TAKE IT DOWN: Online Abuse and Harassment with Carrie Goldberg of C.A. Goldberg, PLLC

[00:00:00] Carrie: I believe in a world where there needs to be a redistribution of wealth from companies if they're harming people to the people that they're harming. 

[00:00:33] Arlo: Welcome to the Privacy Insider Podcast. When we think about a sensitive data breach, our minds often go to things like someone hacking your bank account and stealing your money, stealing your Google password, charging things to your credit card that you didn't wanna buy, selling your data without asking you first.

[00:00:51] Arlo: And yes, all of these things are bad and in some cases really, really bad. But believe it or not, it can get much, much worse. Many data breaches and thefts are actually. Really inconvenient. But what happens when a breach of your privacy threatens your reputation and your physical safety? Revenge porn is the topic we're gonna be talking a lot about today.

[00:01:16] Arlo: Harassment doxing, deep fakes. These are things that could destroy a person's reputation, and in some cases it can even create physical harm or death. These are true nightmare scenarios, and we're gonna be talking about some of these today. So. Fair warning to listeners, if you have a lot of sensitivity or you feel like you might be triggered by discussions of sexual violence and partners who have gone off the rails and done horrible things, please skip this episode or at least be prepared to hit fast forward if you need to. this is gonna be a sensitive set of topics, but it's really important to talk about these things. 'cause when we don't talk about them, they get buried, they get hidden, they get ignored. And these are real dangers that a lot of women, predominantly women in our society are dealing with. And the digital world has made it a lot worse.

[00:02:09] Arlo: So we'd like to understand how this is gonna affect our businesses and the people that we care about. Are we doing enough to protect the data that helps those people to do bad things? Are we protecting the people behind those bad things? And how can we as a society all do a better job of protect, of protecting people from those worst case scenarios?

[00:02:33] Arlo: So today we have an amazing and extraordinary, a brilliant guest named Carrie Goldberg. Carrie, if you haven't heard of her already, has dedicated her entire life to protecting the most vulnerable, getting them reparations and restitutions and fighting in her words, the assholes, the pervs, the trolls, and big tech to make them pay.

[00:02:56] Arlo: She's a fierce litigator at a law firm that bears her own name, which in my mind also makes her an entrepreneur where she and her colleagues are fighting for the justice that the victims around the world deserve from some of the worst people and some of the worst platforms. So you've heard of the Creeps and the creepy companies that she's gone after.

[00:03:18] Arlo: Does Harvey Weinstein ring a bell? But hopefully you've also heard some of her success stories and the laws that she's pushed for and that have been passed in all 50 states to protect you and me from harm. Carrie is the author of a book, nobody's Victim. I cannot recommend it highly enough, and she is here to talk to us today about the importance of privacy in the fight against real evil.

[00:03:45] Arlo: Carrie, welcome to the show. I. 

[00:03:48] Carrie: Thank you, Arlo. I'm very excited to be here. 

[00:03:51] Arlo: Oh, I'm so excited to have you and, you know, this is a great topic and one that I wish got more face time. so before we start talking about all the important work you've done and how that might intersect with privacy, we would love to just know more about you. I mean, I think the first question I've gotta get the answer to is like, how did you end up in the revenge porn business?

[00:04:16] Carrie: well, I,I have perhaps surprising response to that, which actually goes back to the Holocaust. I mean, speaking of the internet and Godwin's law, which basically says that sooner or later every debate returns to, the Holocaust. when I first graduated from college, I got a job working for, survivors of the Holocaust. here in New York and I was working on restitution and reparations and getting my clients, money for the horrific things that they suffered like, slave labor and ghetto pensions and medical experiments. There were a bunch of all these new reparations back in the years I worked there, which was 2000 to 2005. And So I got really obsessed with this whole idea of,somebody getting money, to compensate them for suffering. And it's this really crude that we have in our justice system and internationally. but there's really not another alternative because we've advanced from the eye for an I days, so now it's about getting money for justice.

[00:05:25] Arlo: so let me just like, I wanna unpack this a little bit. So, you graduated college and started immediately going off and working for, I'm assuming huge amounts of money, to help Holocaust victims. This is a very, a very financially rewarding experience for you. 

[00:05:41] Carrie: Oh, for me, yeah, I was making a year and was happy as a clam. I was eating beans every night for dinner. but it was probably the best, most challenging time in my life. 

[00:05:55] Arlo: Wow. I mean, that, that must have been pretty amazing, especially for a recently new person in the world of professionalism. I mean, you were not just trying to help people get money, but you were actually trying to navigate what sounds like incredibly complex foreign laws. tell us a little bit about, like, were there any times when you really went in and you felt like, wow, I'm, I'm in over my head right now. I, I have no idea what I'm doing. I barely know how to speak German and I've gotta fill out German forms and I mean, just, I'd love to understand more about what that, that experience was like for you. 

[00:06:28] Carrie: It was,pretty I had a whole caseload of,survivors who I would visit in the community, but then I also was known as sort of a whiz at figuring out all the different restitution. I mean, it was a total maze and there were new ones. There were like new Swiss bank accounts that we could find and looted art, that my clients qualify for.

[00:06:51] Carrie: And, my big challenge though was figuring out the German social security system. because in those years suddenly there was this new program where Germany was giving social security credit for people who had labored in ghettos in Poland. And so I had several clients who qualified for that.

[00:07:13] Carrie: And then I would apply and sometimes, I would have to go through this whole administrative appellate program in. In German, I don't speak German. And we had one computer in the office that was, hooked up to the internet and there was this really, really old, or, I mean, probably the time it was top of its line, but there's this very crude, translation system and I just can imagine the like bureaucrats who had to parse through my, my, appeals.

[00:07:43] Carrie: But I got like, collectively I got millions of dollars for my survivors over the years. 

[00:07:49] Arlo: That's amazing. So, I mean, like the skillset to be able to go off and like figure this out seems pretty unique. Was there something in your life that kind of prepared you for that level of sleuthing? And, I mean, I've gotta imagine there's probably a fair amount of tenacity required in trying to hunt down a foreign government and get them to turn over money. how did you find that you had that skillset? Was there something else that you had done that led you there? 

[00:08:22] Carrie: I mean I had not done anything like that before, but I was very like in love with the. Survivors that I was helping, you know, these were very deep relationships and I, saw them through illnesses and deaths of their spouses and stuff. And so I was very motivated just by my,deep affection for them to basically turn over,every rock.

[00:08:44] Carrie: But like, I'm from a small town in Washington state, Aberdeen, I'm actually fifth generation furniture store, salesperson. My, great great great grandfather. a furniture, store in, in Aberdeen, I worked there, all through high school and even, at age eight, I was working,selling Magnavox TVs and clock radios and things. 

[00:09:10] Arlo: So you had to get it done, kind of like upbringing, like just make it happen. 

[00:09:16] Carrie: always loved working. I'm,and I, just am I love having a job and I've always had a job. 

[00:09:23] Arlo: And that's right. Isn't Kurt Cobain from Aberdeen? Yes, 

[00:09:29] Arlo: sitting here and all of a sudden I thought, oh, Kurt Cobain, I mean he was your buddy friend. Like you guys hung out. he's a little older than me, but he went to my high school and did actually allegedly, deliver furniture for my dad's store with the basis, his Chris Nova, like, he would sometimes deliver the furniture. from what I

[00:09:52] Arlo: I would lose my mind if Nirvana delivered my couch. That's amazing. I'd love to kind of dig in a little bit. I mean, you know, we've talked a little bit about you. So you grew up in Aberdeen and you got a family of entrepreneurs, business owners. You end up going to college. you go and pursue this incredibly altruistic and impactful goal to help these Holocaust survivors to get compensated for, or at least partially compensated right?

[00:10:24] Arlo: As much as you can compensate for the things they went through. But, that's not what you're known for nowadays, right? you're known as the person who is willing to take on big tech and I'd love to understand a little bit about, how did you become a lawyer and then, what inspired you to be a lawyer and, how did you become a lawyer and then, I mean, where did the, this, the battle against this kind of a abuse and revenge porn stuff happen?

[00:10:53] Arlo: Like where did this become something that was passionate about, that you were passionate about? 

[00:10:57] Carrie: So I was motivated to go to law school because I was kind of losing my mind in my twenties working for the survivors. I just was,you know, most of my friends worked, as,receptionists or, had these cool administrative jobs and nonprofits and stuff.

[00:11:14] Carrie: And I was sitting here spending like 50 hours a week with people who had,been in the,death march out of, I. And so I, my perspective, was, kind of messed up and I, did not cope real well with it. I didn't learn how to deal with that much trauma. I was also really just addicted to the work and learning everything I could about the Holocaust. And I, like, on my vacations, I would go to Europe and, to concentration camps. And I was really very obsessive and it wasn't healthy. I don't recommend it, but I was Dr. like I loved it. but at certain time it, at certain point it became quite, very, it went over the line of not being healthy. And I, realized I, I needed more balance in my life and I ended up going to law school just to kind of do something else with my brain. So it wasn't always thinking about,genocide. 

[00:12:09] Carrie: And 

[00:12:10] Arlo: know, a lot of people carry, just take up drinking. you know, going to law school is a different approach. That's, I mean, that's amazing.

[00:12:17] Carrie: Don't get me wrong. I was doing that too. so I started going to law school at night I would work with Holocaust survivors during the day. take the subway an hour to Brooklyn Law School and then do law school at night. I was a terrible student. but it did do the trick in terms of giving, giving me something else to think about. And so I, graduated, I worked at a couple different nonprofits. I had wanted to go into human rights, but my, grades were garbage. I thought, like, I thought I was gonna like become some like genocide lawyer, that was like doing truth And reconciliation tribunal stuff. but I was, too shitty a student. So I, ended up going, I, my first job was doing landlord tenant law, for people that were being evicted by slumlords in Manhattan. And that's how I learned how to litigate because there were always these like immediate like motions and, lawsuits and things that we had to file.

[00:13:12] Carrie: Like, landlords would like falsely report their building as like, a safety violation. And then all the rent controlled tenants would get thrown out and then we would have to sue them to get them, to be able to reoccupy their own homes. And it was, it was like crazy triaging stuff.

[00:13:29] Carrie: And then I went to work at the Vera Institute of Justice, where it was more just like. Triage I was working for, this, the guardianship project where a lot of my clients were people on life support then we would basically have to do all this work to figure out what their wishes were.

[00:13:46] Carrie: And sometimes I would have to get, I'd do these hearings and get these court orders to extubate somebody so that they could die according to their wishes or it was always, a lot of life and death decision making, in that job. And while I was working there, I had through divorce and was dating for the first time in, forever, in 10 years. And that's when I met somebody who, I had a short-term relationship with. And when we broke up after the relationship became quite frightening. He. Told me that he was gonna be spending the rest of his life destroying mine. And he had, naked pictures and videos of me that he would then send to me and tell me that, judges and colleagues were blind, copied. And he would tell me that he had hired people with HIV to come rape me. He was contacting all of my friends and family on Facebook saying that I was a drug addict, which was not true. I mean, it was like one thing after the other. He falsely reported me to the police and then I got arrested based on false charges. So I went

[00:15:03] Arlo: this is horrible, Carrie.

[00:15:05] Carrie: It was horrible. And even though as a lawyer, I had no, no idea how to deal with him and my friends and my, especially my family, I mean, he falsely. So he claimed, like reported my, like my relatives to the IRS, like they were all afraid to like help me because anyone that was in my circle was also a target of his. And so I went to the police. They were like, like you should go to family court and get an order of protection. And I tried to do that and the judge in family court told me that, he had, that my ex had a first amendment right to post these images of me. And that was a real turning point 

[00:15:53] Arlo: What.

[00:15:53] Carrie: because I Was like, wait, how can it be free speech for somebody to like share a naked picture of somebody else? And 

[00:16:02] Arlo: the law at that time? Unclear, vague, non-existent.

[00:16:07] Carrie: There were no laws. So this was in 2013. There were no laws that, there were three states at the time that had revenge porn laws. New York was not one of them. And so when I got through this terrible ordeal, I had to move and my whole life was totally different. and I was really at a low point. I was suicidal. 

[00:16:31] Arlo: I can imagine.

[00:16:32] Carrie: just, I was really scared of of like, were these revenge porn websites at the time and if, and Google would direct people to them. and so I was really scared that pictures and videos would wind up on them because it was entirely legal at the time to, to post that stuff. and at the time, like people who bore the victims would get horribly harassed and they would get fired and, I was really scared. but when I finally, got on the other side of the ordeal. My life looked so different. just had this like moment of, I don't know, epiphany or something. and I just said, my life is made for something else than what I'm doing. And I thought I, I just decided I was gonna start a law firm. I gave notice, I had a payout of $3,000 worth of vacation days. So I got this little check and that was really, all the money I needed in order to just like start a law firm. it was just like I rented this like, windowless room, got a website and,and then almost immediately started just tweeting and blogging about. About image-based sexual abuse and privacy. And 

[00:17:52] Arlo: you took the power back.

[00:17:54] Carrie: yeah, I did not expect law firm to last more than a year. I gave myself like a year to basically see if I could do it and if then if I couldn't.

[00:18:04] Carrie: I was just planning on moving back.

[00:18:05] Carrie: to Aberdeen and just starting over. and, but, within the year, things really worked out well. We, I partnered with some other amazing advocates and I just really found my life's purpose and my life's work. and I also that during that year I had my first, big case against a tech company.

[00:18:25] Carrie: I, I discovered,that tech companies were immune from liability for. that users posted. 'cause during that process I was like, how are these, I was a litigator. How are these revenge porn websites allowed to exist? And how are companies like Google allowed to be directing people through search results to these companies?

[00:18:46] Carrie: Like, what are we talking about with privacy and Oh, okay. Our privacy laws are garbage. And then there's, the Communications Decency Act that, protects these platforms and search engines and social media companies for revenge porn that users post. And I was like, my God, there's so much that needs to change. 

[00:19:06] Arlo: That is, wow. that's a story. I'm a little stunned and I have take taking from talking to you. This feels like this might be a little bit of an emotional journey for you to go revisit some of these things. So thank you for sharing those with us. I'm sure that's not easy. well look, so I think we get it.

[00:19:21] Arlo: You got into revenge porn out of necessity, and you have clearly, you're this person who just. Takes the power back and uses what's in front of her to go and solve big problems. And you, my hat's off to you. That's really admirable. so, I, I'd love to dive a little more into some of the more tactical, legal stuff that you've been talking about.

[00:19:42] Arlo: but before we get there, I would love to understand, I mean, the work you're doing now,going up against big tech, I, it's, I'm imagining it must be really rewarding, but probably really, really, really, really hard. And, I'm interested to understand like, where do you, how do you find that continued energy to keep that fire going, to continue fighting?

[00:20:08] Carrie: it's hard sometimes. I mean, I have the privilege of having like. An amazing team of people that I get to work with every day and who are just dedicated as hell to the mission and to the clients. And So I'm not ever doing the work alone. Sometimes it feels like, like especially in the beginning when we were, a smaller group and we're experimenting with, kind of pioneering theories.

[00:20:34] Carrie: Like, like we started suing platforms as products back in, I mean, my first case, for that was 2014. The first case filed about that was 2017. And at the time just said, these are not products, these are services. You can't sue a social media company as if it's a product. We're like, no, but these, like, you know this these different features are defective and so why

[00:21:00] Arlo: So this was product liability law you were thinking about as an angle. 

[00:21:04] Carrie: Exactly. And we're like, so if you're suing a company as a product and not as a publisher, then it should get around section two 30. And some of my closest colleagues at the time were like, you're gonna lose, you're gonna create bad case law. And I'll tell you, I did lose and I did create bad case law. and I still do sometimes lose, and I still do sometimes create bad case law, but I also win, sometimes more, more often now, and create good case law. And it ne the good case law never would've happened, if not for the, the risks in, in the, trying out new theories. And,like the product liability theory, it now has really taken off all over,many places in the country and it's now being used Meta and TikTok and,YouTube, snap, related to addicting kids and fentanyl sales and like lots of cases now,have relied on that original theory I lost when I first brought it, but have since, one, but I'll 

[00:22:08] Arlo: So the case law wasn't great, but it turned around.

[00:22:12] Carrie: it turned around and, it's like, that's the thing with, having all these different states and all these different circuit, federal circuits and stuff, is that you can try a theory in one place and if it doesn't work, but you feel in your guts that you know it is right, could try it somewhere else. And that's what really happened. I have,there's. Like litigation is sort of a, a good way for people like me who I'm actually, I don't enjoy arguing. I'm not one of those lawyers who was like, I'm a big, big into debate and public speaking there, I was born to be a lawyer.

[00:22:52] Carrie: I'm not, don't, I'm not that person. I don't like co conflict, but litigation makes it so that you're just kind of arguing on paper. You're arguing to a judge, you're not arguing directly to the other side. So it's kind of less of a direct way of combat and it's kind of very organized or it should be. so it suits me really well. 'cause I can kind of be like super aggressive on paper. and then, Back off. And then, it's like, there's like, forward and then retreat forward, then retreat with litigation. And it's, just, I love filing a new lawsuit against a huge corporation and taking a client's facts in their tragedy, sculpting into a lawsuit, and then just throwing it into the world and suddenly it exists and people might report about it and a judge has to handle it.

[00:23:51] Carrie: And the other company might, the company who's the defendant, might be the most company in the world. And then they have to go hire lawyers and they have to, deal with me and my. Client, I'm just Carrie Aberdeen and my clients might, a nurse or a teacher, a parent of a child who's been horrifically injured. But it's like these companies to deal with us and sometimes they have to pay it, a lot of money to deal with us or to get us to go away, to, to compensate my clients for what they've suffered.

[00:24:22] Arlo: And to, but to be clear here too, I mean, I, I hear a lot of the. The things you're saying, and they could be taken as, kind of commercially motivated, but that's not my take. Is that this is, this feels like this isn't about the money for you. it seems like this is about justice and like holding accountable and making sure that people have a voice.

[00:24:42] Arlo: Is that accurate? 

[00:24:43] Carrie: it's true, but it's it's not so different than what I was doing with the Holocaust survivor, where it's not about the money, but it's about the money. 

[00:24:51] Arlo: Yeah.

[00:24:52] Carrie: like, like it's blood money. it, my, my Holocaust survivors had such such ambivalence about the money.

[00:25:01] Carrie: They didn't want the money, but they needed the money. They didn't wanna be somebody who accepted the money and, that there could ever be forgiveness. But 

[00:25:10] Arlo: Yeah.

[00:25:11] Carrie: money is power in this world. And money can actually help somebody who's been,who's been catastrophically injured. and it also is a punishment. these companies don't go to jail. They don't have a conscience. They can't really say they're sorry, but they can pay my client's money. And that money, if it's enough, might disincentivize them from doing that bad thing again. It might make them stop selling that. chemical or s stop allowing that feature that addicts children to, to use the product all night to,stop, using those kinds of prompts and addictive rewards, whatever. But, it's like making it expensive for companies, teaches them. And I believe in a world where there needs to be like a redistribution of wealth from companies if they're harming people to the people that they're harming. 

[00:26:09] Arlo: I think that sounds pretty reasonable. although I imagine when you file the suit, they don't say that. So, look, I wanna talk about these things, but I also am really just personally curious. this sounds really stressful and very hard, and, undoubtedly you're going up against the biggest companies in the world who have essentially unlimited pocketbooks.

[00:26:32] Arlo: How do you unwind?

[00:26:35] Carrie: Oh, dogs. I have, two of the cutest dogs in the world. We have five dogs in the office at any given day. I exercise a lot like, like, just like worldly delights of just like petting puppies. It's like the Besty stressor. 

[00:26:53] Arlo: That's, I gotta say, I think that's about the best answer I've ever heard. I solved my problems by petting cute things. 

[00:26:59] Arlo: There's, God for puppies. I don't know, I would not be able to do this work. Oh, on cue 

[00:27:05] Arlo: speaking of puppies. All right, we'll pause real quick.

[00:27:08] Carrie: second. Let me just see if that's their dog walker. 

[00:27:14] Arlo: Yeah, take your time.

[00:27:25] Arlo: Well, she's got a nice view out there. I wanna like zoom in on her window and figure out what we're looking at. Is that the bottom of New York? 

[00:27:33] Carrie: Okay. False 

[00:27:34] Arlo: Oh, okay Carrie. So we won't include this on the episode, but now I'm dying to know what's outside your window. 'cause it looked like you have a great view. 

[00:27:41] Carrie: This is,

[00:27:42] Arlo: we won't include this in the episode.

[00:27:43] Arlo: Is that the city? Holy crap.

[00:27:46] Carrie: You can see the, statue of Liberty over there. 

[00:27:50] Arlo: Nobody in Manhattan gets that view.

[00:27:52] Carrie: know you have to be in Brooklyn or Jersey to get it. 

[00:27:56] Arlo: Okay, cool. Well look,we'll kind of cut out of the stuff that, we've been talking about. thank you for being so patient through that. And I know that some of that stuff was probably a little challenging to discuss. You're doing great by the way. you're coming through wonderfully.

[00:28:08] Arlo: Your camera looks good. You sound good. you look and sound very confident. So whatever you're doing, keep doing it. All right. Cool. So, I mean, look, you've taken on these big tech companies, you've got, an amazing roster of stories that I'm sure you could sit around and delight the dinner table with. but I would love to know, like you, you and I have talked a little bit before this and so I had the chance to hear a little bit of the tip of the spear of some of these stories.

[00:28:30] Arlo: But some of these were mind blowing. you talked about some guy who avenge poured his ex in front of like a thousand people. You talked about something happening at Meta. Let's Dish. Like, tell me what's happening. Who are you suing and why? And tell me these horrible stories that we should all be worried about out.

[00:28:49] Carrie: Okay. Well, you know, since Asana is like really, deals with like workplace privacy, I've got a couple workplace, stories to dish about, these are,a couple of these cases are ones that are pending right now, but they're publicly filed, so 

[00:29:04] Arlo: so we're allowed to talk about these things 'cause this is all public now in, in the courts. All right. Good, good.

[00:29:10] Carrie: so there's one case that we have, against a company called Crown Castle. And my client, ex worked at, they both worked at Crown Castle and during a company-wide Zoom of like 900 people, her ex who worked in it, posted a video of her naked to the entire like 900 person, zoom call. And then he 

[00:29:38] Arlo: Wow.

[00:29:39] Carrie: the zoom ended, he was quickly, they figured it out. And then he had, like. Like he had set an email account to then send stills of that video to like over a thousand people at the company. so we sued the company. of course people sometimes were like, why don't you just go after him?

[00:30:02] Carrie: Well, thing is that companies have duties to the people that they employ. And, this, was the IT guy and our position is that he was negligently hired and supervised and all this 

[00:30:17] Arlo: I they're, they're, a networking com and communications company, right? It's not like they make screws and shouldn't know better.

[00:30:24] Carrie: Exactly. Exactly. And if somebody's going to be as, the standard deviation as to A naked video on a corporate zoom to 900 people, then you can pretty much know that they're, that they have other things planned, you know, like the, this is somebody who's probably got other things planned.

[00:30:44] Carrie: So then the company, acted as though they were shocked and surprised that then there was this email account that was set to deliver all these images. And so the court has said, well, even if the company didn't have notice about the initial video, they had noticed that there was gonna be this chain of other conduct.

[00:31:05] Carrie: And so we do get to, to litigate that issue about their, the company's responsibility for all these still shot images that, that went out to all her

[00:31:16] Arlo: And what is Crown? I haven't read the lawsuit. What is Crown Castle's response? Just kind of a blanket denial of all responsibility. what's that been? and forgive me, and is this one completed or is this still pending? 

[00:31:28] Carrie: pending? 

[00:31:29] Arlo: Okay, 

[00:31:29] Carrie: still, it's progressing, 

[00:31:30] Arlo: it's in the courts right now. Got it.

[00:31:32] Carrie: so they're, they were just saying, you know, it's not us, it's him. This was a rogue employee. He wasn't acting within the scope of his job. He was, not doing anything that was beneficial to our company. and that kind of, that's a response to some of the legal issues, that have to do when you hold a company, vicariously liable for the conduct of their staff.

[00:32:00] Carrie: I getting into the weeds, but anyways, 

[00:32:02] Arlo: Well, I, a lot of our audience will understand everything you just said. I did not, but I'm certain that they will

[00:32:07] Carrie: anyway, but the general idea is it wasn't us. It's him. Like, you have the wrong person in 

[00:32:13] Arlo: Got it.

[00:32:14] Carrie: the judge said, no, no, no. It's like Crown Castle needs to account for their role in this. so, you know, that's one of the, that's a case, where the harm, happened at work.

[00:32:27] Carrie: I think anytime there's like 

[00:32:29] Arlo: Yeah.

[00:32:30] Carrie: a workplace invasion of privacy, it's really, it's particularly catastrophic because people work so hard to land the jobs that they have, and 

[00:32:39] Arlo: how do you quantify that, when you're, talking to the courts about damages, obviously we have, personal, there, there's a lot going into that, right? Like that person has in, has now experienced a significant amount of pain and suffering.

[00:32:53] Arlo: but when you're thinking about the professional impact that has on a person, right? I mean, we live in a,pretty, um, prude society in a lot of ways where, you know, anything sexual can immediately kind of wreck somebody's career. I is that a piece of this litigation when you're looking at those?

[00:33:14] Carrie: It is. and I mean, back in the day, I would have clients who literally would get fired for being the victims of image-based abuse. like 

[00:33:23] Arlo: Wow.

[00:33:23] Carrie: I had, I've had several teachers and, Various people. So fortunately, most of the world has gotten beyond that point where they fire victims of crimes. but what, my clients deal with though, and when there is this kind of workplace invasion is,is just the huge embarrassment and being the source of gossip and having this knowledge that everyone, at every meeting knows what she looks like naked and knows that there's, this jilted ex who's trying to destroy, you know, knows this like intimate part of her life.

[00:33:57] Carrie: And so just the humiliation is a source of great damage. And ultimately she left the job because it was just too humiliating. 

[00:34:07] Arlo: I mean, I can't imagine going back to the office after that. I mean, we've all had our own snafus at work, but, it's usually something like you spilled coffee on your lap during a meeting, and everybody giggled. But I just can't even imagine what it must be like.

[00:34:21] Arlo: So, so you got the Crown Castle one, and I know that,I know you, you probably have a lot of good stories Good, in air quotes, right. But you probably have a lot of, stories that would kind of shock. are there any others that come to mind as standing out?

[00:34:34] Carrie: well, there's another one that is pending right now. I love to sue Big Tech as we discussed, and 

[00:34:40] Arlo: Thank.

[00:34:41] Carrie: suing them for product liability. but I actually have, a workplace case against Meta. 

[00:34:46] Arlo: Formerly known as Facebook, formerly known as the Facebook.

[00:34:52] Carrie: yeah. And, as we're recording. This today. Facebook is on, on trial right now for antitrust violations. So, 

[00:35:02] Carrie: I believe in a world where there needs to be like a redistribution of wealth from companies if they're harming people to the people that they're harming. 

[00:35:12] Arlo: that feels like there's a pattern.

[00:35:14] Carrie: right? Well, and look at Snap. It was created to help facilitate the exchange of nude pictures. that would automatically destroy,for these college bros. I mean, a lot of these companies have a rather pernicious origin story. 

[00:35:29] Arlo: So tell us about this meta case. I, I'm really curious what, what's happening with that one?

[00:35:33] Carrie: okay, so my client is this amazing, guy named James, who worked in their marketing department he was living his dream. I mean, he,this was his dream job. And, he was one?

[00:35:50] Carrie: of the organizers of some pride events at Meta and met a coworker during some of the pride events that coworker gets fired, out to James and says, ah, I just got laid off. Do you wanna get together for coffee? They get together for coffee and it turns out that coworker is quite mentally ill and has been obsessed with James and hands him this of documents. That reveals that, James has a source of great and admiration, and it's a frightening reveal. James lets, meta know that there's this, man that got laid off who's really unstable. then James is just like stalked and harassed his, like on every form of social media, direct message and it's really, kind of deranged messages about cats and artificial intelligence and how he's at risk and this like sexual biblical rantings. and just an unimaginable amount of it, just reams of paper of it. but that's usually sent electronically, but sometimes hand delivered. To, to James' home, which this guy has discovered. So James, and this is over several months, James repeatedly, like just updates, Meta's security team, their HR team, and they,they basically say, listen, you should go report this to the police. but we're going to put this former employee on our do not hire list and our do not allow access list. 

[00:37:32] Arlo: All right. So it sounds like they're doing the right thing and looking out for their team. Good for them. Why are you suing them?

[00:37:38] Carrie: right. They're not like giving him 24 7 security, but they're like, okay, we're gonna do the best we can. They tell 'em to go get an order protection. but in New York, you actually have to have had an intimate relationship with the person you get an order protection from. so, like, then James is at work and he gets a direct message on Meta's internal. chat service that says I'm back and Meta has rehired, this guy 

[00:38:09] Arlo: What? 

[00:38:09] Carrie: and he's 

[00:38:10] Arlo: Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. So they said we are not gonna hire him. This guy's a bad dude. We know he's done bad stuff. And then they hired him.

[00:38:19] Carrie: He's back. Exactly. and you know, so James's like, oh my God. And alerts them. Alerts meta the HR and security. By now, there's so much chaos at meta. They're always moving people around, laying people off, hiring, rehiring that it's like they don't keep tr apparently they don't even keep track these kinds of things.

[00:38:44] Carrie: I mean, 

[00:38:45] Arlo: Which is funny 'cause they keep track of us very well.

[00:38:48] Carrie: track of us. They're great at you know, on on surveillance of us stuff. But when it comes to their own employees and keeping them safe, they are crap. 

[00:38:58] Arlo: Wow. 

[00:38:59] Carrie: so 

[00:38:59] Arlo: is stunning. I mean, do you, how do you react when somebody tells these stories? do you sometimes find yourself going, no way, really they did that? Like, do you have any evidence? 'cause that just sounds fantastical, right? I mean, is there a moment where you sometimes find yourself doubting in the beginning?

[00:39:17] Carrie: not when it's a company like Meta or Amazon, or like big Tech who I just know, I know from how they treat their users, that these are unkind and neglectful companies, so if they treat their employees that way, that. feels very like consistent. 

[00:39:40] Arlo: Yeah. 

[00:39:40] Carrie: So 

[00:39:41] Arlo: the, are, are these like really extreme cases of negligence? or do you think that like, you know, like all effectively, kinda like all of the tech companies are just a time bomb, right? Like they all have this problem, it's just that it hasn't been surfaced yet? or do you feel like the big, big tech companies tend to be worse?

[00:40:01] Carrie: I think the big tech companies because they're just too big to care. and that's about their employees and about their users. 

[00:40:09] Arlo: man, that's impossible. So, so I'd love to unpack, I mean, you've spent a lot more time dealing with people who are clearly not in a good place and mentally to end up stalking, harassing revenge porn. Like I'm imagining those people are not happy, healthy individuals. So like, what's the end game when somebody starts, sending a video of somebody nude to 900 of their colleagues?

[00:40:39] Arlo: Like, what's the mental calculation? Are they thinking I'm gonna win something, I'm gonna like, what do they think is gonna happen?

[00:40:48] Carrie: Well, hard to put our selves in the shoes of people who are just kind of imploding their own lives. but when it's this extreme, there's usually mental illness or just blind rage. And so in the case about Crown Castle, where that person was very methodically, like uploading this video and setting, the timer on these emails to go out, you know, very premeditated.

[00:41:15] Carrie: That was just somebody who just was like, fuck it. that's just like, fuck it behavior. 

[00:41:21] Arlo: Yeah, 

[00:41:22] Carrie: I hate

[00:41:23] Arlo: I have nothing else to lose.

[00:41:24] Carrie: hate her and I want humiliate her more than I actually care about, like, my job staying outta jail, my reputation. He was just, you know, and then other situations where there's really extreme stalking and harassment, sometimes that can be based on delusional beliefs, which is why it's important.

[00:41:47] Carrie: Like in the case of meta, it's why it's important that, if you're dealing with an offender who may not have both feet in. Fully grounded in reality. you know, a company that says like, we will not rehire your stalker. I mean, that's a very basic accommodation. 

[00:42:05] Arlo: Yeah, 

[00:42:06] Carrie: that's 

[00:42:06] Arlo: we'll, we'll keep your workspace safe.

[00:42:08] Carrie: that's why you need that promise to actually work. and of course when meta refire the offender, the stalking and the retaliation got 10 times worse. 

[00:42:21] Arlo: God Almight. I don't even, it doesn't happen often, but I'm speechless. so 1, 1, 1 thing I'm really interested in,I did not realize that this meta case involved a man. I think of revenge porn and a lot of this stuff is being something that women are predominantly the victims, of.

[00:42:40] Arlo: is that your experience is that accurate? it's generally women who are being harassed and men are less frequent. I'm just guessing, you know, like,is it 90% women, 10% men? Like, what do you see?

[00:42:52] Carrie: So I see the trends. there's different like, kind of gender-based trends. I see a lot of male victims. usually the offenders are male also. like in, whether the victims are women or men, usually the offenders are male.

[00:43:11] Arlo: So a commonality there is the testosterone is the bad, is on the bad end of things. Okay.

[00:43:17] Carrie: Yeah.

[00:43:17] Carrie: there's usually just more like of a I'll blow up my life to destroy yours sort of vibe. among. Men, and we're talking about a very small fraction of men here. It's not, this is not hashtag all men,

[00:43:31] Arlo: Yeah.

[00:43:33] Carrie: but we do see a lot of male victims of stalking, harassment. and then I see tons of male victims of extortion and sextortion where, 

[00:43:43] Arlo: Interesting.

[00:43:44] Carrie: somebody, somebody who looks like a very attractive woman, slides into a man's dms on, on Instagram, lures him into masturbating, and then lo and behold, it's not a woman.

[00:43:55] Carrie: It's, you know, it's some troll on the other side of the country or world 

[00:44:00] Arlo: Oh my God.

[00:44:01] Carrie: So I see tons of those cases, or, somebody who's hired a sex worker And then is being blackmailed by the sex worker.

[00:44:10] Arlo: And you're only getting the ones who are willing to speak up and say something and try and take some real, like 

[00:44:15] Carrie: by speak up, they're not usually going to the police, 

[00:44:19] Carrie: or suing. It's more like I can be a bit of a fixer some in some cases, and so

[00:44:26] Arlo: I have learned.

[00:44:28] Carrie: yeah, I'm brought in as a fixer and not as a, I mean, some of my best and biggest victories are ones you've never heard about because they just get quietly resolved. 

[00:44:38] Arlo: That's amazing. All right, so, let's shift gears a little bit. We have talked a lot about, you know, all of the revenge porn stuff. Thank you for sharing,your personal experience as well as some of those,really eye-opening stories about other people's experiences. So, I mean, how are these people, I mean, as a society, are we doing enough as a society to protect people from this kind of stuff?

[00:45:02] Arlo: And I mean, the cops don't press charges. Companies don't shut these people down. Background checks fail, right? So there's the question of like, are we doing enough? And then I think there's also the question of like, why is it so easy for somebody to go and take photographs that are intended to be private and disseminate them on mass in a way like that?

[00:45:28] Arlo: Is it just purely technology's gotten better? I mean, what's the reality here on how these people get all this stuff and get this distribution? I mean, 'cause we've always had nude pictures of partners, like, you know, 

[00:45:42] Carrie: Yeah, 

[00:45:43] Arlo: but you usually had 'em in a drawer somewhere. 

[00:45:45] Carrie: well 

[00:45:46] Arlo: that's exactly it. Now you know, like we have, our smart smartphones are always in our hands. We record everything. We're all exhibitionists, we're all a little voyeuristic. and so like, we don't have to take a photo and then take it to get developed and, you know, we're not on, you know, and then wait a few weeks and, there's just like, it's, we all have, a publication source,like the internet. Just makes dissemination and mass as you put it, so simple and frictionless. we can, that's the big difference is that we're all photographers and we're all publishers now,and then the, we just, with Facebook and Instagram and Snap, we just have all these different ways to, to publish things 20 years ago did not exist. 

[00:46:35] Arlo: Yeah. Have you seen a lot of, on these cases that you've taken on, whether, settled in public or pending? Have you seen, a lot of these where the. Stalker, for lack of a better word, the attacker. The harasser. I'm not sure what the right term is to use. ha Have they gone and gotten data from other places?

[00:46:56] Arlo: Right. Is it always like, no, I ha I have some private photos I took and I wanna share those. Or is it No, no. I've used AI and I've made virtual you and published it. Or is it, I've gone on to Facebook and managed to get access to everything you like, and now I can go figure out how to go find you at dinner?

[00:47:16] Arlo: like, I'm curious, where does that lie?

[00:47:18] Carrie: see every permutation, right now I'm dealing with the representation of 40 families in a like, middle of the country state, where there's just been this huge ring of deep fakes. So all these high school students have been deep faked. So the, these boys in the school didn't have nude photos, but they just manufactured them of these girls.

[00:47:41] Carrie: And I mean, that's child sexual abuse material. We've had, you know, I have, I represented a number of victims of girls do porn, which was. a situation back in there was this, this company that would post ads as, you know, looking for bikini models and then women would respond. They would offer them three to $5,000 all expense paid trip to San Diego to shoot The porn was missionary style as they were told. 

[00:48:16] Carrie: they get there and you, these were very wholesome girls. They were a lot of sorority girls, college girls, who'd never done porn before, but were thinking, God, you know, 5,000 bucks, 

[00:48:28] Arlo: It's a lot of money.

[00:48:29] Carrie: were told this was just for one guy's collection, like a super wealthy guy from Australia.

[00:48:35] Carrie: Just, is creating this like personal archive of beautiful women having sex with this one random guy and. And then they would like say, oh, we can talk to you, we can introduce you to other models who've done it. and then they would give them the names of people who would vouch for this company.

[00:48:52] Carrie: But lo and behold, these women would fly out to San Francisco and then basically be a sex slave for to 48 hours. Get be told, well, you weren't as pretty as you as your picture, so we're not gonna give you the full $5,000. We're gonna give you 2000 unless you wanna do anal. Something like that. And, 

[00:49:15] Arlo: So they're really escalating. I mean, they're, they're kinda luring these people in with false promises and then dialing up the intensity once they have control.

[00:49:24] Carrie: And then once the woman is back at home a few weeks later, all hell breaks loose. The images are, it's actually this company called Girls Do Porn, and it's not for rich guys. Collection and it's, it just was the most widely distributed pornography in the world. 

[00:49:44] Arlo: Wow.

[00:49:45] Carrie: and then there was a whole community of people that would then dox the women.

[00:49:50] Carrie: So that was a situation where the women would get blackmailed and doxed by people that would just, find, like from people searches and all over the internet, everything that they could about the women. I mean, they would post the YouTube profiles of the, know, models younger, eighth grade sister, where the parents work.

[00:50:13] Carrie: Then the parents would get, you know, threats links at work. Or they'd figure out who are the parents' boss. And then, and these were people that, so like a lot of these people 

[00:50:23] Arlo: God.

[00:50:24] Carrie: clients would get thrown out of their sorority or fired. That's one situation where they would frequently get fired from their job. for having done one porn shoot. but that, that, that's a situation where pe there was this like competitive vibe among the viewers to collect as much information from around the internet to then the harassment and the injury to these girls. 

[00:50:52] Arlo: God, this is really horrible. yeah, I think I, I mean, I, I stopped drinking. A little over 10 years ago. I think it might be time to start again today. 

[00:51:02] Carrie: don't. 

[00:51:04] Arlo: I kid, but this is horrible. I mean, I've got daughters, and you think about, you know, when you raise children, you think, okay, never my kids, right.

[00:51:13] Carrie: they would never do that kind of thing. But, you know, you hear these stories and it's like, you go, yeah, I can kind of see how somebody gets down that slippery slope of like, you know, I'll do this one thing one time very quietly. And nobody will know. Right. And I mean, I have clients where the victims are, girls that were from very, prestigious and high schools and things, And, they just had a moment of rebellion and like, shot a porn video or, you know, like, 

[00:51:47] Carrie: it's like one act of impulsivity should not destroy a person's life. 

[00:51:52] Arlo: Well, we're all fortunate enough here that, when we were kids, at least, those things didn't exist. We were allowed to make a lot of mistakes privately. And, nowadays it really feels like everybody's living their lives publicly. And every mistake is something that's a public humiliation, right?

[00:52:10] Carrie: that's right. 

[00:52:11] Arlo: it's gotta be hard. It's gotta be really hard to be a teenager or a young woman in society right now where the pressure is on to always be performing, always be on, always be visible. 

[00:52:23] Carrie: or like scared that one thing I did that one time. What if everyone finds out about it? A lot of 

[00:52:27] Arlo: yeah.

[00:52:28] Carrie: are afraid to run for office, especially women have one bad boyfriend who might share nudes. 

[00:52:35] Arlo: Right. And a as though she did something wrong. Right. By like being human and liking a boy, she did something wrong. 

[00:52:42] Carrie: Right. Right. 

[00:52:43] Arlo: well look, you have no argument from me on this one. so there are a lot more laws now, right? 

[00:52:49] Arlo: like when you started, doing all of this work with the Holocaust victims, you went through your own personal experience here. That was a big, impactful piece of your journey. It sounds like the laws were pretty toothless, if there were any, and that largely what you got from authorities was kind of not our problem.

[00:53:08] Arlo: is that the current state of the union, has that changed? Like I, I'd love to understand how you've seen it evolve.

[00:53:16] Carrie: there's been progress. There's,there's a silver lining, especially when it comes to image-based sexual abuse. So there have been, when I started my firm, there were three states that had. Quote unquote revenge porn laws. And now I think 49 states have it, and there's a, a federal civil cause of action and a lot of effort to get, a federal criminal law passed relating to that.

[00:53:41] Carrie: There's been like, and my practice has really changed because of that. Like I, I see how much a,criminal law can really deter the criminal behavior, lo and behold. but then there's been other progress. There's been more progress in terms of holding tech companies responsible, partly because of that product liability theory that I talked about, where these companies now are often, responsible for the harms that. Foreseeable from, their products. there's more regulation about sextortion, but also, you know, as much as I, hate on the tech companies, there has been some progress there. back in 2013, Google still would post, links to revenge porn websites. You would type somebody's name in and it would just autofill with, page afterpage of links to revenge porn websites and Google, now lets people de-list revenge porn websites. 

[00:54:41] Arlo: Yeah.

[00:54:41] Carrie: social media companies don't. Don't allow revenge porn. it's definitely not perfect, but at least they now have of service usually that say no revenge porn, PornHub revenge porn. in, in terms of that, we're making progress. But also, the internet has never been uglier in many ways.

[00:55:00] Carrie: I have 28 families I represent against Amazon, who were, whose children were sold a suicide chemical. And I was in communication with Amazon for over a year and a half telling them this thing you're selling has no household use besides suicide. And yet they insisted that it was well within their right to keep selling it. and they, they sold it more units. To many, many more people, until they finally stopped selling it. and a lot of my clients are, died during that interim, after I was already in communications with them. So there's,this arrogance, among these companies that they would rather keep, selling a $20 product when they sell 300 million other products. Then actually take advice from a plaintiff's lawyer whose client's kid was killed. 

[00:55:57] Arlo: That is just shameful. so when you've seen these laws and 1, 1, 1 thing you said, actually, I, I would really love to dig in a little bit on, it's been an ongoing societal debate, for, as long as I've been alive, probably a lot longer than that, do laws disincentivize the behavior, right?

[00:56:14] Arlo: Do the consequences and the penalties related to these laws actually change the stalker's mentality and decision making? Because I, I hear you talking about these people who are making these terrifically horrible things happen to other people. But are they in a mental space where like the existence of a law dissuades them?

[00:56:39] Arlo: I mean, I'm just, this is more I'm curious.

[00:56:42] Carrie: In my observation, the answer is yes. That, that. People don't wanna be thrown in jail unless, I mean, in general there, people who don't have money are not necessarily afraid of being sued. But the threat of being thrown in jail for breaking the law is a legitimate one. And also our laws kind of reflect our society norms. so if you suddenly have it, illegal to send naked pictures of somebody else, to third parties, then that kind of, gets into the zeitgeist and suddenly it stops being an option for injuring somebody. There are exceptions. There are still people that kill, there's still people that assault. People break the law all the time. But I see it a lot less frequently than,when I started the firm, when it comes to image-based sexual abuse, it's, you know, that's not to say it's not a huge problem still, 

[00:57:37] Arlo: Yeah, but that's great. I mean, you're on the front lines and if you're seeing, that these things have had impacts, then, maybe that's the silver lining in what otherwise is a lot of really unfortunate, and really bad stuff happening. I'm glad to know that there has been some improvement.

[00:57:55] Carrie: it was really funny because I got a bit of a taste of it when would say probably like seven years ago, I'd had my firm for three or four years, and we sent a demand letter to this guy who was threatening to revenge porn. his girlfriend and the guy like hired a lawyer and for whatever reason, sent us. Communications that the guy had actually had a link to my website. and it was like a diary entries of this guy talking himself out of revenge, pointing my client. And I was like, oh, okay. So the guy, so I'm like, maybe all this work does have an impact. 'cause he,he never did end up revenge pointing her.

[00:58:39] Carrie: He was just threatening

[00:58:40] Arlo: He

[00:58:40] Arlo: it.

[00:58:40] Carrie: and I was just like, oh. And like it's unusual to get that kind of insight into somebody's brain and then see yourself as the plaintiff's lawyer before I'd even sent the ceases desist letter that he'd already, found me. I was already a voice in his head saying, don't do this. 

[00:59:00] Arlo: That's a victory right there. I mean, you know, if you stopped somebody from doing something bad just by writing about it, that's amazing. That's the power of the internet, I guess. It can be used for good and bad. Well, let's talk about some of your victories. 'cause you've had a lot of those, right? And we largely have talked about the kind of the emotional side of these things, the legal history of these things.

[00:59:22] Arlo: But you have kicked some serious ass, Carrie. So like, what does it feel like to go and just clean the clock of a big tech company? What is that? What is that like?

[00:59:33] Carrie: I don't know if I would describe myself as cleaning the clock, except in one situation where we did Sue Omega, which is a platform, your listeners may or may not be aware of,they're anywhere between like 15 and 25, they hear the word omega and it makes them wanna puke. If they're above 25, they're like, what is that?

[00:59:56] Carrie: Unless 

[00:59:56] Arlo: Well, I don't know what Omega is, so fill us in. What is this thing?

[00:59:59] Carrie: The guys your age who know what Omega is, you wanna stay away from them. The guy's my age too. so it was an online platform that matches strangers for video streaming chats. 

[01:00:13] Arlo: Okay.

[01:00:13] Carrie: it's sort of like a chat roulette where you just log on and then it just randomly matches you with anybody, but you're immediately live streaming with 'em. there's no age restriction. I mean, it would say it was for people 13 and up, but inevitably matches children with adults interested in children. And 

[01:00:33] Arlo: Right. 

[01:00:34] Carrie: was, and so 

[01:00:35] Arlo: I mean, why would anybody let their kid go do this? I let their kid, I mean, I say that, 

[01:00:40] Carrie: it's, 

[01:00:40] Carrie: seriously, that's a different battle. just no way to control our kids on the internet. and this is a website where you don't download a product, it's just a website. there's, you know, you don't have to create an account or have, You know?

[01:00:55] Carrie: pay for it or anything like that. And 

[01:00:57] Arlo: It's kind of intentionally done in a way that just encourages bad behavior by virtue of anonymity.

[01:01:03] Carrie: and it's like fun for kids to do at slumber parties or like they think they're the ones in control and that they're, my client, when she was 11, she'd learned about it, about Omega at a slumber party. And when she got home, she went back on it and then was matched with a predator who got her to tell him name and information.

[01:01:26] Carrie: And then basically became his online slave for three years, like on a daily basis. She had to perform for him and his friends. She had to go back on Omega and recruit more children. It was extremely awful. it, I mean, I'm not 

[01:01:46] Arlo: So, what's the victory here? 'cause now I'm feeling sad again.

[01:01:49] Carrie: There's a victory. So when my client turned 18, she called me. Her mom had tried to hire me like her mom found out about it. The FBI knocked on her door 

[01:02:01] Arlo: Oh wow.

[01:02:01] Carrie: said, there was a raid on this house in Canada, and, there were all these pictures found on this guy's and a lot of them were your daughter. Apparently in a couple of the pictures, she was wearing like a high school sweatshirt that the Canadian police tracked down to this one high school.

[01:02:21] Carrie: And one thing led to another. So the FBI show up at my client's mom's house. and by the way, it wasn't just a house that got raided. It was. The Man's House, which was also a daycare that his wife ran. So, my, the client's mom, the client's, like about 15 or 16 at the time, mom tries to hire me to just like, help them with the investigation.

[01:02:47] Carrie: And the child's like, no, I don't want anything to do with this. I, she was really, really injured. and then when she turned 18, she called me. I'd always kind of kept up with her, just, how are you doing? Or, just like, really gently. And she called me and she's like, I wanna go after Omega. And it was right after, like, I'd lost this big case against Grindr on Section two 30 grounds.

[01:03:12] Carrie: and I was, you know, nervous about having a new big lawsuit that's tackling a. A tech company for a product liability issue. But we sued and we did great and ultimately, we won on the product liability issues. and we were on the eve of taking the deposition of the founder of this company when they offered this, settlement that my client's only interest a settlement where gr, where Omega would shut down forever. And they offered that, and they offered her some money to, to,so it was like, 

[01:03:50] Arlo: That's wonderful.

[01:03:52] Carrie: we negotiated for she's got the right of first refusal. Like she wanted to own omega.com. 

[01:04:00] Arlo: That would've been a cool, that would've been a cool outcome.

[01:04:03] Carrie: have the right of first refusal. That was just like one, the one sticking point. She has to write a first refusal,of the domain.

[01:04:09] Carrie: But the domain now, you go there and it's a tombstone and, and the very end it says, I wanna thank am for opening my eyes to the human toll of Omega. And then there's a link to our client's lawsuit. So 

[01:04:26] Arlo: That's amazing.

[01:04:27] Carrie: in the process of litigation, I, in the process of discovery, I got like 60,000 documents that showed just how ubiquitous child pornography and child sexual exploitation was on that platform. And so we, you know, like getting them to close down forever was, a huge thing because it was just one of the worst actors on the internet. 

[01:04:52] Arlo: So what did that feel like for you? 

[01:04:55] Carrie: it's just probably, just it. Just was great. I can't really, I'm, I still am speechless. This happened in November of 2023 and 

[01:05:05] Carrie: Congratulations. That's a really, that's a really wonderful outcome. And I mean, my goal is not really to shut down internet companies, but that's one that has no redeeming qualities. 

[01:05:14] Arlo: yeah, I mean, we've seen chat roulette, we've seen a lot of these platforms. It feels like every few years somebody goes, oh, it'd be a great idea for random strangers to talk. and then they go and launch it, and then it doesn't go well.

[01:05:25] Carrie: coming after you. Ifif you have that kind of company, 

[01:05:28] Arlo: So what do you, what do your clients, I mean, I know you can't speak for them, but from your experience, do your clients end up feeling a sense of closure and peace after they see a settlement like this? Or does it still remain as a piece of who they are that they're gonna have to carry? I.

[01:05:42] Carrie: it's both, like that's the thing about settlements is it never. Undoes history. any client that comes to me and is like, tells me that their goal is justice. I'm like, I cannot do that. I cannot get you justice. because that is like, but I can get you money.

[01:06:01] Carrie: I can like to, you know, pressure for change. But justice, like the process of litigation is just,

[01:06:10] Arlo: It is not prone to justice.

[01:06:11] Carrie: it's battle and it's too, it's, it's owned trauma. And so it changes a person. and so they have, my clients have to be up for that battle. but it can be really empowering, especially if I'm playing the role of like a weapon that they're using and I'm just, I'm not there to rescue them or there to get justice.

[01:06:34] Carrie: for them.

[01:06:34] Carrie: I'm just their tool and they've selected me to do this thing that I'm uniquely qualified to do. And so if that's, and if they get money at the end of it, or, a platform shut down or a great decision or none of the above and they get terrible case law, but that then can be used to advocate for change, like. it can be really transformative in a positive way, but I think like attorneys, like in my position, we just can't play the role of rescuer because that just makes them, makes somebody who's injured even less empowered. 

[01:07:13] Arlo: Got it. That's really interesting. I know we're running up on time. Are you good for like another five, five to 10 minutes? Okay. I, we didn't discuss this ahead of time, so if you don't want to chat about it, that's fine. But you mentioned section two 30 and that's been a topic that's pretty hot and politics lately.

[01:07:29] Arlo: would you be interested in chatting a little bit about that? 

[01:07:32] Carrie: my 

[01:07:32] Carrie: life. I've never said no 

[01:07:34] Arlo: Okay. we'll jump into it and see what happens. okay. I'm really interested. You mentioned section two 30 as kind of an,on, as an aside earlier, That's been a pretty hot topic in the news these days. do you think that social media companies and platforms should continue to have that kind of unlimited coverage of liability for what happens in their platforms? Has it gone too far? Is there a middle ground? Like what do you think about in general the politics of these platforms?

[01:08:06] Carrie: I think Arlo, that you could call me an extremist on the issue of section two 30. I am staunchly against the idea that these tech companies, I. At this point in time, 30 years after this law was enacted, deserve any sort of immunity from liability at this point. These, companies, this industry, the tech industry, is the most omniscient, omnipotent, wealthy industry in the history of the universe. And for them to basically say that they're outside the reach of the judiciary and that they are not liable for the harms to their users, it's created this terrible situation where they don't feel like they have any responsibility to have safe products. 

[01:08:57] Arlo: Yeah, and we saw, when the new administration came in, I mean we watched all the social media platforms, just gut. there, departments that were responsible for things like overseeing, platform content for,what was it? Meta that pulled all of the, they pulled a lot of contractors and just stopped doing, as much of their review of content.

[01:09:22] Arlo: so it feels like that's not, in some ways it's confusing because the new administration seemed like they were, potentially very much against section two 30. however, now I'm not so sure. Do you think we're gonna see change there?

[01:09:39] Carrie: Well, you know, I've, testified to Congress about it three times because so many of my cases up against section two 30 and I have. A unique, perspective on it from, the victim's side of thing, things. But, you know, it's like, there's two sort of paths for section two 30, like reformists. There's those of us who think these companies, have defective products that they're, that they should be liable for the stuff that they're posting. if it's foreseeably harming people and they're notified about it, or they're notified about a serial rapist on their, online dating platform, they should be liable if that person then goes on and rapes somebody else. but then there's another perspective that is also. A reformist attitude, which says these companies should be liable if they're suppressing speech. and so this tends to be a more, right wing conservative perspective. they often accuse platforms of censoring, MAGA speech and so they think, well, these companies shouldn't be liable if they're censoring.

[01:10:48] Carrie: And I'm like, well, but they're, they also shouldn't be liable if they're keeping up really bad stuff. But we kind of are so far apart that we kind of meet in the middle, or, I mean, meet like at the extremes. 

[01:10:59] Arlo: Yeah. So, you know, you've been doing this for a long time. This has been one of the most interesting conversations I've had in a very long time. I really appreciate you being here. do you have any advice for tech companies? not ignore Meta and Google, right? Like, think about all the small companies out there that are building new companies that will become the big tech in 10, 20 years.

[01:11:24] Arlo: Any tips, any advice, anything that you would tell them they should be doing today?

[01:11:28] Carrie: I mean my big advice is that they should be thinking about how their product is gonna be misused, and then, and they should be thinking about that from that they are envisioning the product, from day one of developing it and their coders and, employees need to be thinking about misuse, and especially foreseeable ones.

[01:11:48] Carrie: And if it's a social media product, then they need to be building into their budget. content moderation and those kinds of unsexy things. are often, they start a product and they're like, well, it'll be a luxury by the time I need content moderators, because that means I'll have enough users to, to require that.

[01:12:08] Carrie: I mean, if I have so many users that they're doing bad things some of the time, then, 

[01:12:13] Arlo: We've already succeeded. That's the sign that you've won. People are doing bad things with your platform.

[01:12:19] Carrie: but you know, I want like venture capitalists and the angel investors to be. Judging the companies that they're putting their money into be thinking about what are the foreseeable misuses of this product and what are the liabilities there?

[01:12:37] Carrie: And they shouldn't just be sitting on their laurels, assuming that there's always gonna be section two 30 because the Supreme Court has issued three opinions saying that they want to do a section two 30 case and have implied that they wanna significantly overhaul it. And then we also have various congress members, especially in the Senate Judiciary Committee that have different ideas about reforming Section two 30.

[01:13:05] Carrie: So like, this is, gravy train is not gonna be lasting forever, for these tech companies. and if they care about their products and they care about their users as they ought to, then they will be thinking about user safety. 

[01:13:21] Arlo: I love that. And, it lines so closely with the things that we think about here. one of the things that's made me really proud of being able to be in data privacy is that it's about trying to help people do the right thing, right? Ultimately. And it sounds like,sounds like you're doing the same thing,in your part of the world.

[01:13:36] Arlo: Thank you for everything you've done. You know, as a father of daughters,I can only tell you like, this has kept me up at night, so it's really appreciated the hard work you've done and the way that you've made change. You know, I guess the last question I have for you before I, before I let you go, is, you know, this is a pretty heavy job.

[01:13:52] Arlo: I'm feeling a little emotional just having been talking to you for a little while here and thinking about some dark subjects that aren't part of my psyche on a daily basis. where do you find peace?

[01:14:04] Carrie: I find peace outside. love to pull weeds. 

[01:14:09] Arlo: That's a good one.

[01:14:11] Carrie: It's crazy. But, just like being out in the yard, could pull weeds for hours and that's just like, there's something so pure about 

[01:14:24] Arlo: You get 'em by the roots, right? 

[01:14:26] Carrie: by the roots 

[01:14:27] Arlo: Oh yeah.

[01:14:27] Carrie: and throwing 'em in a wheelbarrow. I don't know. 

[01:14:31] Arlo: That's wonderful. Well, Carrie, thank you for joining us today. I really appreciate you being here with us. Appreciate your vulnerability and sharing some really, really interesting stories. I hope our audience learns something. you know, please tune in soon. and then of course, if you have not already, please, please go buy Carrie's book.

[01:14:53] Arlo: It's called Nobody's Victim. It is awesome. If you thought that this conversation was fun or interesting or stimulating, maybe it made you think about things you hadn't thought about. Go buy the book. I promise this will be even better.

[01:15:09] Carrie: Thank you Arlo, and thank you Asana for being a great product.

[01:15:13]