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Hate Crimes in Cyberspace
Most Internet users are familiar with trolling—aggressive, foul-mouthed posts designed to elicit angry responses in a site’s comments. Less familiar but far more serious is the way some use networked technologies to target real people, subjecting them, by name and address, to vicious, often terrifying, online abuse. In an in-depth investigation of a problem that is too often trivialized by lawmakers and the media, Danielle Keats Citron exposes the startling extent of personal cyber-attacks and proposes practical, lawful ways to prevent and punish online harassment. A refutation of those who claim that these attacks are legal, or at least impossible to stop, Hate Crimes in Cyberspace reveals the serious emotional, professional, and financial harms incurred by victims.
Persistent online attacks disproportionately target women and frequently include detailed fantasies of rape as well as reputation-ruining lies and sexually explicit photographs. And if dealing with a single attacker’s “revenge porn” were not enough, harassing posts that make their way onto social media sites often feed on one another, turning lone instigators into cyber-mobs.
Hate Crimes in Cyberspace rejects the view of the Internet as an anarchic Wild West, where those who venture online must be thick-skinned enough to endure all manner of verbal assault in the name of free speech protection, no matter how distasteful or abusive. Cyber-harassment is a matter of civil rights law, Citron contends, and legal precedents as well as social norms of decency and civility must be leveraged to stop it.
Persistent online attacks disproportionately target women and frequently include detailed fantasies of rape as well as reputation-ruining lies and sexually explicit photographs. And if dealing with a single attacker’s “revenge porn” were not enough, harassing posts that make their way onto social media sites often feed on one another, turning lone instigators into cyber-mobs.
Hate Crimes in Cyberspace rejects the view of the Internet as an anarchic Wild West, where those who venture online must be thick-skinned enough to endure all manner of verbal assault in the name of free speech protection, no matter how distasteful or abusive. Cyber-harassment is a matter of civil rights law, Citron contends, and legal precedents as well as social norms of decency and civility must be leveraged to stop it.
352 pages, Hardcover
First published September 22, 2014
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About the author
Danielle Keats Citron
3 books25 followersDanielle Keats Citron is Lois K. Macht Research Professor of Law at the University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law.
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January 31, 2024This unsettling book was written ten years ago, a veritable lifetime when it comes to the Internet, and yet the points and arguments Citron raises are still relevant specifically because of how little headway has been made in solving or even addressing them, particularly in the US. My full review from 2014 is here: https://www.stevedonoghue.com/review-...
November 7, 2017
The author's argument--that people who harass, defame, stalk and threaten others with rape and murder online should be unable to hide behind free speech protections and lack of clear legislation--is a persuasive one. Clearly, the rights and liberties of people being silenced and driven offline are better worth protecting than the rights of bigoted asshole trolls. Similarly, the author is successful in comparing perspectives about online harassment, which inordinately targets women and people of color, to now-outdated views about workplace sexual harassment (that women need to accept it to be professionals) and domestic violence (that law enforcement shouldn't interfere with private family matters). In short, the author makes and supports her case, and, if you don't believe her, spend any amount of time in the vile cesspool of pretty much any comments section of pretty much anything posted on the internet. In short, we need a major paradigm shift here towards online civility, and, unfortunately, that's only going to come with consequences for the worst offenders in our networked communities.
So, why not five stars then for something so persuasive and successful? Dunno. The book runs a little long, it's kind of repetitive, it gets bogged down in legislative minutia, etc. I guess that's it. The best moments deal with the real stories of real people, mostly identified by monikers like "the revenge porn victim" or "the law student". But let's be honest: we all really want a work where we meet the trolls and harassers, where we analyze what motivates normal people to become such unredeemable parasites, and, most important, where we get to see people actually face punishment for trying to ruin the lives of others. At least that's the book I want to read. In the meantime, Hate Crimes in Cyberspace qualifies as a useful polemic on the pretty disgusting state of internet communication.
So, why not five stars then for something so persuasive and successful? Dunno. The book runs a little long, it's kind of repetitive, it gets bogged down in legislative minutia, etc. I guess that's it. The best moments deal with the real stories of real people, mostly identified by monikers like "the revenge porn victim" or "the law student". But let's be honest: we all really want a work where we meet the trolls and harassers, where we analyze what motivates normal people to become such unredeemable parasites, and, most important, where we get to see people actually face punishment for trying to ruin the lives of others. At least that's the book I want to read. In the meantime, Hate Crimes in Cyberspace qualifies as a useful polemic on the pretty disgusting state of internet communication.
January 31, 2021
I generally enjoyed Citron's work and found it to be quite informative. Her argumentation style is persuasive-- she begins with three detailed case studies which she sticks with throughout the book, highlights the gendered and racial nature of cyber harassment, makes cogent links to past social movements, and offers tangible reforms that seem obvious by the end. It's an accessible piece of legal scholarship with a satisfying exploration of 1st amendment scholarship. Citron also acknowledges how difficult of a problem it is to bring cyber harassers to justice when it's so tough to track down identities. This is a point I kept reflecting on-- as effective as law-enforcement may be, without private companies practicing more ethical anonymity guidelines or a more meaningful crackdown on revenge porn websites that profit from crime, only so much can be accomplished.
Ultimately, though, I found Citron's approach frustrating. From a legal standpoint, I get it-- maybe? Making connections to civil rights law and identifying abuse as such a gendered issue is smart and compelling. At the same time, using law enforcement as the vehicle to stop cyber harassment doesn't address more fundamental, structural problems with the way the internet works. Citron cites past police attitudes towards domestic violence and the refusal of the police to get involved in the private sphere. She suggests that social movements have pushed the needle on this issue-- which they have-- but there's not a lot to suggest police departments have gotten better about this. About half the police officers who are charged and convicted of domestic abuse kept their jobs. There should not be a lot of confidence in police departments as the location of change. Civil suits and torts are more promising, but the costs of legal counsel are significant gatekeepers.
Police officers, too, are only able to accomplish so much. To address abuse, action needs to be taken quickly and decisively. Cyber harassment happens in waves and is often unrelenting. Perhaps a few people might be held accountable, but that does little to address the massive internet troll community committed to their gender-based harm. Citron seems to discount the back and forth retaliation that can happen online. When harassers "google bomb" someone, users can respond in-kind to support a victim. This of course requires clout and not everyone has that.
The internet is a space for public discourse and there must be meaningful accountability mechanisms for those who actively enact harm onto others. I think Citron privileges the legal approaches at the cost of community based approaches which might be more effective. The Wikipedia model, for example, is quite compelling. What are ways in which private companies create spaces for communities to govern themselves (like League of Legends players apparently lmao) such that harm is legitimately rooted out?
Ultimately, though, I found Citron's approach frustrating. From a legal standpoint, I get it-- maybe? Making connections to civil rights law and identifying abuse as such a gendered issue is smart and compelling. At the same time, using law enforcement as the vehicle to stop cyber harassment doesn't address more fundamental, structural problems with the way the internet works. Citron cites past police attitudes towards domestic violence and the refusal of the police to get involved in the private sphere. She suggests that social movements have pushed the needle on this issue-- which they have-- but there's not a lot to suggest police departments have gotten better about this. About half the police officers who are charged and convicted of domestic abuse kept their jobs. There should not be a lot of confidence in police departments as the location of change. Civil suits and torts are more promising, but the costs of legal counsel are significant gatekeepers.
Police officers, too, are only able to accomplish so much. To address abuse, action needs to be taken quickly and decisively. Cyber harassment happens in waves and is often unrelenting. Perhaps a few people might be held accountable, but that does little to address the massive internet troll community committed to their gender-based harm. Citron seems to discount the back and forth retaliation that can happen online. When harassers "google bomb" someone, users can respond in-kind to support a victim. This of course requires clout and not everyone has that.
The internet is a space for public discourse and there must be meaningful accountability mechanisms for those who actively enact harm onto others. I think Citron privileges the legal approaches at the cost of community based approaches which might be more effective. The Wikipedia model, for example, is quite compelling. What are ways in which private companies create spaces for communities to govern themselves (like League of Legends players apparently lmao) such that harm is legitimately rooted out?
December 30, 2017
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.
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.
October 17, 2014
An important book demonstrating the need for a legal response to cyber harassment on the Internet. It is simply not enough to trot out the shopworn argument that the best way to deal with harmful speech is more speech. That does nothing to solve the problem because harmful speech always drowns out other speech on the Internet. Although the author necessarily genuflects towards the first amendment (and it's always entertaining to see self-described civil libertarians tie themselves in knots trying to carve out some categories of speech from constitutional protections), she also has some interesting legislative proposals some of which may yet get a hearing and others that are dead in the water, i.e. extending civil rights protections to private conduct outside of employment and public accommodations. Written for laypeople, lawyers can also get something out of it.
September 15, 2020
Citron makes an argument about how badly our current civil and criminal laws serve victims of online harassment and stalking. It's extremely well done--she's got a total command of US case law and precedents here, she's done voluminous research (including interviews with victims of cyberstalking and harassment, to be clear about its protracted effects). She's an extremely clear and well organized writer and thinker, so her argument is really well laid out. She smartly analogizes the cyberstalking/harassment gap to the emergence of law around sexual harassment, pointing out that a crucial starting point is getting stakeholders to recognize their own social biases. Crucially, she very efficiently debunks the sort of free-speech absolutist argument against restrictions on harassment, noting that this both fails Mill's harm test and that the absence of legislation effectively restricts public speech and participation for its victims. I would have liked a bit more comparison to European countries (the book was published in 2014, just as "Right to be Forgotten" legislation was passed, but it was being debated earlier, and it would have been nice to have some context there), but that's a pretty trivial complaint. Mostly, I'm impatient for a second or updated edition--because the book was written in 2014, some of her legal objectives (legislation against revenge porn, for instance) has started getting passed at the state level. Her final chapters of the book, where she turns to agendas that aren't strictly legal, would be particularly useful for, say, the educator audience. This is a tough book to read, particularly if you've not spent much time reading about the details of what folks (mostly members of marginalized groups, to be clear) go through. I think I've never written "gross" on so many different page margins in a single book. Cyber-harassment and revenge porn really reveal how pervasively toxic masculinity is in way too many American men.
January 1, 2021
Reading this book was difficult, but I absolutely love and support the author's legal and social advocacy. Her argument is fantastic and very convincing. Along with legal arguments, Citron explores the social attitudes that impede progress and harm victims. The idea that the internet is the wild west and the answer to harassment and revenge porn is more speech or shrugging it off is just not enough. Truly, cyber harassment and revenge porn are civil rights issues that deny subordinated groups life's opportunities. My heart hurts for all the victims of this abuse. Citron's anecdotes were very compelling. Ι am new to reading books in the legal sphere, so I found the book a little rough to get through, but you have to take the book for what it is. Although I would not necessarily call my experience "enjoyable," this work is an important read.
September 25, 2024
Chilling.
It's chilling to read how countless men and women have faced extremely torturous sufferings at the hands of remorseless criminals who hide behind computer screens.
Danielle Keats Citron is without a doubt one of the greatest lawyers I've come across. In this book, she delves into the nightmares victims face - whether it is online hate or revenge porn - and a detailed analysis of everything lawmakers both in the USA and abroad have done to combat it, as well as a flawless picture for what else needs to be done to further protect victims and prevent such crimes from taking place.
Absolutely life-changing read which I recommend to any lawyer, law student or policymaker... more people need to read this!
It's chilling to read how countless men and women have faced extremely torturous sufferings at the hands of remorseless criminals who hide behind computer screens.
Danielle Keats Citron is without a doubt one of the greatest lawyers I've come across. In this book, she delves into the nightmares victims face - whether it is online hate or revenge porn - and a detailed analysis of everything lawmakers both in the USA and abroad have done to combat it, as well as a flawless picture for what else needs to be done to further protect victims and prevent such crimes from taking place.
Absolutely life-changing read which I recommend to any lawyer, law student or policymaker... more people need to read this!
July 18, 2021
The first half was much easier to read than the second half, but Citron has some good ideas for changes we could all approve. She also does a wonderful job of explaining the limitations of free speech rights and how they could apply to the average citizen. For example, society may have an interest in the sexual "speech" of politicians like Anthony Wiener, but the same cannot be said for most victims of revenge porn. Definitely worth reading if you want a better sense of the current legislative and social state of these crimes.
June 27, 2019
A quality book and I agree with practically everything the author said. My only issue with it is that it will often feel very repetitive as you read it, which may be to drive in emphasis on the serious subject matter. However the repetitiveness is also occasionally underlined by a vagueness of actual proposed solutions to this vet don't come to mind without easily available counter arguments.
February 17, 2020
Very good discussion of this very troubling area. Citron goes in detail about several of the victims and what they did in reaction. She covers why existing laws aren't enough, why law enforcement needs more education on the laws that are there, and why it should be taken seriously.
August 21, 2022
Important book. Some quite awful examples. Written in 2014. I wonder whether things have improved at all? While most people may not experience what Citron is describing, after reading this I am more convinced that we need to have some regulatory strength here even if just for one person.
June 26, 2017
Important study of hate speech online and how to regulate via intermediaries, legal rulings, and statutes while maintaining free speech provisions including anonymity.
August 2, 2018
Citron tries to write both compelling narrative non-fiction and a legal textbook, and it is definitely neither.
March 1, 2020
Fortuitously, I finished reading Hate Crimes in Cyberspace by law professor Danielle Keats Citron just as I was about to begin my final semester at Simmons University, in which I had registered for a course on "Intersectionality, Technology, and Information Professions"; little did I know that Hate Crimes in Cyberspace would become very, very useful in framing the issues I would learn this semester.
Hate Crimes in Cyberspace is essentially an academic text, in which Prof. Citron describes—all before #MeToo and GamerGate—what the experiences of marginalized communities are/were on the Internet and World Wide Web and social media, as well as provides several possible concrete solutions to the issue. What made Citron's book so utterly depressing is that, Hate Crimes in Cyberspace having been written already six years ago, so utterly little has actually changed vis-à-vis women's, LGBTQ folks', etc. etc. experiences on the Internet. In video after video in my class, in article after article, and so on and so forth, people in marginalized communities describe discrimination and harassment, which ultimately results in the reduction of marginalized communities' free speech online, as the gatekeepers of the Internet prioritize more privileged communities' speech and access and rights online, to the detriment of others. Indeed, commentators and writers such as Eli Pariser have made clear, partially in response to studies such as Prof. Citron's, that the very structure of social media such as Facebook or Twitter prioritize harassment and hostility online; Prof. Citron even cites Facebook's ostensible willingness (in 2014) to actively combat harassment and discrimination online—only for us, in 2020, to realize that Facebook (for example) has only gotten far, far worse as time has worn on, and as Mark Zuckerberg has arguably monetized such behavior with Facebook's IPO.
Prof. Citron mentions that the law, such as it's written in the United States, doesn't help matters by immunizing content hosts from material their users post online; with the increasing proliferation of non-consensual pornography sites and gossip sites with business models that demand payment to remove harassing and fraudulent information, it has become clear, since Prof. Citron wrote her study, that a not insignificant proportion of web hosts are actively abusing the protections set forth by American law for content on the Internet. (That the law is also slow to deal with changes to online culture is equally unhelpful.)
As an attorney and as a future librarian, I found Prof. Citron's book incredibly frustrating, but not without hope. Prof. Citron notes that while popular narratives around domestic violence and workplace sexual harassment have been slow to change, they have in fact changed, at least in part; as such, Prof. Citron suggests that with enough dialogue and advocacy, the narrative around harassment and discrimination online can change as well, for the better. With my course on intersectionality and technology in information professions, it has become equally clear that an increasing number of information professionals are at themselves advocating for equal access online—and that seems to offer me the most hope.
Hate Crimes in Cyberspace is essentially an academic text, in which Prof. Citron describes—all before #MeToo and GamerGate—what the experiences of marginalized communities are/were on the Internet and World Wide Web and social media, as well as provides several possible concrete solutions to the issue. What made Citron's book so utterly depressing is that, Hate Crimes in Cyberspace having been written already six years ago, so utterly little has actually changed vis-à-vis women's, LGBTQ folks', etc. etc. experiences on the Internet. In video after video in my class, in article after article, and so on and so forth, people in marginalized communities describe discrimination and harassment, which ultimately results in the reduction of marginalized communities' free speech online, as the gatekeepers of the Internet prioritize more privileged communities' speech and access and rights online, to the detriment of others. Indeed, commentators and writers such as Eli Pariser have made clear, partially in response to studies such as Prof. Citron's, that the very structure of social media such as Facebook or Twitter prioritize harassment and hostility online; Prof. Citron even cites Facebook's ostensible willingness (in 2014) to actively combat harassment and discrimination online—only for us, in 2020, to realize that Facebook (for example) has only gotten far, far worse as time has worn on, and as Mark Zuckerberg has arguably monetized such behavior with Facebook's IPO.
Prof. Citron mentions that the law, such as it's written in the United States, doesn't help matters by immunizing content hosts from material their users post online; with the increasing proliferation of non-consensual pornography sites and gossip sites with business models that demand payment to remove harassing and fraudulent information, it has become clear, since Prof. Citron wrote her study, that a not insignificant proportion of web hosts are actively abusing the protections set forth by American law for content on the Internet. (That the law is also slow to deal with changes to online culture is equally unhelpful.)
As an attorney and as a future librarian, I found Prof. Citron's book incredibly frustrating, but not without hope. Prof. Citron notes that while popular narratives around domestic violence and workplace sexual harassment have been slow to change, they have in fact changed, at least in part; as such, Prof. Citron suggests that with enough dialogue and advocacy, the narrative around harassment and discrimination online can change as well, for the better. With my course on intersectionality and technology in information professions, it has become equally clear that an increasing number of information professionals are at themselves advocating for equal access online—and that seems to offer me the most hope.
November 22, 2015
I found this a very readable book that combines some legal analysis of cyber-harassment and related issues, with some advocacy for reforms to better tackle it. Unlike many pieces I see advocating reform, the author takes time to outline how the changes would work alongside existing law, and address the various incentives of actors in the system.
Writing-wise, I didn't particularly care for a decision to select three cases as representative in the first chapter and label them by such terms as "the tech blogger," "the revenge porn victim", and "the law student." These representative labels notwithstanding, precise details of their cases were brought up later -- I had to keep flipping back and forth to see *which* revenge porn victim or blogger was being discussed.
There were minor factual issues that cropped up on some of the cases I was familiar with. For example, in discussing the Adria Richards (a case that received a lengthy profile in Ron Johnson's excellent _So You've Been Publicly Shamed_), the author mixes up a blog post with a comment on a forum. More substantively, in discussing Anita Sarkeesian's kickstarter to fund the YouTube video series "Tropes vs Women in Video Games", the author is discussing how California has existing laws to provide civil penalties for bias-motivated threats. The author concludes the brief section with "Because posters could not have known much more about her than that she was a woman working to expose sexism in video games, it was clear that she was attacked because of her gender." This omits mention of a previous series she had published, "Tropes vs Women" (which focused on film), also available on YouTube. But, what I noticed was, on the whole, minor.
Discussions of federal and state laws (and how they differ from one another) were great; I, while perhaps not qualified to fully appreciate them, am always fascinated by it. I've read a lot of advocacy that seems to skip over the details of existing laws and doctrine in favor of an ideal universal standard, so I found this refreshing. And, although the author failed to articulate a fully satisfying approach to me of handle it, the book included a mention of how harassment -- which usually requires a course of conduct -- may break down in the face of "cyber mobs" in which each participant performs only one or two actions but has the effect of a sustained campaign.
I thought it was thought provoking and interesting; it's not precisely a call to arms but the sort of reasoned argument that spends some time on details that people should read after the initial rush of excitement is over.
Writing-wise, I didn't particularly care for a decision to select three cases as representative in the first chapter and label them by such terms as "the tech blogger," "the revenge porn victim", and "the law student." These representative labels notwithstanding, precise details of their cases were brought up later -- I had to keep flipping back and forth to see *which* revenge porn victim or blogger was being discussed.
There were minor factual issues that cropped up on some of the cases I was familiar with. For example, in discussing the Adria Richards (a case that received a lengthy profile in Ron Johnson's excellent _So You've Been Publicly Shamed_), the author mixes up a blog post with a comment on a forum. More substantively, in discussing Anita Sarkeesian's kickstarter to fund the YouTube video series "Tropes vs Women in Video Games", the author is discussing how California has existing laws to provide civil penalties for bias-motivated threats. The author concludes the brief section with "Because posters could not have known much more about her than that she was a woman working to expose sexism in video games, it was clear that she was attacked because of her gender." This omits mention of a previous series she had published, "Tropes vs Women" (which focused on film), also available on YouTube. But, what I noticed was, on the whole, minor.
Discussions of federal and state laws (and how they differ from one another) were great; I, while perhaps not qualified to fully appreciate them, am always fascinated by it. I've read a lot of advocacy that seems to skip over the details of existing laws and doctrine in favor of an ideal universal standard, so I found this refreshing. And, although the author failed to articulate a fully satisfying approach to me of handle it, the book included a mention of how harassment -- which usually requires a course of conduct -- may break down in the face of "cyber mobs" in which each participant performs only one or two actions but has the effect of a sustained campaign.
I thought it was thought provoking and interesting; it's not precisely a call to arms but the sort of reasoned argument that spends some time on details that people should read after the initial rush of excitement is over.
March 1, 2017
Shock and awe...be careful what you put in cyberspace!
November 10, 2016
This book had some good personal stories involving cyber-stalking, bullying, revenge-porn, etc. It was a pretty disheartening and devastating book TBH. I felt hopeless for the women (and a couple men) who had their lives ruined by misogynists/trolls/stalkers/ex's. It recalled the history of domestic abuse, the horrors of workplace sexism, and the need to work on strict laws for abuse on the web. It briefly mentioned weev (who is the worst) and the recent KY Anonymous work to uncover the Steubenville rapists, but I was left ultimately feeling like it's just getting worse.
May 19, 2015
Difficult to read at times but great read that will inform you or someone you know about your legal rights in this area. Also, just when you think the stories have put you in a bad place, getting historical perspective works as a beacon of hope. History does repeat itself. I'm counting on it here. I won't give it away, this is an easy and empowering read.
February 3, 2015
Citron's book highlights the complexity and importance of cyber harassment, while also offering believable and thoughtful conclusions. She deftly mixes empirical data with case studies and legal doctrine. Highly recommended for lawyers, advocates, and anyone else who cares about the Internet.
November 1, 2016
Despite the title, the book is a long, highly detailed and US-centric manifesto advocating for changing the laws in order to reflect the author and her civil rights group views on making cyberspace safer (and more regulated). Well worth a read.
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