Last year there were a number of reports of how women, women politicians, and women journalists were disproportionately targeted for abuse on online platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. See LA Times, The Hill Highlight Online Abuse of Women Politicians and Journalists. One of those reports was a Wilson Center report entitled Malign Creativity:…
In 2013, California became one of the first states to outlaw revenge porn (also known as cyber exploitation or digital rape) in enacting Penal Code § 647(j)(4). Shortly thereafter, the Cyber Civil Rights Initiative published a study finding that: (i) 93% of victims suffered significant emotional distress as a result of their victimization; (ii) 82%…
In November 2018, Democrat Katie Hill won a Congressional seat representing a northern Los Angeles exurb that had been held by Republicans since 1993. Once in Washington, she was a rising star in the party and one of two freshman Representatives chosen for the Democratic Caucus. On October 18, 2019, RedState, a conservative political blog…
I recently participated in Jubilee Media’s Middle Ground segment entitled “Who is Censored More? Liberals vs Conservatives.” It was a fun experience and the debate was interesting, as we talked about content moderation, combating abuse, hate and disinformation online over 90-minutes. The thirty-minute segment was posted on Sunday and, unfortunately, much of what I had…
The Los Angeles Times put together an interesting profile on how women politicians, such as Vice President Kamala Harris and others are targets for online abuse. A Wilson Center study, Malign Creativity: How Gender, Sex, and Lies are Weaponized Against Women Online, found that Harris was the overwhelming target for much of this abuse and…
Today the Santa Ana Police Department had the following announcement on the arrest of serial revenge porn suspect Dillon Nguyen (23) of Westminster who distributed “intimate images and videos involving his ex-girlfriends online after they broke-up”. The Internet Law Center represents one of Nguyen’s victims and applauds the Santa Ana Police Department (SAPD) and the…
The Washington Post’s Jessica Goldstein featured one of our clients and pending litigation in Inyo County Superior Court in “Revenge porn’ was already commonplace. The pandemic has made things even worse.” Thanks to Jessica for her work on this.
Last year, I was fortunate enough to be invited to join ten other stellar participants that included other attorneys, prosecutors, law enforcement, academics and civil society representatives for a two-day brainstorming session sponsored by the Department of Justice’s National Institute of Justice (working with RTI International and the RAND Corporation) on combating Technologically Facilitated Abuse…
This week has witnessed increased political attacks against Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996 (CDA 230) by the Trump Justice Department and federal legislation seeking to “reform it” and the creation of a new association to assist professionals dealing with the many issues involved in content moderation under CDA 230. CDA 230…
Yesterday, Congresswoman Katie Hill (D-CA) gave her final speech in Congress as she was forced to resign after her estranged husband and political rivals published nude photographs of her and (so far) unsubstantiated allegations that she had violated House rules by having an affair with one or more Congressional staff members.¹ Hill’s resignation and farewell…
For those who work in the field of representing cyber harassment victims, we have all looked to Professor Danielle Citron’s trailblazing work on Cyber Civil Rights and Hate Crimes in Cyberspace and launching the Cyber Civil Rights Initiative and other efforts to combat cyber exploitation (revenge porn). It was with no surprise but much satisfaction that we learned that…
On April 30, 2017, Taylor Dumpson was inaugurated as the first female, African-American student government president at The American University (AU) in Washington, D.C. – my undergraduate alma mater. The next day, a masked man hung “nooses with bananas inscribed with racist and derogatory messages around the AU campus.” Andrew Anglin, the publisher of the Neo-Nazi…
World Wide Web founder Tim Berners-Lee and his World Wide Web Foundation are using the 30th birthday of the web to not only celebrate this milestone but also to create a live crowd-sourced history of the web and to call for a New Contract for the Web. The Web’s 30th Birthday Party Berners-Lee will mark…
The Internet Law Center’s award-winning newsletter featuring the debate over online privacy sparked by the California Consumer Privacy Act is below.
In a case that has gained national notoriety, Michelle Carter was charged with involuntary manslaughter in connection with the July 2014 suicide of Conrad Roy by inhaling carbon monoxide that was produced by a gasoline-powered water pump located in his truck.¹ This week, the Massachusetts Supreme Court affirmed her conviction dismissing challenges on the basis of…
Cyber Report 