There Are No Girls on the Internet - DISINFORMED： Tech CEOs testify before Congress + Carrie Goldberg on Section 230

00:00:00.000 This is an iHeart Podcast.

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00:00:05.180 Behind every night spent making the kids' lunches,

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00:00:09.440 Will they finally eat the veggies?

00:00:10.940 Will the pesto survive the first bite?

00:00:12.980 Will the lunchbox come home empty, half full, or come home at all?

00:00:17.020 And will you finish Episode 8 before you're done slicing the cucumbers?

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00:00:49.980 If your bookshelf and your For You page are equally important to your personality, welcome home.

00:00:55.400 Pro Society is a weekly podcast that's part book club, part group chat for anyone who thinks Pride and Prejudice and Love Island deserve the same level of discourse.

00:01:04.060 Each week, we're connecting the dots between books, the internet, and pop culture with your favorite writers, book talk creators, and plenty of overthought opinions.

00:01:12.300 Yeah, I'm obsessed. I'm obsessed.

00:01:14.080 Listen to Pro Society on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

00:01:19.460 I survived nine months in captivity, and I've spent my life exploring how other people survive

00:01:26.780 what should have destroyed them. I'm Elizabeth Smart, and these are The Survivor Files.

00:01:32.380 Every week, I'm with survivors who live through the unthinkable, abducted, stalked, controlled,

00:01:38.200 and nearly silenced. These are stories about what it takes to make it out alive.

00:01:43.380 Listen to The Survivor Files with Elizabeth Smart on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

00:01:54.700 You're listening to Disinformed, a miniseries from There Are No Girls on the Internet.

00:01:59.680 I'm Bridget Todd.

00:02:00.460 yesterday the ceos of facebook google and twitter went before congress to testify about the role

00:02:10.100 that their platforms played in spreading the misinformation that led to the insurrection

00:02:14.100 in january facebook ceo mark zuckerberg proposed some limited reforms to section 230 legislation

00:02:20.380 that says that tech platforms can't be held liable for what people post on those platforms

00:02:25.200 First, platforms should have to issue transparency reports that state the prevalence of content across all different categories of harmful content,

00:02:34.460 everything from child exploitation to terrorism to incitement of violence to intellectual property violations to pornography, whatever the different harms are.

00:02:44.080 On this week's episode, we heard from Evan Greer, digital rights activist, about why she works with the organization Fight for the Future to preserve Section 230.

00:02:53.580 Now, in the episode, Evan said that rushed changes to Section 230 could do more harm than good.

00:02:59.380 This is not about defending the companies.

00:03:02.140 I don't particularly care very much about, you know, the company's profits or, you know, how much money they have to spend on lawsuits.

00:03:11.460 What I care about is the impact that that then has on marginalized people's speech and particularly social movements.

00:03:19.660 And for me, Section 230 is such a crucial law for protecting speech, like, for example, a video of police violence, which in a world without Section 230 would almost certainly invite lawsuits from law enforcement who would claim that it's defamatory or that it's incitement, right?

00:03:38.240 Like the Me Too movement, where people are able to speak out about abusive behavior and platforms are willing to host that speech because they know that they're not going to get sued for giving people a platform to speak and speak their truth.

00:03:56.200 And so I always think about the impact on those movements.

00:03:58.560 Fight for the Future sees Section 230 as one of the most important laws protecting free speech and human rights in the digital age.

00:04:06.920 And that doesn't mean that we don't think it can ever be changed, right?

00:04:10.380 No law is sacrosanct.

00:04:11.620 Laws are just laws.

00:04:12.960 But we are very concerned that, you know, rushed or uncareful changes to Section 230 will do far more harm than good.

00:04:22.820 So you might have already gleaned there's a lot of debate about Section 230.

00:04:26.740 Some people say it shields big tech companies from accountability, while others say it's the backbone of what makes the Internet the Internet.

00:04:33.880 Last season, we heard from Kerry Goldberg,

00:04:36.420 an attorney who fights things like revenge porn, 0.98

00:04:38.620 stalking, and harassment on social media.

00:04:41.040 In a groundbreaking case about a horrific harassment campaign

00:04:44.720 being run on the dating app Grindr,

00:04:46.900 Kerry argued in favor of changes to Section 230

00:04:49.360 in front of the Supreme Court.

00:04:51.160 Let's listen in to Kerry's story 0.94

00:04:52.700 and why she says Section 230 needs to be changed.

00:04:56.700 There used to be a time when we didn't really have a term 0.98

00:04:59.520 for the idea of revenge porn.

00:05:01.740 Spreading someone's intimate content online without their consent

00:05:05.140 was just a thing that happened on the internet.

00:05:08.440 Just last week, 19-year-old Aaron Coleman won the Democratic primary for a Kansas House seat,

00:05:15.040 even after admitting to obtaining nude photos of a girl when he was 14,

00:05:19.160 trying to blackmail her into sending him more photos,

00:05:21.600 and spreading them online when she refused.

00:05:25.000 On Twitter, journalist Glenn Greenwald of The Intercept called Aaron's behavior,

00:05:29.480 quote, bad middle school bullying.

00:05:32.320 But this kind of behavior isn't just bullying.

00:05:35.580 It's a serious sex crime.

00:05:37.560 When we minimize revenge porn,

00:05:39.360 we're contributing to an attitude that says

00:05:41.200 once someone takes an intimate photo of themselves,

00:05:43.880 they deserve whatever happens next,

00:05:46.060 even if it means their life is destroyed,

00:05:48.060 they're harassed, or worse. 1.00

00:05:50.680 Luckily, women are fighting to build a better internet, 1.00

00:05:54.300 one where we have the right to feel safe online. 1.00

00:05:56.300 You could be forgiven for thinking of Keri Goldberg as a real-life superhero. 1.00

00:06:03.080 Instead of a cape, she rocks heels, bold statement glasses, 1.00

00:06:07.200 and sometimes even caps it off with a baseball hat reading, 1.00

00:06:10.440 I sue abusers.

00:06:12.660 With her law firm, she spent her professional life

00:06:15.780 holding all manner of internet creeps, abusers, and stalkers accountable.

00:06:20.100 Going head-to-head with powerful abusers and their enablers is scary.

00:06:24.660 But Carrie has never been one to back down from a challenge.

00:06:28.320 She represented Lucia Evans and Paz de la Huerta,

00:06:31.220 who were among the first women who made public allegations against Harvey Weinstein,

00:06:35.440 which led to his arrest.

00:06:37.060 Her book, Nobody's Victim, is about her own experiences with an abusive ex

00:06:41.480 who vowed to use the internet to ruin her life

00:06:44.340 and her journey to become the lawyer she needed. 0.99

00:06:48.080 Carrie has been responsible for creating a massive cultural change 0.97

00:06:51.520 around the kind of experiences marginalized people can expect from the Internet.

00:06:56.960 Her work, creating accountability for people who misuse the Internet to cause harm,

00:07:02.160 forces us to ask, why should we accept mistreatment as a given?

00:07:06.240 Why can't things be better? 0.98

00:07:09.860 Carrie, it turns out, has been holding creeps accountable since the very beginning.

00:07:15.120 So one of the stories I read about you is that when you were in school, 0.98

00:07:18.320 one of your classmates was bragging about having gotten a handjob from one of your girlfriends

00:07:22.260 and you responded by gluing a bunch of amputated doll hands to a poster and giving it to him with 0.96

00:07:28.040 a card that says, we'll give you a hand. Has holding people accountable for their bad behavior

00:07:32.480 always been a mission of yours? It didn't feel like it was a mission of mine. No, but it was a

00:07:38.960 fun pastime. And I remember one of my friends was on the boys' soccer team and she was the only girl

00:07:48.180 on the team. We didn't have a girls soccer team in Aberdeen. And there was an incident where she

00:07:52.720 was on the school bus and they were going to an away game and she fell asleep with her mouth open.

00:07:59.260 And she told me about how, uh, when she woke up, there were all these pubes in her mouth and all,

00:08:05.920 I guess a bunch of, of her teammates had like plucked their pubes and put it, put them in her 0.86

00:08:11.700 out. Now, I was a member of the yearbook team, and I got assigned to write this story about the

00:08:18.360 boys' soccer team. And I got kicked off the yearbook team, or the yearbook class, because

00:08:25.840 the teacher had realized that the first letter of each word in the first couple sentences spelled

00:08:34.660 out pubic pluckers so um you know now that's just like that's a title nine situation you know like

00:08:44.220 her waking up and having you know that that's a disciplinary issue back then it was it was we

00:08:52.380 didn't think that much of it it was playful but i mean she was the only girl on that team

00:08:56.580 you know it was it was um it's certainly impacting her enjoyment of it boys will be boys

00:09:04.320 It's just a joke.

00:09:05.700 She deserved it.

00:09:07.120 I'd never let something like that happen to me.

00:09:09.780 It's difficult for me to admit.

00:09:11.960 But I've had these kinds of harmful, victim-blaming reactions

00:09:15.080 to hearing about the sexual abuse of a classmate.

00:09:18.300 I was 15 and it was gossip.

00:09:20.380 Something to whisper about in homeroom.

00:09:22.660 I got to feel like part of the in-group.

00:09:25.200 Judging another girl for something that was done to her.

00:09:27.460 It was wrong and I wish I had known better.

00:09:30.680 Young me contributed to a culture

00:09:32.240 that treated serious crimes and violations like some big joke.

00:09:36.660 It wasn't a joke.

00:09:38.040 Your work has been incredibly impactful for me,

00:09:41.220 for my own process of understanding the cultural change

00:09:45.340 that needs to happen around those kinds of stories, right?

00:09:47.840 When I was in high school, I think I was in 10th grade,

00:09:51.000 you know how every high school has that big scandal

00:09:53.200 that happens in your class or in your school

00:09:55.760 that everybody's talking about? 0.69

00:09:56.900 In my school, it was a girl had sent intimate pictures

00:10:01.480 to her boyfriend clearly just for him and he sent them to everybody you know he said we lived in a

00:10:08.340 we went to a pretty small school there's an all-girls school where there was an all-boys

00:10:12.100 school nearby and these pictures were seen by everybody and I hate to say this it's like a

00:10:18.580 shameful confession but 15 year old Bridget thought this was a joke right like 15 year old

00:10:26.840 Bridget thought that because she had taken these pictures at all, she deserved what happened to

00:10:32.260 her. She deserved to be shamed. And, you know, I was very young, but looking back, I thought about

00:10:39.260 it as a joke, right? I didn't think it was serious. And I thought that, you know, it was okay to make

00:10:44.280 fun of her, to shame her because she had done this to herself and she deserves it. And it wasn't

00:10:48.320 until becoming older, did I really step back and think like, I was really complicit in continuing

00:10:55.200 a cultural attitude that a when things like this happen that it's just a joke it's not serious it's

00:11:02.260 not a big it's not a crime and b that the victims deserve to to whatever like scorn or shame they

00:11:09.940 get because they they put themselves in this situation and i guess my question is how do we

00:11:15.280 get to a place where we more people go through that process of being like oh well actually i 0.65

00:11:23.060 believe some pretty fucked up stuff about victims about sexualized violence and i have a role in

00:11:30.240 making sure that that people everybody understands that these are very serious 0.95

00:11:33.860 i mean bridget what you're talking about is is like it is the issue you know like most

00:11:42.220 of my underage clients um almost all of them are that victim are the person that the scandal

00:11:50.620 around the high school is, is orbiting around. And it's, you know, it, it is like the, the issue

00:12:01.680 is that kids don't learn empathy and they don't develop empathetic skills until later on. And

00:12:08.500 they can't roll reverse with, with the victims. And so instead they want to be, there's a natural

00:12:14.100 instinct in all of us to want to be part of the gossip and part of the story and to see the

00:12:18.040 picture that everyone else is seeing and talking about and not to be the like upstander who is

00:12:22.840 like that's actually a sex crime and everyone who's looking at that and has it on their phone

00:12:28.020 and is sending it to other minors is is actually engaging in a felony you know child pornography

00:12:35.340 like felonious behavior but the issue is that um that attitude of a victim blaming and stuff which

00:12:43.260 is really natural in kids it it's also frequently present in the administrators um in the school

00:12:50.880 resource officers who are cops and even in in the people um in the parents who who get involved

00:12:57.500 including sometimes the victim's parents a lot of times our clients don't take immediate action

00:13:03.980 because they're afraid of um their parents disciplining them um and it's just you know we

00:13:11.680 talk about consent education and how we need to teach kids about consent, but a big component of

00:13:18.300 that is about empathy and just, you know, doing role reversal exercises where kids have to imagine

00:13:28.480 what it's like to be in somebody else's shoes. And I think that's important when we're talking

00:13:33.320 about race and gender and and also victimization. One of Carrie's clients, a Brooklyn teen with

00:13:43.180 mental disabilities, was raped at a stairwell while at school. When she reported what happened,

00:13:48.800 her school counselor decided that she was at fault and suspended her. Sadly, her story is not really

00:13:54.540 that uncommon. School-aged Black and brown girls are more likely to face interpersonal violence at 0.97

00:13:59.960 school and are also disproportionately criminalized and punished. Carrie's client won a $950,000 0.99

00:14:06.920 settlement against the city and a city spokesperson promised $47 million annually in school climate

00:14:13.280 training programs. It won't undo the hell she suffered, Carrie said, but it will buy her some

00:14:18.140 comfort and healing. You know, it's not necessarily about suing, although I am a big believer in that

00:14:24.260 when it's when the circumstances are right but it's it's like making amplifying your voice

00:14:30.340 and i i mean sometimes when i would be writing my legal complaints in preparation of lawsuits

00:14:37.360 i would get so emotional that i would just go on these like twitter twitter like like storms you

00:14:44.280 know just like diva fits but even that you know those would get retweeted and by the time i filed

00:14:50.200 my complaints, I had a lot of journalists that were in line to cover them. Some of it's just

00:14:58.180 like letting the natural rage of the injustice speak for itself. Let's take a quick break.

00:15:11.320 Behind every night spent making the kids lunches, there's a lot of suspense. Will they finally eat

00:15:16.440 the veggies will the pesto survive the first bite will the lunchbox come home empty half full or

00:15:22.100 come home at all and will you finish episode eight before you're done slicing the cucumbers

00:15:26.460 get bell pure fiber internet with crave netflix and disney plus from 94 a month price guaranteed

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00:15:42.540 podcasting? Think again. More Americans listen to podcasts than ad-supported streaming music

00:15:47.700 from Spotify and Pandora. And as the number one podcaster, iHeart's twice as large as the next

00:15:52.660 two combined. So whatever your customers listen to, they'll hear your message. Plus, only iHeart

00:15:57.580 can extend your message to audiences across broadcast radio. Think podcasting can help your

00:16:02.160 business? Think iHeart. Streaming, radio, and podcasting. Let us show you at iHeartAdvertising.com.

00:16:08.560 That's iHeartAdvertising.com.

00:16:11.140 If your bookshelf and your For You page

00:16:13.120 are equally important to your personality,

00:16:15.540 welcome home.

00:16:17.100 This is Prose Society,

00:16:19.300 the weekly podcast that's part book club,

00:16:21.720 part group chat for thought daughters,

00:16:23.480 pop culture obsessives,

00:16:24.680 and anyone who thinks Pride and Prejudice

00:16:26.500 and Love Island deserve the same level of discourse.

00:16:29.540 I'm Eli Rallo, and every week,

00:16:31.240 we're connecting the dots between books,

00:16:33.220 the internet, and the conversations

00:16:34.640 everyone can't stop having.

00:16:36.660 I'm going to have to look up this story.

00:16:38.560 I'm obsessed, I'm obsessed.

00:16:40.240 From best-selling authors and your favorite book talk creators

00:16:42.840 to the latest pop culture moments, nothing is off the table.

00:16:46.560 It's like if you can hide some real messages inside compelling characters,

00:16:52.160 then that is a Trojan horse.

00:16:54.020 Whether you're looking for literary deep dives, smart pop culture conversations,

00:16:58.040 or a community of readers who love to think a little too much,

00:17:01.560 you're in the right place.

00:17:02.900 Listen to Pro Society on the iHeartRadio app,

00:17:05.840 Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

00:17:09.180 See you between the pages.

00:17:11.220 When I was 14 years old, I was kidnapped and held captive for nine months.

00:17:17.140 I survived, and I've spent my life exploring how other people survive what should have destroyed them.

00:17:23.520 I'm Elizabeth Smart, and these are the Survivor Files.

00:17:27.220 I just remember this low, taunting voice next to my ear saying, 0.96

00:17:32.640 shut up, don't say anything.

00:17:35.300 Every week, I'm with survivors who live through the unthinkable. 0.98

00:17:39.840 I knew if he woke up, without a doubt, he was going to hurt me.

00:17:44.400 I started feeling that there was someone at the end of my bed, and I just started screaming.

00:17:51.840 They are abducted, stalked, controlled, and nearly silenced.

00:17:55.800 But these aren't stories about what's taken from them.

00:17:59.240 They're stories about what it takes to make it out alive.

00:18:02.380 Listen to The Survivor Files with Elizabeth Smart on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

00:18:14.180 And we're back.

00:18:16.020 Carrie has a real connection to her clients. 1.00

00:18:18.320 She rages about the injustices they face on Twitter.

00:18:21.340 She uses her own experiences to help them combat stigma and shame and let them know they're not alone.

00:18:26.560 I 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.

00:18:43.680 and it's um it's stressful at times and it can be very um invasive you know like when you're

00:18:53.460 having to relive when you're only 16 17 you're having to relive this awful thing that happened

00:18:58.800 to you when you're 13 you need you need to like feel like it's it's for something really important

00:19:04.380 and um and also just getting back to what you were talking about bridget about how um you know

00:19:13.760 when we're young we can actually be complicit in some of the violation it makes me think about um

00:19:24.440 how much more traumatizing it is to be a victim when you're when you're young and we we're not

00:19:32.000 only have have our violators not developed the skill of empathy but the victims haven't figured

00:19:39.040 out how to cope and it can feel like your whole world is crushing around you if if you are not

00:19:47.260 only sexually violated but then all the students in your class you know think you're a joke and

00:19:52.740 are spreading it and you know you're afraid your parents are going to punish you and you're afraid 0.86

00:19:57.360 your school's gonna punish you and and like kids already don't have control over their lives and

00:20:05.100 and then to to be kind of socially ostracized or or put in this category of other and have

00:20:11.200 your friendships kind of crumble like that is that can create such desperation um and every

00:20:19.460 single one of our young clients has been suicidal during during those moments it's just like they

00:20:26.140 don't have the coping skills. I didn't when I was that age. When Carrie was younger, she was

00:20:32.060 victimized by abusive exes. One had intimate images of her and vowed to use them to ruin her

00:20:37.720 life. This was before revenge porn was even really a thing. People didn't know how to talk about it 1.00

00:20:43.340 or deal with it when it happened. And lawyers didn't really know how to handle what she was 0.91

00:20:47.640 going through. In your book, you talk about how you became the lawyer that you wish you had had

00:20:53.440 in your thirties. Can you tell me a bit about that? Yeah. Um, well, I had some, uh,

00:21:00.960 violence, you know, I, I was a victim of, of some dating violence and incident of sexual violence,

00:21:10.760 uh, before I started my law firm. And, um, when I was trying to escape my ex-boyfriend's

00:21:20.440 stalking and, and he was, um, just besieging me with, with text messages and threats and,

00:21:29.700 and false police reports. And it was never ending. Um, I had trouble finding a lawyer.

00:21:37.100 Um, you know, I, I worked with somebody on the domestic violence piece. I worked with somebody

00:21:44.360 on the bogus criminal complaints piece, but for everyone that I talked to, this was a real

00:21:51.640 abnormal case for them. And you don't want to be the outlier when it comes to getting legal help

00:22:03.800 and having a lawyer be kind of learning as they go. And it was unpredictable for them what would

00:22:12.580 happen or, or the profile of my offender was, was something really new to them. And, um, when I

00:22:20.440 finally got my orders of protection and he pled guilty, which was six months after the breakup,

00:22:27.640 um, I quit everything and started my law firm a few months later when I was, you know,

00:22:37.040 in retrospect, I was still in the midst of a lot of trauma, but I started this law firm basically

00:22:45.660 to become the kind of lawyer that I'd needed because I'd gotten this kind of involuntary

00:22:51.020 education into the world of, you know, being stalked and having no control over what's

00:23:01.420 happening in the internet. And I learned that in New York, we didn't have a law criminalizing,

00:23:08.040 um, you know, somebody sending around your naked pictures. And so the internet component of,

00:23:16.360 of the attack on me was, was the most scary thing that, um, the scariest part about it,

00:23:23.940 because even after I got my order of protection, I knew that legally he could still be sending

00:23:30.340 around my images he you know as far as I know he didn't but but there was always this like

00:23:37.980 thing this that he had threatened to and and uh he had sent me emails saying that he with the

00:23:47.160 pictures saying that he'd blind copied um you know people that I was uh like other lawyers and

00:23:53.660 judges and stuff um but it was like this constant anxiety that like I wasn't I wasn't

00:23:59.920 protected even after all the legal issues had seemingly wrapped up.

00:24:06.600 Carrie became one of the most prominent lawyers specializing in revenge porn 1.00

00:24:10.100 and offers victims legal support and a pathway to justice, whatever that looks like for them.

00:24:16.280 Our expertise is dealing with people who've been stalked and harassed

00:24:20.860 and victims of sexual assault and sexual trauma and getting justice for them.

00:24:26.560 Sometimes 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.

00:24:36.400 Other times it's we have to give the victim doesn't want to take any legal action, but just wants those images to to be removed from the Internet.

00:24:45.960 And 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.

00:25:06.100 But basically the idea is that every client that comes to us has either been attacked or is under attack.

00:25:15.260 And so we know what to do.

00:25:17.040 And we've seen all these behavioral profiles over and over again.

00:25:20.800 And the more you do something, the more expert you get.

00:25:23.660 And 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.

00:25:39.880 Um, whereas, oh, this other person, he, he's threatening revenge porn, but he's actually got a really stable job and, um, lives with, with, and has a kid and he's actually going to feel, um, scared of a threat because it could take things away from, from him.

00:26:00.820 More after this quick break.

00:26:02.160 Transcription by CastingWords

00:26:32.160 Visit bell.za for details and to check availability.

00:26:35.260 Bell. Connection is everything.

00:26:37.480 Run a business and not thinking about podcasting?

00:26:40.300 Think again.

00:26:41.300 More Americans listen to podcasts than ad-supported streaming music from Spotify and Pandora.

00:26:46.040 And as the number one podcaster, iHeart's twice as large as the next two combined.

00:26:50.320 So whatever your customers listen to, they'll hear your message.

00:26:53.400 Plus, only iHeart can extend your message to audiences across broadcast radio.

00:26:57.700 Think podcasting can help your business?

00:26:59.240 Think iHeart.

00:27:00.340 streaming radio and podcasting let us show you at iheartadvertising.com that's iheartadvertising.com

00:27:07.820 if your bookshelf and your for you page are equally important to your personality

00:27:11.600 welcome home this is prose society the weekly podcast that's part book club part group chat

00:27:19.140 for thought daughters pop culture obsessives and anyone who thinks pride and prejudice and

00:27:23.380 love island deserve the same level of discourse i'm eli rallo and every week we're connecting

00:27:28.360 the dots between books, the internet, and the conversations everyone can't stop having.

00:27:33.360 I'm going to have to look up this story. I'm obsessed. I'm obsessed.

00:27:36.940 From bestselling authors and your favorite book talk creators to the latest pop culture moments,

00:27:41.820 nothing is off the table. It's like if you can hide some real messages inside compelling

00:27:47.920 characters, then that is a Trojan horse. Whether you're looking for literary deep dives,

00:27:52.660 smart pop culture conversations, or a community of readers who love to think a little too much,

00:27:57.960 you're in the right place listen to pro society on the iheart radio app apple podcasts or wherever

00:28:04.420 you get your podcasts see you between the pages when i was 14 years old i was kidnapped and held

00:28:11.820 captive for nine months i survived and i've spent my life exploring how other people survive what

00:28:18.300 should have destroyed them i'm elizabeth smart and these are the survivor files i just remember

00:28:24.640 this low taunting voice next to my ear saying shut up don't say anything every week i'm with

00:28:33.480 survivors who live through the unthinkable i knew if he woke up without a doubt he was going to hurt

00:28:40.780 i started feeling that there was someone at the end of my bed and i just started screaming they

00:28:48.740 are abducted, stalked, controlled, and nearly silenced. But these aren't stories about what's

00:28:54.500 taken from them. They're stories about what it takes to make it out alive. Listen to the

00:29:00.340 Survivor Files with Elizabeth Smart on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you

00:29:06.400 get your podcasts. Let's get right back to it. Carrie's case against the dating app Grindr was

00:29:15.920 one of the biggest fights of her career. In it, she sets her sight on legislation called Section 0.97

00:29:21.080 230, which basically says that tech platforms can't be sued for what people say on those

00:29:26.280 platforms. Now, free speech advocates like the Electronic Frontier Foundation say Section 230

00:29:31.980 is what makes the internet the internet. But Carrie says that's exactly the problem.

00:29:37.080 Forgive me if I like bungle this from my kind of like layperson's research. I understand that

00:29:42.020 it really comes down to section 230, which I know that is something that you really, really have an

00:29:47.420 issue with. You know, this is the section that allows tech companies to not be held liable for

00:29:52.940 things that are said on their platform, the way that their platforms are used. Free speech advocates

00:29:58.660 say that that section is like what makes the internet what it is. But you say that's exactly

00:30:03.760 the problem, right? That we should be thinking about the internet in a different way. We should

00:30:07.700 be building a different internet I guess how do we reconcile those two those two arguments I guess

00:30:13.920 you know is there some way to preserve free speech online while also not letting tech companies just

00:30:22.180 like avoid accountability for the way that their platforms are are misused oh my gosh I have so

00:30:28.760 much to say to this Bridget you you framed it like better better than I could our client Matthew

00:30:36.120 Herrick was a waiter slash actor slash former reality star who lived in Manhattan in Harlem

00:30:43.040 and he had just ended a relationship with a really controlling and abusive man and

00:30:49.520 among the ways that that man stalked Matthew was he started creating fake profiles on Grindr

00:30:58.440 the gay dating app and then luring people to Matthew's job and to his home using Grindr's

00:31:05.000 geolocating technology and dming with with the unknowing people and over the course of several

00:31:13.400 months over 1300 individuals came in person to matthew's apartment and to his job thinking that

00:31:23.720 they were there to have sex with him so imagine just like in the course of this interview if your

00:31:31.160 buzzer rang three times with you know like so it was sometimes as many as 23 people a day Bridget

00:31:36.900 and um and you know each time he he didn't know who it was going to be he didn't know if that

00:31:45.480 person was going to be dangerous sometimes um Matthew's ex would would torment and taunt the

00:31:51.900 visitors and say homophobic or racist things or say that Matthew had free drugs and so sometimes

00:31:57.520 the visitors would, um, come really angry or tweaked out. Um, but always they were there

00:32:05.240 thinking that Matthew had, had, um, rape fantasies and, and stuff. So, I mean, it was scary. Like it

00:32:12.200 was, it was a crime that was happening to Matthew day in and day out every single day. And Matthew

00:32:19.480 had gone to the police 10 times. He'd gotten an order of protection that the offender was violating

00:32:26.520 over and over again. And nothing, nothing mattered. Matthew flagged the accounts

00:32:32.980 with Grindr about 50 times by the time we came along. And then I was, um,

00:32:41.380 I had just worked with a bunch of big tech companies at the time. This is like, um,

00:32:48.160 the fall or the, the end of 2016. And I'd worked with a bunch of tech companies on their revenge

00:32:54.400 porn policies. And so I was super like, I'll just call up Grindr's general counsel and get them to

00:33:00.200 remove this user. And they ignored me too. And so I was like raging with him. And we ended up

00:33:09.420 getting a restraining order against Grindr saying that they had to remove this user, which, you know,

00:33:16.540 it's not super common to get a restraining order against a tech company, but we got it.

00:33:21.960 And Grindr even ignored that. The visitors kept coming. And as we plotted our lawsuit against Grindr, we had to worry about the Communications Decency Act, Section 230, which was this law, as you mentioned, that went into effect back in 1995.

00:33:51.960 when the internet looked nothing like it does now. And the law was actually, you know, it's just a

00:33:59.000 26-word law that was part of a bigger law that basically banned pornography on the internet.

00:34:07.280 But the other part of that law got deemed unconstitutional, in case you're wondering

00:34:12.780 why we have porn on the internet. It's not constitutional to outlaw it, but this little

00:34:20.440 section survived. And it originally was supposed to just make it so that, you know, if a bulletin

00:34:27.520 board, which was basically the way that, you know, people talk to one another online, if

00:34:33.520 somebody posted something defamatory on the bulletin board, there wouldn't be a lawsuit

00:34:40.240 against the bulletin board, but the defamation would be user to user. And, you know, it kind of

00:34:45.980 makes sense because then, um, the, the platforms are not tasked with this burden of, of having to,

00:34:54.160 um, moderate all, all the speech and all the posts and stuff like that. But the issue is that, um,

00:35:01.500 over the last, you know, 25 years, um, that law has been interpreted by our courts in this really

00:35:12.760 expansive way. And so anytime, you know, Twitter or Facebook or anybody gets sued for something

00:35:19.260 that's happening to a user, they say, we're not liable because of Section 230. You know,

00:35:27.180 like, you can't hold us accountable for anything that one user does to another. And courts have,

00:35:32.880 you know, said, you're right, because all the other cases before you didn't.

00:35:38.120 It's important to emphasize that Kerry isn't just talking about what someone says on a platform.

00:35:42.760 If a platform allows an abusive user to impersonate you and set you up for a dangerous encounter in real life, it's a pretty big flaw.

00:35:51.600 The issue is that the internet and apps and, you know, are so much different now than they were.

00:35:58.840 We're not just talking about defamation.

00:36:00.640 We're talking about, you know, geolocating technology and, you know, social media companies, which have so much functionality.

00:36:08.220 And we're talking about, you know, dating apps, you know, apps that are playing a role in matching users.

00:36:15.500 And so, but we had to make it when we were filing this lawsuit so that we were not suing Grindr for anything that Matt's ex was doing to Matt.

00:36:23.980 Because we knew it would get kicked out of court for violating Section 230.

00:36:27.860 And so when Grindr's lawyers finally came to court and told us that they didn't have the technology to ban an abusive user, we were like, what? 0.82

00:36:42.140 You have the world's biggest dating app and it's so foreseeable, biggest dating app for gay people.

00:36:50.840 It's so foreseeable that sometimes it's going to be abused by stalkers, by predators.

00:36:55.200 and you've not designed into it like a way to stop abusive users well then you've you've

00:37:03.100 released a dangerous product into the stream of commerce and just like our product liability laws

00:37:09.600 for cars you know that have airbags that don't go off or or broken brakes or something like

00:37:16.600 grinder had created a dangerous product we say you shouldn't have been on the market in the first

00:37:21.820 place. And the fact that you are, well, that's how we're going to sue you. Grindr still said,

00:37:28.520 at the end of the day, you're still holding us liable for stuff this user's done to Matthew.

00:37:34.100 It's not us. And the judge agreed with Grindr and we appealed and kept losing at every stage

00:37:43.780 and ultimately petitioned to the Supreme Court and lost. And which happened, you know, this was

00:37:51.300 from the beginning, a real, um, it was a very experimental lawsuit. Like at the time that we

00:37:59.180 filed it, it was novel for us to even be for anybody to even be referring to, um, apps as

00:38:06.740 products. Everyone was saying their services, their services, but, but now this idea has caught

00:38:11.740 on. And, um, and it's kind of changed the way that, um, that we think about apps and internet

00:38:20.760 products. And the fact that we did have such, you know, that Matthew experienced such a horrific

00:38:28.260 thing and he couldn't get justice. That's actually helped us

00:38:35.380 fight for legislation. And, and so, as you mentioned, you've got all these people on the

00:38:44.440 other side that, and I don't actually think it's all these people. I think they're just very vocal

00:38:49.700 and they're getting paid a lot of lobbying money from, from big tech.

00:38:55.520 Is the internet we have now working for everyone? Is it the version of the internet we want?

00:39:00.320 Is it one worth preserving as is? Carrie doesn't really think so.

00:39:03.960 But they're saying that basically the Internet as we know it wouldn't exist without Section 230.

00:39:12.700 And we're going to lose, you know, all the this wonderful free exchange of ideas if we if we lose Section 230.

00:39:21.820 And 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, like should be, you know, like preserved.

00:39:31.460 Just, you know, it's kind of like any constitutional argument or make America great again. You're assuming that it is, that things are great. And, you know, you're assuming that, you know, that everyone has the same level of free speech.

00:39:48.960 But I mean, speech on the Internet really belongs to those who are the loudest and and, you know, for basically for companies, Amazon, Facebook, Microsoft and Apple.

00:40:06.340 I 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.

00:40:16.200 So the most hostile people on the Internet are the ones who have the greatest protections.

00:40:24.040 But but also when we're talking about lawsuits and the right to sue, it's such a fundamental right.

00:40:31.560 Carrie says that as long as tech companies have the kind of legal protection afforded to them by Section 230, it creates a situation where there's not a lot of avenues to hold them accountable.

00:40:40.840 you know like the thing is like as you see with our our cases against the new york city department

00:40:46.720 that like for the cost of an index number which is a couple hundred bucks which you can get waived

00:40:53.920 i had a client who you know whose mom was a part-time home health aide and didn't speak

00:40:59.440 english you know and they had they had no money to speak of i had her suing the city of new york

00:41:07.460 which is worth multi-billion, you know, multi-billion dollar dollars.

00:41:11.640 And that's the great equalizer in our country is that anybody can sue, you know, if there's been a harm.

00:41:19.920 And it's fundamental. 0.99

00:41:22.080 And it's also how we keep our big organizations, our companies, from being total assholes. 0.98

00:41:28.980 Because the threat of being sued is, you know, it's a bottom line issue. 0.99

00:41:36.260 It costs money. And, and it's why, you know, like so many safety measures, whether we're talking about pharmaceuticals or cars, it's because of litigation that happened, or it's because of the fear of litigation. And also it's because most companies want people to be safe. They want their customers and clients to not have a bad experience. You don't see that with big tech, though.

00:41:59.940 you know like the the wall off you know like if you had a crisis on Facebook if let's say you're

00:42:11.780 a parent and your kid was manipulated into giving nudes to a pedophile and then he was sharing them

00:42:21.780 online you're a parent your first instinct was who you know is who do I talk to who do I talk to

00:42:28.300 What's the phone number? Who's live to help me with this crisis?

00:42:33.560 And it's just like a one way street here where we're giving these companies all this information about us and and and stuff.

00:42:43.520 And we can't. I mean, they are like it's like Oz, like they're behind this magic curtain and don't have to interact with us users.

00:42:54.200 So as you were talking, it occurred to me that when you first started your law firm, the idea of revenge porn didn't even really exist.

00:43:00.740 And it was through advocating for legal protections and working with victims that you helped usher in both a legal change and a cultural reimagining of what revenge porn actually is.

00:43:10.500 And in listening to you talk about tech companies just now, it seems like you're poised to do that same kind of thing again when it comes to reimagining what role tech companies should play in creating an Internet that's safer for everyone.

00:43:21.660 Like a hard reset of how these companies operate.

00:43:24.200 Yeah. I mean, it's, it's true, Bridget. There's so much, there's so much work that can be done. And like, it's, it's a really critical time because you have all this concentrated power and wealth in such a few, you know, just a few companies.

00:43:40.480 And that the inequality in our in our society is just getting greater, you know, because of these companies, because and also the power and the omniscience is also, you know, another thing that's just creating so much more inequality and in our country.

00:44:03.320 And the thing is, I do have so many cases where it's, you can't ignore that the facts are horrific. You know, an 11 year old who was sextorted and made to create all these videos and they were sent around on Instagram or my, my client who's, who was, whose murder was basically live streamed.

00:44:27.680 or another client who was raped and murdered on a first date through match.com by a known sex

00:44:35.520 offender. Like there's going to come become a point where the more cases like that. Okay.

00:44:42.160 Even if these cases can't be brought in court or get kicked out, like you can't deny that there is

00:44:48.160 extreme negligence by these companies. Like, and we're just, I'm going to just keep producing them

00:44:54.580 until we get new law. And it's just like any other case where if you don't feel like you can

00:45:02.040 become a victim, then you're not going to care. But the whole purpose of my book and everything

00:45:08.360 is to pound into the consciousness that we're all a moment away from becoming victims.

00:45:17.880 Like, all it takes is one person to decide they want to destroy you.

00:45:23.060 One bad interaction at the supermarket with somebody who finds out your name,

00:45:27.180 they then have the right to, you know, go to pedophile websites

00:45:31.580 and tell the world that you're a pedophile, and good luck getting that down.

00:45:35.900 You know, like, anybody can become a victim, 0.82

00:45:42.120 but it shouldn't take that in order for us to have empathy toward victims

00:45:46.480 and want to change the internet.

00:45:48.940 And it's, you know, like this,

00:45:50.640 we're not talking about, you know, 0.98

00:45:52.460 somebody calling somebody else a bitch on Twitter. 0.74

00:45:54.740 That's not the kind of speech that's going to be impacted. 0.71

00:45:57.940 And we're not even talking about speech really,

00:46:00.520 because this is all conduct, you know,

00:46:03.100 but our law doesn't even see the difference there.

00:46:07.140 I would, you know, like with Grindr,

00:46:08.400 we weren't suing them for any words on the profile

00:46:11.520 or any words on the DM.

00:46:13.560 We were suing them because this product was being used, you know, hundreds of times a day to try to get our client injured.

00:46:23.680 It's not a speech issue.

00:46:25.480 This is unjust. 1.00

00:46:27.160 Carrie's work isn't just about the law. 0.98

00:46:29.480 It confronts the cultural attitude that people who are victimized online deserve it. 0.99

00:46:34.380 Or that it's just a sexy scandal rather than a serious crime.

00:46:38.040 Or that we should just expect that the Internet is a place where we'll be mistreated.

00:46:43.460 Why can't it be better than that?

00:46:45.780 So what has it been like to have such a personal hand in challenging the internet to be better and safer and stronger

00:46:51.160 and working to build one where people with power are held accountable?

00:46:54.940 Well, it's so kind of you to describe me that way.

00:47:00.100 I really feel flattered about that.

00:47:04.300 You know, I love my job.

00:47:06.540 And I love that as the owner of this law firm, I can decide what direction we go in

00:47:12.280 what fights to choose. I mean, that is incredibly privileged and inquisitioned to be in. And

00:47:20.280 you know, like there are ways to use your law degree in a super awesome, fun, creative way.

00:47:27.380 I mean, what's it been like? It's just like been fun, but there aren't moments where I wake up and

00:47:33.240 I feel like, Oh, I'm this like really, you know, I've, I've done it. You know, like, like I've

00:47:39.040 made it because there's always, um, somebody waiting to give me a bad verdict or, you know,

00:47:46.660 a troll that, you know, cuts me down to size or, you know, like, um, there's, you know, there,

00:47:53.840 there's very fleeting moments of, of, um, well, what should I call it? Fleeting moments of like

00:48:02.120 success. I'm proud of what we do. I'm so proud of my staff. But we're always humbled by the next

00:48:11.040 fight. On her website, Carrie says the clients she works with aren't fragile like a flower.

00:48:17.980 They're fragile like a bomb. Through her work with those clients, Carrie is blowing up our

00:48:23.000 understanding of the internet by asking the big, bold questions about how it can be better.

00:48:28.520 She's taken the darkness she faced

00:48:30.160 and used it to build a brighter future.

00:48:38.180 If you enjoyed this podcast,

00:48:39.860 please help us grow by subscribing.

00:48:45.660 Got a story about an interesting thing in tech

00:48:47.720 or just want to say hi?

00:48:48.940 We'd love to hear from you at hello at tangodi.com.

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00:48:53.360 There Are No Girls on the Internet.

00:48:54.820 It's a production of iHeartRadio and Unbossed Creative.

00:48:57.720 Jonathan Strickland is our executive producer.

00:48:59.860 Tari Harrison is our supervising producer and engineer.

00:49:02.820 Michael Amato is our contributing producer.

00:49:05.120 I'm your host, Bridget Todd.

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There Are No Girls on the Internet - March 26, 2021

DISINFORMED： Tech CEOs testify before Congress + Carrie Goldberg on Section 230

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