Danielle Keats Citron

In this book, Keats Citron discusses how various social problems translate to the internet. Despite the title, the book is not just about hate crimes but is more broadly about hate crimes, harassment, stalking, privacy violations, defamation, etc in an online context.

The strongest argument of this book is that we need to take these crimes as seriously online as off. Not more seriously, not less, but as seriously. For example, behaviors that would be considered credible threats if delivered in real life should be considered credible threats if delivered online. I.e., if a threat includes information revealing that the person making the threat has acquired information about where the threatened person works or lives. Often, actions which would be considered crimes if they weren't taken through the internet are dismissed as just the cost of being online when taken when they are. Keats Citron makes more specific arguments with respect to these types of actions, but the gist of it is that laws should be amended so that if a criminal activity happens online, it should still be considered criminal.

Of course, not all online harassment falls into this bucket. Most criminal stalking, harassment, etc requires a single person taking a course of action that is damaging to the victim. Much online harassment is dispersed with many actions by many different actors. No single actor can be said to be taking a "course of action", and the actors identities are hard to discover (also the case for a single actor, but more data points make identity easier to discover). Keats Citron acknowledges that there is no easy legal solution to problems of this sort. She does discuss a subset of these problems which is amenable to legal action. She wants to set up stronger regulations for sites that solicit harassing content, and she defines that fairly narrowly, although more broadly than currently defined.

For example, under current law, a site that explicitly has upload forms that indicate that it's for revenge porn is liable but a site which merely encourages users to post revenge porn is not, nor is a general forum where users start a conversation that involves revenge port (note: this is a vast over simplification of what she argues). Keats Citron, essentially, proposes that if a site is principally used to facilitate cyber stalking or other illegal activity, it should not be considered immune for content hosting, but that if a site is not principally used to facilitate such activity, it retain immunity. Obviously, the boundaries of what is being principally used to facilitate problematic activity has problematic borders that would get refined through specific cases, but this extension would allow some action against sites blatantly used for harassing and stalking.

This book did have weaknesses. The cases that online harassment and stalking are gender biased was muddled. The author was taking a mishmash of statistics that were saying different things and strung them out one after the other. This does not make a particularly compelling case. The other big weakness was that the arguments for limiting harassing speech responded to the challenges on grounds of free speech, but not in a way that would be particularly compelling to those who argue that the internet should be a realm with essentially no speech limitations. Perhaps that argument is a fundamental difference in perspective -- my experience in such arguments would support that view -- but I would have at least liked to see an acknowledgement that the argument in the book is unlikely to convince hard core free speech advocates.

Overall though, a good summary of the issues and some realistic responses to them.… (mais)

Starting with the grueling stories of Kathy Sierra; a law student who was harassed on AutoAdmit (and for long after law school); and a victim of revenge porn, Citron argues for revising the law to make it easier to go after online abusers, both criminally and civilly. I’m not fully convinced by her arguments for removing liability protection from websites—the standard she proposes seems easily abused to me—but I’m coming around to the idea that there should be notice and takedown for revenge porn distinct from copyright rights. I also think there’s more First Amendment tension in her proposals than she admits. You can’t maintain both that discussion about art, culture, and gossip/daily behavior is important to forming the citizen and thus deserves protection in the same way as political speech (see also: the personal is political), and also that harassers aren’t “engaged in political, cultural, or social discourse.” They 100% are: they are trying to get women to shut up and hate themselves, and there’s nothing nonpolitical about that, any more than a cross-burning is nonpolitical. However, it is also the case that harassers’ speech coerces and terrorizes others, mostly women, which is why we ought to improve our treatment of rape threats and revenge porn.

Something I learned: from the 2010 data she presented, the Germans seem much more sensible about using information from online searches to make decisions about job candidates than those in the US or UK. In the US, 58% felt that concerns about a candidate’s lifestyle influenced decisions to reject them; 45% for the UK; 42% for Germany. Those aren’t huge differences. But: for inappropriate comments by the candidate, it was 56%, 57%, 78% respectively, while “unsuitable” photos were 55%, 51%, and 44%--which I hypothesize comes from Americans being prudes/hypocrites about photos suggesting the existence of sex and drinking. For inappropriate comments written by friends and relatives of the candidate, 40% in the US had disqualified someone, 35% in the UK, and 14% in Germany—still high, but a heck of a lot better (almost identical results from inappropriate comments written by colleagues or work acquaintances). Criticizing previous employers, coworkers, or clients: 40%, 40%, 28%. Search revealed that candidate provided false information: 30%, 36%, 42%. (We hate sex, don’t mind liars so much?) Poor communication skills online: 27%, 41%, 17%. Concern about financial background: 16%, 18%, 11%. I gotta say, the Germans’ priorities seem far superior.… (mais)