Cyber Civil Rights, by Danielle Keats Citron

Gathered together in one place, for easy access, an agglomeration of writings and images relevant to the Rapeutation phenomenon.

Re: Cyber Civil Rights, by Danielle Keats Citron

Postby admin » Fri Sep 27, 2013 6:47 am

Cyber Civil Rights, by Danielle Keats Citron wrote:The Internet may also disaggregate communications into components that operate as actions. For example, some online rape threats engender serious fear that they will be carried out offline because they arrive without cues – such as the identity or location of the person who made the threat or a joking tone of voice – that might diminish the nature of the threat.280 The person’s refusal to leave cues that would mitigate the victim’s fear arguably demonstrates that person’s intent to terrorize the victim. This can convert expression into criminal conduct. In short, because everything that happens on the Internet ultimately takes the form of 1s and 0s does not mean that it is all the expression of ideas.
admin
Site Admin
 
Posts: 36126
Joined: Thu Aug 01, 2013 5:21 am

Re: Cyber Civil Rights, by Danielle Keats Citron

Postby admin » Fri Sep 27, 2013 6:48 am

Cyber Civil Rights, by Danielle Keats Citron wrote:Online mobs do indeed engage in gossip. Sites such as JuicyCampus promote themselves as gossip facilitators. But the attacks perpetrated by online mobs have little to do with building bonds among disparate communities. Rape threats, lies, damaging photographs, and denial-of-service attacks not only preclude any connection with differently-minded group members, but they also sever the victim’s connections with her own community. The attacks inflict serious social harm rather than generating ideas in popular culture or enforcing positive social norms. Defeating such discrimination outweighs the imperceptible contribution that online mobs make to our cultural interaction and exchange.
admin
Site Admin
 
Posts: 36126
Joined: Thu Aug 01, 2013 5:21 am

Re: Cyber Civil Rights, by Danielle Keats Citron

Postby admin » Fri Sep 27, 2013 6:50 am

Cyber Civil Rights, by Danielle Keats Citron wrote:If we believe the Internet is, and should remain, a wild west with incivility and brutality as the norm, then those who are impervious to such conduct will remain online while the vulnerable may not. To that end, we may get more bull-headed posters and fewer thoughtful ones. An online discourse which systematically under-represents people – particularly women and people of color – cannot effectively process our various attitudes and convert them into truly democratic decisions.
admin
Site Admin
 
Posts: 36126
Joined: Thu Aug 01, 2013 5:21 am

Re: Cyber Civil Rights, by Danielle Keats Citron

Postby admin » Fri Sep 27, 2013 6:50 am

Cyber Civil Rights, by Danielle Keats Citron wrote:Threats fall outside the First Amendment’s protection if speakers mean to communicate a serious intention to commit an act of unlawful violence against particular individuals.318 The speaker need not actually intend to commit a violent act because the prohibition of “true threats” protects individuals from the fear of violence and the disruption that such fear engenders.319 Once a statement meets the “true threat” standard, it no longer qualifies as protected speech because it “is so intertwined with violent action that it has essentially become conduct.”320
admin
Site Admin
 
Posts: 36126
Joined: Thu Aug 01, 2013 5:21 am

Re: Cyber Civil Rights, by Danielle Keats Citron

Postby admin » Fri Sep 27, 2013 6:51 am

Cyber Civil Rights, by Danielle Keats Citron wrote:Similarly, First Amendment doctrine offers little protection to defamatory statements because they offer “such slight social value as a step to truth that any benefit that may be derived from them is clearly outweighed by the social interest in order and morality.”325 Statements do, however, enjoy immunity from defamation liability if they do not assert or imply verifiable facts.326
admin
Site Admin
 
Posts: 36126
Joined: Thu Aug 01, 2013 5:21 am

Re: Cyber Civil Rights, by Danielle Keats Citron

Postby admin » Fri Sep 27, 2013 6:53 am

Cyber Civil Rights, by Danielle Keats Citron wrote:Nonetheless, anonymous message-board postings are not immune from defamation liability simply because they are too outrageous to be believed.329 A California court explained:

Even if the exchange that takes place on these message boards is typically freewheeling and irreverent, we do not agree that it is exempt from established legal and social norms. . . . We would be doing a great disservice to the Internet audience if we were to conclude that all speech on Internet bulletin boards was so suspect that it could not be defamatory as a matter of law.330
admin
Site Admin
 
Posts: 36126
Joined: Thu Aug 01, 2013 5:21 am

Re: Cyber Civil Rights, by Danielle Keats Citron

Postby admin » Fri Sep 27, 2013 6:55 am

Cyber Civil Rights, by Danielle Keats Citron wrote:Few of the targets of online mobs are likely to be “public figures” even for special purposes: their influence is simply too minimal to suggest they “have assumed roles of especial prominence in the affairs of society.”336 A person whose published writings reach a relatively small category of people in a particular field is not a public figure.337 Nor do the public controversies that surround attacks, and victims’ attempts to defend themselves, render them public figures: “[T]hose charged with defamation cannot, by their own conduct, create their own defense by making the claimant a public figure.”338
admin
Site Admin
 
Posts: 36126
Joined: Thu Aug 01, 2013 5:21 am

Re: Cyber Civil Rights, by Danielle Keats Citron

Postby admin » Fri Sep 27, 2013 6:57 am

Cyber Civil Rights, by Danielle Keats Citron wrote:Attempting to prevent anyone from making a living is offensive. By contrast, attempting to prevent someone from making a living because of her race is a civil rights violation. Federal and state antidiscrimination laws focus on the perpetrator’s discriminatory intent in targeting the victim and the special harm that results, not on any views that either the perpetrator or victim might have, and thus the laws’ application here would not offend the First Amendment. As such, their application to online mobs poses no First Amendment problems under current doctrine.
admin
Site Admin
 
Posts: 36126
Joined: Thu Aug 01, 2013 5:21 am

Re: Cyber Civil Rights, by Danielle Keats Citron

Postby admin » Fri Sep 27, 2013 7:11 am

Cyber Civil Rights, by Danielle Keats Citron wrote:Some website operators function as crowd leaders, influencing the mobs’ destructiveness.389 Deterring websites devoted to abusive attacks on individuals plays a crucial role in inhibiting a destructive mob’s coordination and efficacy. Thus, holding accountable the operators of websites which facilitate anonymous attacks may hold the key to protecting the civil rights of the women, people of color, and others set upon by online mobs.


Kenneth Paul White, Popehat.com, Just How Demeaning Is It To Be A Lawyer? Just Ask The One Working For Meghan McCain wrote:What can you do?

1. Do your part to publicize instances of censorship on social media, blogs, and forums. That raises awareness of censorship and encourages public support of anti-censorship legal reforms. Better yet, through the Streisand Effect, it deters censorious thuggery like this: if lawyers know that their threats might result in several orders of magnitude more attention to parody or criticism of their clients, they may have second thoughts about legal threats.

2. Do your part to call out censors by name for what they are. There is no reason that Albin Gess should not be reviled in public for such a censorious threat. Censors — particularly lawyers who use frivolous legal threats to censor — are worthy of contempt. If more people call them out, they will realize there is a cost for such conduct. It will, and should, also cost their self-respect and peace of mind. Gess probably sleeps by telling himself, "hey, I'm not a censor, it's my client. I'm not like the child molester; I'm only like the guy who sells the child molester a panel van and an array of colorful and delicious candies." Society ought to encourage him to revisit his thinking. Vigorous advocacy of unpopular clients is to be admired, but frivolous and thuggish censorious threats are not. Write about censors, but do not harass them — we are the good guys, and they are the bad guys.

3. Educate yourself about anti-SLAPP statutes, find out if your jurisdiction has a good one, write your legislators supporting anti-SLAPP legislation, and agitate for it. Support some appropriate version of the federal anti-SLAPP statute.

4. If you are able, donate to legal defense funds. If you are able — I'm talking to you, lawbloggers — offer pro bono services. I disagree with a lot of what gets published on Red State, and the folks there probably disagree with a lot of what we write here. But I would have been happy to step up and defend them — and in California, under our strong anti-SLAPP statute, I wouldn't have had to do so for free, because after I stomped on the roaches the court would have awarded my fees. I love getting my fees for curb-stomping a censor.
admin
Site Admin
 
Posts: 36126
Joined: Thu Aug 01, 2013 5:21 am

Re: Cyber Civil Rights, by Danielle Keats Citron

Postby admin » Fri Sep 27, 2013 7:13 am

Cyber Civil Rights, by Danielle Keats Citron wrote:Second, some fear over-deterrence: the concern that website operators would automatically remove posts that may stir complaints and hence chill speech, even if the complaints are frivolous.398 This concern is real and merits consideration in crafting the substantive expectations for website operators. Speculation about possible over-deterrence of speech, however, is not a legitimate basis for immunizing a broad class of destructive behavior that itself chills important speech. Any time the law acts to deter destructive behavior, over-deterrence is possible. Even a well-balanced policy may over-deter on some occasions and under-deter on others. The acceptability of those respective errors depends on the values we attach to the problematic conduct and to the potential harm. Eliminating all deterrence based on an unsubstantiated fear that some beneficial conduct might be over-deterred completely devalues the injuries of the women, people of color, and other vulnerable individuals targeted by online mobs. Any over-deterrence – or continued under-deterrence – can be assessed and offset by adjusting the standard of liability, as the Supreme Court did in New York Times Co. v. Sullivan.399 Other nations, such as Great Britain and Ireland, do not immunize operators for website content produced by third parties and yet still generate vibrant online discourse.400
admin
Site Admin
 
Posts: 36126
Joined: Thu Aug 01, 2013 5:21 am

PreviousNext

Return to A Growing Corpus of Analytical Materials

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 21 guests