, all the this wonderful free exchange of ideas if we if we lose Section 230.
00:36:28.900And I call total BS on that because, number one, you're assuming that the Internet as we know it is a great place and that as we know it should be preserved.
00:36:38.420just you know it's kind of like any constitutional argument or or make america great again you're
00:36:44.320assuming that it is the things are great um and you know you're assuming that you know that
00:36:53.120everyone has the same level of free speech but i mean speech on the internet really belongs to
00:36:59.720Those who are the loudest and and, you know, for basically for companies, Amazon, Facebook, Microsoft and Apple.
00:37:13.440I mean, they they control the Internet. We've got all our our issues with with antitrust and and then you've and also the quantity.
00:37:23.460So the most hostile people on the Internet are the ones who have the greatest protection.
00:37:29.720um but but also when we're talking about lawsuits and and the right to sue it's such a fundamental
00:37:37.300right carrie says that as long as tech companies have the kind of legal protection afforded to
00:37:42.280them by section 230 it creates a situation where there's not a lot of avenues to hold them
00:37:47.540accountable you know like the thing is like as you see with our our cases against the new york
00:37:53.260city department bed, like for the cost of an index number, which is a couple hundred bucks,
00:37:59.820which you can get waived. I had a client who, you know, whose mom was a part-time home health
00:38:05.780aid and didn't speak English, you know, and they had, they had no money to speak of. I had her
00:38:11.760suing the city of New York, which is worth multi-billion, you know, multi-billion dollar
00:38:17.800dollars and that's the great equalizer in our country is that anybody can sue even you know
00:38:25.120if there's been a harm and and it's it's fundamental and it's also how we keep our our big organizations0.97
00:38:32.680our companies from being total assholes because the threat of being being sued is is hits you in0.70
00:38:41.240the bottom you know it's a bottom line issue it costs money and um and it's what you know like0.98
00:38:47.180so many safety measures, whether we're talking about pharmaceuticals or cars, it's because of
00:38:52.700litigation that happened, or it's because of the fear of litigation. And also it's because most
00:38:59.220companies want people to be safe. They want their customers and clients to not have a bad experience.
00:39:05.240You don't see that with big tech though. You know, like the,
00:39:09.000the wall off, you know, like if you had a crisis on Facebook, if let's say you're a parent and
00:39:19.920your kid was manipulated into giving nudes to a pedophile, and then he was sharing them online,
00:39:29.880you're a parent, your first instinct was, you know, who do I talk to? Who do I talk to? What's
00:39:35.860the phone number. Who's live to help me with this crisis? And it's just like a one-way
00:39:43.080street here where we're giving these companies all this information about us and stuff. And we can't,
00:39:52.520I mean, they are like, it's like Oz, like they're behind this magic curtain and don't have to
00:39:59.440interact with us users. So as you were talking, it occurred to me that when you first started
00:40:04.360your law firm, the idea of revenge porn didn't even really exist. And it was through advocating
00:40:08.880for legal protections and working with victims that you helped usher in both a legal change
00:40:13.060and a cultural reimagining of what revenge porn actually is. And in listening to you talk about
00:40:19.080tech companies just now, it seems like you're poised to do that same kind of thing again when
00:40:23.060it comes to reimagining what role tech companies should play in creating an internet that's safer
00:40:27.720for everyone, like a hard reset of how these companies operate. Yeah. I mean, it's true,
00:40:33.280Bridget. There's so much, there's so much work that can be done. And like, it's, it's a really
00:40:38.320critical time because you have all this concentrated power and wealth in such a few, you know, just a
00:40:46.640few companies. And that the inequality in our, in our society is just getting greater, you know,
00:40:56.360because of these companies, because, and, and also the power and the omniscience is also,
00:41:04.020you know, another thing that's just creating so much more inequality in, in our country. And
00:41:10.800the thing is, I do have so many cases where it's, you can't ignore that the facts are horrific,
00:41:19.680you know, an 11 year old who was sextorted and made to create all these videos and they were
00:41:26.220sent around on Instagram or my, my client who's, who was, whose murder was basically live streamed
00:41:34.740or another client who was raped and murdered on a first date through match.com by a known sex
00:41:42.620offender. Like there's going to come become a point where the more cases like that. Okay. If,
00:41:49.640even if these cases can't be brought in court or get kicked out, like you can't deny that there is
00:41:55.260extreme negligence by these companies. Like, and we're just, I'm going to just keep producing them
00:42:01.680until we get new law. And it's just like any other case where if you don't feel like you can become
00:42:09.480a victim, then you're not going to care. But my, the whole purpose of my book and, and everything
00:42:15.500is, is to, is to pound into this, into the consciousness that we're all a moment away
00:42:23.080from becoming victims. Like all it takes is one person to decide they want to destroy you.
00:42:30.160One bad interaction at the supermarket with somebody who finds out your name,
00:42:34.260they then have the right to, you know, go to pedophile websites and tell the world that
00:42:40.460you're a pedophile and good luck getting that down. You know, like it's anybody can become
00:42:47.400a victim but it shouldn't take that in order for us to have empathy toward victims and want to
00:42:54.240change the internet and it's you know like this we're not talking about you know somebody calling
00:43:00.340somebody else a bitch on twitter that's not the kind of speech that's going to be impacted and
00:43:05.220we're not even talking about speech really because this is all conduct you know and but our law0.97
00:43:11.160doesn't even see the difference there i would you know like with grinder we weren't suing them for
00:43:16.680any words on the profile or any words on the DM. We were suing them because this product was being
00:43:23.180used, you know, hundreds of times a day to try to get our client injured. It's not a speech issue.
00:43:32.600This is unjust. Carrie's work isn't just about the law. It confronts the cultural attitude that1.00
00:43:38.400people who are victimized online deserve it, or that it's just a sexy scandal rather than a serious
00:43:44.180crime. Or that we should just expect that the internet is a place where we'll be mistreated.
00:43:50.540Why can't it be better than that? So what has it been like to have such a personal hand in
00:43:55.620challenging the internet to be better and safer and stronger and working to build one where people
00:44:00.120with power are held accountable? Well, it's so kind of you to describe me that way. I really
00:44:07.680feel flattered about that. You know, I love my job and I love that as the owner of this law firm,
00:44:16.420I can decide what direction we go in and what fights to choose. I mean, that is incredibly
00:44:21.880privileged and inquisition to be in. And, you know, like there are ways to use your law degree
00:44:30.820in a super awesome, fun, creative way.