- 2 days ago
WIRED's Ej Dickson speaks with law professor and civil rights activist Dr. Mary Anne Franks about the doxing of Cornell's Jane Doe, the ‘Elon Muskification’ of the internet, the terrifying world of the ‘burnerverse’ and Cornell’s troubling history of looking the other way when it comes to the abuse and objectification of women.
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00:00I actually did for many years teach self-defense, and I do think that physical self-defense is a big
00:06part of what women are going to have to, and I wish that this were not true.
00:10I really do think that that's one of the most valuable things that women can learn, is actually how to
00:15defend themselves physically.
00:16From WIRED, this is The Big Interview. I'm senior culture writer E.J. Dixon, sitting in this week for Katie
00:22Drummond.
00:22My guest today, Dr. Mary Ann Franks, is a professor at the George Washington Law School specializing in the intersection
00:28of civil rights, free speech, and technology.
00:31Mary Ann Franks, thank you so much for being here today.
00:34Thanks so much for having me on.
00:35I would say that I first started hearing the term revenge porn in 2011 or 2012.
00:42Obviously, technology and how we talk about it has evolved a ton since then.
00:47So for listeners who aren't as plugged into the work you do, I'm guessing terminology like image-based abuse or
00:54deepfake sexual abuse can seem sterile or maybe just confusing.
01:00Can you walk me through the evolution of these terms?
01:03Like, why is it better to be so formal about how we label them?
01:07You know, one of the hardest things about trying to talk about these issues is figuring out the right names
01:12for them.
01:12So, we think about the term revenge porn, which was used widely by, you know, for lack of a better
01:19word, the perpetrators of this.
01:22It's the kind of term that is very evocative and people mostly know what you mean when you say that.
01:28But the troubling aspect of it was that it did seem to be the name that abusers were giving this
01:33conduct.
01:34Revenge suggests that there's something that was done wrong by the victim.
01:37The term porn was really difficult for a lot of people because they thought of porn as being something consensual
01:43as opposed to non-consensual.
01:45But it is an ongoing struggle because it is really difficult to communicate what we're talking about clearly without falling
01:52into one of these pitfalls of either sounding as though we are blaming victims or sounding as though this is
01:59more trivial than certainly it is in reality.
02:02Right. And the word porn kind of has functioned historically as a shorthand, but that's also kind of unfair to
02:08people who make porn, right?
02:10Like consensual porn.
02:12This is why, you know, we originally landed on the term non-consensual pornography.
02:16That's what we were trying to emphasize was pornography itself, not a moral judgment, but a non-consensual version of
02:24that.
02:24I often think about the best term as being the one that the audience that I'm talking to is most
02:30likely to recognize quickly and understand what we're talking about.
02:33So for the purposes of what we're about to talk about today, what are some good terms to establish here?
02:40I think that, you know, that's why image-based sexual abuse does become a good term.
02:44The way that sometimes at CCRI, the Cyber Soul Rights Initiative, we talk about it is anytime you have a
02:50failure of consent at any level of sexual expression or conduct, that's a problem.
02:54So we're worried about lack of consent to the actual sexual activity.
02:58That's one.
02:59Then there's lack of consent to being recorded engaging in a sexual activity.
03:03Then there's lack of consent to having that recording distributed.
03:07And there is, of course, lack of consent to being manipulated in an image or a video, making it seem
03:13as though you were doing something that you were not.
03:16And so we can think about all of those kinds of abuses happening, sometimes more than one happens at a
03:22time.
03:23Sometimes we're talking about recorded sexual assaults that are distributed.
03:26Sometimes we're talking about consensual encounters that were recorded without consent.
03:31Sometimes we're talking about consensual sexual activity that is recorded with consent but was not distributed with consent.
03:40So just to recap, last month, a former student from Cornell University filed a lawsuit alleging that in 2024, seven
03:48members of a school fraternity raped and assaulted her repeatedly over the course of seven hours inside of their frat
03:54house.
03:54Of course, that story is everywhere right now.
03:57It sparked a national discussion about consent, accountability and safety, and rightfully so.
04:02What I'd really like to focus on here, though, is the chunk of Jane Doe's lawsuit that takes place online.
04:09Basically, she says early that night in 2024, one of the men who raped her also posted an explicit photograph
04:15of her body to his frat Snapchat group, announcing that she was upstairs and available,
04:20which was how other members of his fraternity even knew to enter the room she was inside of.
04:25In the most basic way, what makes the Snapchat component of this story worthy of discussion?
04:31Part of what we all know now about the way the message was conveyed was it was a reduction of
04:35a human being to body parts,
04:37to speaking about a woman as though she were her genitalia, right?
04:42And so I think that's it's not just the image, although that's a big part of it, but it's also
04:47this casual reference to a human being as this thing to be used
04:52and a casual reference to a large group of men who then responded, not by thinking that anything was wrong
04:59about any of this behavior,
05:00but in fact rushing upstairs to see if they could participate in it.
05:04So it isn't just that kind of alleged assault that is happening in real time.
05:09It is also the idea that you can broadcast it with the full confidence that not only will no one
05:15criticize you for it,
05:17but that this will be a further bonding exercise, a further social validation exercise.
05:22That's what's really chilling about it.
05:24And the Snapchat element of it, how does that sort of add to the depersonalization here?
05:31I mean, I think that the Snapchat specific platform, right, is one that began as a way to encourage girls
05:38to send nude photos
05:39with the confidence that they would disappear by this kind of premise that things would disappear
05:43and therefore you wouldn't be worried about them leaking.
05:46I think that same mindset kind of really is why the platform has continued to be successful in this sense.
05:53It's this idea that it's ephemeral somehow, one that almost gamifies what's happening.
05:58What sorts of stories have you heard about bad behavior on college campuses that make you think,
06:05actually, there is a fix for this?
06:06We have been hearing about fraternity sexual assault and not just fraternity sexual assault,
06:11college assault that happens in many spaces, many places, and not just on college campuses.
06:18It is one of the experiences, unfortunately, that is so common for women in particular
06:23that whether they go to college or not, they are very highly likely to experience it all the same.
06:29But we do see higher concentrations of especially these group assaults happening in places that are male-dominated
06:37like fraternities and like athletic teams.
06:40You back up and say, these kinds of experiences really show that when you take several men
06:47who have had all the privileges that one might want in a society and you put them together
06:53and you put them in an environment where the kinds of things they have been told are special about them
06:59may be challenged.
07:01And what I mean by that is college is sometimes the first place where a very privileged male,
07:07especially a privileged white male, might encounter the attitude that he is not particularly special
07:13or smart or interesting and that it's going to create in that person a pretty pronounced sense of cognitive dissonance.
07:21And it's the kind of thing that he is going to want to put out of his mind as quickly
07:26as possible.
07:26And the easiest way to do that is to dehumanize and to instrumentalize the very people that he thinks
07:33might be representative of his lack of specialness.
07:37And so I think that's why you see these male bonding experiences at these highly privileged places
07:42in these highly privileged kind of bastions, right, fraternities and athletic teams,
07:47that part of what they are told is you are entitled to feeling as though you are the person on
07:52top at all times.
07:54Yeah, I think one of the things that has really resonated with people about this case
08:00was that it took place at Cornell, one of the most highly selective institutions in the country,
08:07an Ivy League school, somewhere where you think that something like this quote couldn't happen here.
08:13And I think that that is one of the reasons why this story has lingered for so long
08:19and why it's horrified so many people, just the level of privilege and the level of access to education
08:26that these boys have.
08:28You would think that maybe they would think twice about speaking publicly or speaking to each other in this way.
08:36But education really doesn't insulate anyone from misogynistic behavior at all.
08:42And what's interesting is at Cornell is whatever punishment was given out, essays or suspensions,
08:50maybe it seemed unfair in the moment to the guys that it happened to, but it wasn't really punishment at
08:56all.
08:56So are they even really learning a lesson?
08:59You know, it's hard to know yet, right, with ongoing litigation, what all the details are and what exactly happened.
09:06And we know that there's obviously some kind of there there.
09:09But, you know, what you were saying about, is it surprising that men in the context of these elite sort
09:16of educational institutions
09:17would not think twice?
09:19One of the first viral email incidents that ever happened, you know, early days of the Internet,
09:24back in 1995, was actually an email that escaped containment out of Cornell.
09:29And it was four Cornell undergrads who had written a list titled, I believe,
09:3475 Reasons Why Women Shouldn't Have Free Speech.
09:37And women was followed by a parentheses, bitches.
09:40And this was sent around by these four men on an email list, a really early email list at Cornell
09:46in 1995.
09:47And it went viral.
09:49The 75 Reasons included, I forget which number it was, but one of them was,
09:52if she can't speak, she can't say no.
09:55So, and that wasn't the only one of the 75 reasons.
09:57That was very reflective of that same attitude of very casual sort of sexual violence.
10:02Part of the reaction was, this is shocking behavior.
10:04The other reaction was, boys will be boys.
10:08This was just a joke.
10:09It's satire.
10:10They shouldn't have been punished at all.
10:11And you even had some individuals saying that this is a violation of free speech
10:15and that Cornell was violating the First Amendment somehow by punishing them at all
10:19and expecting them to apologize.
10:21Do you remember any of the other 75 reasons on that list?
10:25A lot of them had to do with the fear of a female president.
10:28A lot of them had to do with saying that women shouldn't be allowed to vote.
10:31There were several others that had to do with, she shouldn't have to speak because if she's
10:37performing oral sex properly, she shouldn't be able to speak anyway.
10:40What are like some of the First Amendment questions here?
10:44You mentioned that there, that people were raising First Amendment questions about, about
10:48that email.
10:49Even if this is free speech, now what?
10:53I think that, you know, the more things change, the more they stay the same.
10:55The First Amendment issue, such that it is, is that private universities are not bound by
11:01the First Amendment.
11:02And that means that if they say, you can't say these things or we're going to punish you
11:06for saying these things, it might not be a good idea.
11:09We might think that there could be other reasons to complain about it.
11:12But it's absolutely false to suggest that it's a First Amendment issue.
11:15That's one.
11:16And then when we're talking about public universities, even when you do have an institution that has
11:22First Amendment obligations, they're not mutually exclusive with your obligations to keep your
11:27students safe or to impose discipline according to necessary conditions of, first of all, anti-harassment
11:35and discrimination principles and for keeping general order on a campus.
11:40So what I think we've really seen is the deliberate warping of the free speech debate that has really
11:46portrayed any attempt to take sexual assault seriously or to treat sexual assault jokes as,
11:52if they are quite serious.
11:54We've seen that as being portrayed as censorship and sensitivity and cancel culture and wokeism
12:01and all of the rest of it.
12:03It also reminds me of the conversation about deepfakes and the conversation from a few years
12:08ago about criminalizing deepfakes.
12:10The argument against that from tech platforms was that they didn't want to censor free speech.
12:15And it just makes me think, why is the autonomy of women and what they want the freedom to
12:22do with their bodies?
12:23Why is that always what's at stake with the free speech issue?
12:27It seems like it's the first thing that's sacrificed when we talk about advocating for
12:31free speech.
12:32Well, it is interesting, right?
12:33When you have a cultural emphasis on, or I would say cultural fetishization of an abstract
12:38notion of free speech, one thing that it does, of course, is it disembodies a conversation,
12:43right?
12:43Somehow safety, physical safety, becomes oppositional to this supreme value of speech.
12:48And that's troubling enough in itself.
12:51But even on the kind of terms of free speech as a debate itself, this really shouldn't have
12:56worked.
12:57Because as has been sort of relentlessly documented over the last few decades, sexual assault has
13:05a tremendous silencing effect on victims.
13:08It affects not just their bodies and their physical safety, although truly that ought to
13:12be enough, but it also means that they can't express themselves freely.
13:16We're literally talking about situations where victims of sexual assault are told that they
13:21can't talk about what happened to them, that they're the ones who are placed under gag orders,
13:25not the person who allegedly assaulted them.
13:27We're talking about them having to fear that they're going to be threatened and harassed
13:31by either the person they have alleged has attacked them or their friends, and so they
13:36withdraw from their classes, or they stop participating in activities, they stop expressing themselves.
13:41Part of what we've tried to say at the Cyber Silver Rights Initiative for over a decade
13:45now is sexual abuse is a free speech issue.
13:48It silences people.
13:50And when we allow sexual abuse to happen with impunity, we are essentially saying we do not
13:54care about women's voices.
13:56We do not care about the number of women who are going to decide that they can't be journalists
14:00anymore or talk about the topics they want to report on because of the abuse and harassment
14:05that they're going to experience, or the number of female politicians who are driven out of
14:09political office because of some ex-partner who's decided that he's going to take a private
14:15moment and send it to everyone.
14:17We're saying that we don't care about their bodies or their speech, and that really should
14:22be a free speech crisis that we're talking about.
14:24In that vein, something I've really noticed in the last few weeks is this thirst coming
14:29from dudes online to learn and reveal Jane Doe's identity.
14:34What was it like for you watching this unfold in real time?
14:39What was the precedent for it?
14:41Like, in terms of the other high-profile cases you've looked at where Jane Doe's have been
14:46doxed, and what about this case and this particular instance of mass doxing stood out to you as
14:52different?
14:53Well, in some ways, it was haunting because of how similar it was that we've seen cycles
14:59of this, and not just ones that I've witnessed myself, but ones that have preceded my own
15:05experiences.
15:05But when I think about how in 2011 or so, when revenge porn becomes a term that people
15:11talk about, the woman who founded my organization, who was herself a victim of revenge porn, what
15:18it was like for her going public and actually putting her face to the story, and the number
15:24of people who tried to destroy her life because of that, we've just seen it get so much worse.
15:29And where there might have been some concern to keep things within certain contexts, right?
15:34Maybe there was some concern about this breaking containment and becoming a mainstream issue
15:39as opposed to an online issue.
15:41That no longer seems to be a bar to anyone now.
15:44That once it becomes the bloodsport of, this is a person whose story has ended up online,
15:51the ability to just jump in or the desire to just jump in and become part of it, there
15:56doesn't seem to be any sort of countervailing force to say, maybe you shouldn't do that.
15:59We really seem to have removed whatever safeguards or disincentives there might have been.
16:04Once they all seem to be gone now, and it seems to be the opposite.
16:08You will get validated.
16:09You will get attention.
16:11You will be maybe even just lauded for the fact that you, under your own name, are in
16:16fact providing this kind of entertainment, this kind of this this online mob attack on
16:22someone.
16:22And I think that is a little different.
16:24Yeah, there's a kind of guy online who is so wrapped up in like the slippery slope argument
16:30around free speech that if we don't protect it at all costs, something much bigger is
16:36at stake, even though the other side of what they're advocating for is exactly what we're
16:42talking about.
16:43What are these guys missing?
16:44It's hard to know where to start with.
16:46I'm not going to answer that question, but they're missing a lot of things.
16:49But the free speech argument really has gained this kind of talismanic power, I would say,
16:55in the last 20 years.
16:57And it is kind of the Elon Muskification, right, of the free speech argument.
17:01Because once you had someone like Elon Musk saying, I'm going to bring free speech back
17:05to Twitter, I'm going to be the anti-censor, and you see someone with that kind of power
17:09and influence do exactly what everyone who has ever made that claim about how I really
17:15care about free speech do, which is to immediately ban his critics, to immediately shut down any
17:21accounts that were actually making him look bad, and to elevate things like people who were
17:25posting actual CSAM, right, actual child sexual abuse material, and just decide that those
17:31people should have a voice, that was really, I think, what gave a lot of people permission,
17:36right, to do exactly that, to say whatever terrible self-interested thing I want to do
17:41that might be criticized as misogynist or racist, I'll just dress that up and I'm arguing for
17:47free speech and I will just get away with it every time.
17:50I'll be heralded as the worse I am, the more I'll be praised.
17:53And that was true before Musk, but I really do think that there was something about him in
17:57particular that just activated that for a lot of people.
18:00And now you really can, in so many ways, you can't convince men who are saying the same
18:06things that men have been saying forever, right, about gender or about race or about
18:12wealth or whatever it is, you cannot convince them that they're not free speech heroes,
18:16that they're not just exactly what they seem like, mediocrities who seem really upset that
18:21the world no longer takes their mediocrity as a sign of genius.
18:24You can't really convince them.
18:26They really think that there is something very special about them and that they have really,
18:29they have, they have, they are the geniuses that people will ignore.
18:33So I think that's, that's a big, that's a big part of this.
18:36One of the things that I was really struck by in watching everybody so gleefully dox Jane
18:41Doe, I didn't see any of these tweets doxing the woman that they thought to be Jane Doe get
18:47taken down or even have notes appended to most of them despite this policy.
18:53Why?
18:53I mean, I think for the same reason that Trump administration does not mean when they say
18:58we're going to return free speech, you know, we're going to really fight for the First
19:01Amendment, the same reason that that administration will then just quite literally lock up all
19:06their enemies and silence assent and shoot peaceful protesters in the street.
19:10Because what the loudest defenders of free speech usually really mean is they are going to put
19:16in place a system where everything they approve of will have all the freedom possible to be
19:21expressed.
19:22And anything that they don't approve of, they will mercilessly repress.
19:25And that is, it isn't even, it goes beyond hypocrisy.
19:29It really is just the absolute conviction that you, the special boy, right?
19:34You really know what, what is true and what is meaningful and what is nonsense.
19:38And therefore, when you make the decision that this should be elevated or you need to
19:42tweak your own algorithm so that your posts get more, get more attention, that you have
19:48to resort to that, right?
19:49That that somehow is freedom of speech.
19:51But any enforcing guidelines against anybody else that you don't like or that you, anybody
19:58who's being attacked and that you agree with the attack on them, that you can just let
20:02that happen is because that's what, this is the universalization kind of problem, that
20:07the conviction that you alone can see what is truly free speech and what is not.
20:13And that is what is so frightening about those people actually getting control.
20:16Because for a while, that wasn't necessarily the case, right?
20:20When you have someone like Musk have this kind of megaphone and that kind of platform,
20:25it really does send a signal to the entire world.
20:27This is someone who quite candidly will say, you know, he got Donald Trump elected.
20:32He's got all the power in the world.
20:35And so when he recreates what free speech is, and it satisfies a certain longing that many
20:41people have had for such a long time to be able to be as misogynist and racist as possible
20:46and not have to be called out on it because they want to be able to defend themselves by
20:51saying, no, no, no, you have to understand what I'm doing here is really something very
20:54radical, very free speech oriented.
20:56And it is an old, old story.
20:58I mean, both of my first, both of the books that I've written, The Cult of the Constitution
21:02and Fearless Speech have documented how this has always been true about the way that people
21:07interpret free speech and the First Amendment.
21:09We tell ourselves as Americans that we love free speech and we've always upheld it and we've
21:14always allowed for dissent to flourish.
21:16And you actually look at our history and you look at how much every time truly radical ideas
21:22were expressed and those radical ideas in America are the radical ideas of racial and
21:26gender equality.
21:27Every time those ideas have been expressed, we have locked people up.
21:31We have put lynch mobs on them.
21:33We have tortured them.
21:35We have suppressed them.
21:36That's our history.
21:37But we keep, we in this kind of elitist American sense, keep telling ourselves that we are actually
21:42defending something.
21:43Ruby Kramer put out a story with The New Yorker this week about Jane Doe's doxing.
21:47And something she covers are men who, for one reason or another, got caught up in the
21:52crossfire, who were doxed to after being erroneously, who were doxed to after being erroneously
21:58associated with the men being sued.
22:00And you see this with these stories all the time.
22:03Like people in the wrong place at the wrong time who haven't actually done harm or people
22:09who happen to have the same first and last name as the accused and therefore get mistaken
22:13for them.
22:14I saw that happen like three times on X a couple weeks ago.
22:18My question is, what do we owe those individuals?
22:22Like, obviously, we don't want to see innocent people getting punished for stuff they didn't
22:27do.
22:27But sometimes avoiding that comes at the expense of actual victims, right?
22:32So how do we make room for both?
22:34I mean, it's genuinely a troubling question, right?
22:37And one answer is that, you know, the mob mentality that social media platforms have made possible
22:45is so destructive for exactly this reason.
22:48That in the theme, right, or in the kind of tune of saying we are trying to protect all
22:55freedom of speech.
22:56And so everybody can say what they want.
22:58They can name her if they want.
22:59It doesn't matter.
22:59We have seen what that does to our environment, right?
23:03What it does to our information environment.
23:05It's not just that you get a lot of misinformation and you get falsity, which you do, but you also
23:10get this fury and you get this immediacy and this unwillingness to slow down and fact check.
23:15And you get this weird confidence that people online suddenly develop that they are, again,
23:21uniquely clued into what's happening.
23:22And they have the conviction that, oh, I now know who this is.
23:26So how do we undo all of that?
23:27I mean, I think the answers aren't going to please people, but I don't think that social
23:32media platforms as they operate now are ever going to mean that we can have a safe expression
23:38of accusations like this.
23:41Because if the mob is going to come after people without any regard for whether this is
23:45accurate information or whether this is a proportional response, no one is going to want to speak
23:50out and no one is going to, I think anyone ethical is going to worry that even if you do
23:55have good
23:56information and you do have the right names, that you wouldn't want this to become a mob phenomenon
24:01because something terrible is going to happen.
24:03If you want people to be held accountable, but I don't think we should ever be enthusiastic about
24:08a mob coming to someone's house or people getting swatted or people's family members getting harassed
24:14and intimidated.
24:15And it just seems like there's no way to calibrate that, that the kind of bloodlust that is just
24:20sort of the currency of the social media platforms, it's incompatible with releasing
24:25information like this.
24:27So I think at this point, there really isn't any safe way to release people's names or their
24:31information about these issues without this being the kind of inevitable result.
24:35Last month, I published an investigation into the Burniverse, which has been very, very active
24:40in the doxing of Jane Doe.
24:42And essentially, the Burniverse is a community of college sports fan accounts, many of whom are
24:47frat kids, who have made something of a recreational sport out of doxing young women.
24:52And my story focused on a 20-year-old girl named Maddie Kowalski, who had a non-consensual
24:57intimate video of herself having sex circulated at UF, where she went to school.
25:01And the video likely would have just been circulated among kids at campus, if not for these anonymous
25:06Burner accounts, amplifying it by posting it on X and including her full name and her sorority.
25:12It ruined her life.
25:13She was nonstop harassed by a text and phone calls and social media posts.
25:17And in the end, she briefly dropped out of college.
25:21So Snapchat in the Cornell case and the Burniverse in Maddie's story, how, if at all, are these
25:29two things in conversation with each other?
25:31Well, I do think in both situations, you've got an amplifier effect by an app, right?
25:37There's the underlying conditions that we've always seen prior to the technology that we
25:41know of right now.
25:42We've always seen these tendencies of, again, that kind of homosocial bonding, that kind
25:47of performativity of masculinity for men for other men.
25:52And that's that kind of impulse to treat women always as lower on the hierarchy as men are,
25:58and usually in a sexual way, because that is the way that these things get expressed.
26:03And particularly in fraternities or in athletic teams, it's a kind of hazing process originally,
26:08right?
26:08You make certain men, you treat them like women, and you teach them how to be abused, right?
26:15And then you give them the power to abuse others, and you make it into essentially a bonding
26:20exercise.
26:21And then what does technology do for that?
26:23Well, then it adds a kind of performativity and a kind of a spectacle aspect of it that is
26:29somewhat new.
26:30So as opposed to maybe being a somewhat fleeting, but also still potentially terrible event,
26:35it's now something you can record.
26:37It is now something you can present to others.
26:39It is now something you can get an even larger audience for.
26:44Now you can turn the entire internet basically into your online frat.
26:48And that, I think, is the really terrifying thing about the story that you highlighted, the
26:52fact that this isn't something that was ever easy for a victim to deal with, right?
26:56If it's your whole social circle, like all of your friends, everyone on your campus, your
27:00entire town, that was devastating enough.
27:03Now it's the entire world, right?
27:05That now it's the sense of absolute captivity to the online world that has no boundaries whatsoever,
27:12and never, where nothing ever gets forgotten either.
27:15And that's something that is incredibly, it is just terrifying, not only because we can see
27:21the results of it and what happens to the people caught up in it.
27:24But it's what's being done to all the participants and what is happening to their sense of humanity
27:29or empathy or whatever they might have had, that it's all being trained away to become
27:35these kinds of participants in this horrible online spectacle.
27:40So there is something, and we've always, we've known for a long time, that that kind of mediation
27:45of the screen, of the app, right?
27:46Does this, this, this has this corrosive effect on our ability to sympathize, empathize, to
27:53see the humanity in someone else.
27:55But you combine that with an already toxic environment of male bonding and this attempt
27:59to retain some kind of meaning in a world where increasingly men's mediocrity is being,
28:05is something they can no longer, they can no longer ignore in every other way.
28:10This is the, this is where they go.
28:12This is what they choose.
28:13They're going to make an example out of these women so that they can feel better collectively
28:17about the status of people like them.
28:21So I think that that's what's bonding a lot of these men.
28:24I think that's why they use social media.
28:25I think social media is driving a lot of it because it is performative.
28:29The more you can perform how much you are humiliating or degrading a woman, the more of a man you
28:35are.
28:35Social media is so often lauded for tearing down the walls between states and countries
28:40and continents and improving connectivity.
28:42But it's also removing our boundaries and increasing our sense of shamelessness and making
28:51us think about ourselves constantly, ourselves as brands, our own self-interest.
28:57I guess what I'm wondering is, like, as somebody who has sort of witnessed the evolution of social
29:03media and the de-evolution, the accompanying de-evolution of how people are treating it,
29:08like, do you feel like people have just gotten worse as a whole?
29:13Like, I kind of, as somebody who covers internet culture, I just think that every single day.
29:18Yes.
29:19Although I've also always been very much a, I've always been someone who's been more worried
29:25about what technology was going to do for us than I'm excited by what it was going to do.
29:29I wrote my first apprehensive paper about cyberspace in 1999 because I was, I was a college student
29:35and I was freaked out by what I thought was going to happen when the internet became, was
29:41on the way to becoming what it was, which was that things were going to get so much worse
29:45for vulnerable people in particular, that everybody was going to become monstrous.
29:49That was my fear in 99.
29:50And I, I used to joke about how, you know, how pessimistic I was, but now I think, well,
29:55no, I think I was, it was probably largely right.
29:59And it doesn't affect everybody the same way, right?
30:01I mean, it's, it's worse for some people than for others, but it's bad for all of us.
30:05So we can talk about it as we don't deserve sort of social media, but, but also that maybe
30:11social media is just, it's a punishment, right?
30:13But this is what happens when you don't care about boundaries.
30:17This is what happens when you don't care about context.
30:20This is what happens when you don't want and don't believe that you need to be responsible
30:27for your own communications.
30:28And that if people are ignoring you or that you're not having the connections that you
30:33want, that you should work on yourself and you should try to figure out how to have more
30:37meaningful connections to others.
30:38Instead, you've got this cheap, easy social media platform to tell you, no, I do deserve
30:43attention.
30:44And anybody who denies it to me is wrong.
30:46And it just becomes this kind of expectation that no, people must pay attention to me, not
30:51because I have anything interesting or valuable to contribute, but because I, I deserve it.
30:55That's a really terrible thing to do to humanity.
30:58I think, I think the idea that we don't have to work for our human connections is a terrible,
31:03terrible idea.
31:04So the more that we are told that we are the, the stars of our own story, the more that
31:09we
31:09are told that attention is something we can game out, the worse everything is going to
31:13get for everyone, but particularly for people who are already vulnerable.
31:17I think we talk a lot about how terrible everything is and how the worst people are in
31:23charge of our platforms.
31:25And I think what a lot of people want in these moments is real actionable advice.
31:31Like, yes, acknowledging everything is terrible.
31:33But what would you tell young women in or starting college about best tech practices
31:38right now?
31:38Like in terms of their own reputational and physical safety?
31:42I mean, I would have that conversation.
31:45But I guess what I would say first is I think about how, I can't remember how many years
31:50ago it was, but I had a friend, a former, a former peer of mine who worked for a college
32:00at my, in my home state, which is Arkansas.
32:03And at some point, because of the work that I had done, he reconnected and said, you know,
32:06we've had this, this kind of spate of sexual assaults by the football team at this university
32:12in Arkansas.
32:13And we really thought it'd be great if you would come and have a conversation with the
32:17student body, because we're really, you know, this is really alarming that this is happening.
32:22And I was, I was really excited to do it.
32:24And so we were making some of the plans.
32:26And he said, so you're going to have, you know, like an hour with, with the girls.
32:29And I said, I'm sorry, who am I talking to?
32:32And he said, well, you know, we're going to have all the female students who, who would
32:35like to come, you know, they're having a big enough classroom for them.
32:38And I said, I'm sorry, I think I should be speaking to the football team, right?
32:42Because if you're telling me that you've got a spate of sexual assaults, I don't know
32:45that it's the women I need to be speaking to so much as the men.
32:48And so we went back and forth on this for a while.
32:51And eventually he said, okay, that's probably true.
32:53So, and I said, I'm happy to do both.
32:55But I really do think that the conversation needs to be with the men.
32:58So we got a conversation with the men first, and the women came if they wanted to.
33:02But I said, they're the ones we need to be talking to.
33:05So I think I'd partly say that one answer to your question is we need to be talking to
33:08men, and we need to be holding men accountable.
33:10And I know you know that.
33:11And I know that that's something that all women know.
33:13But then you also want to be realistic about, well, how can women keep themselves safe?
33:19Because no matter how many times you talk to men, does it mean that they're going to
33:23stop hurting women?
33:25Probably not.
33:25So what can you do to protect yourself?
33:28And this is going to maybe sound like not a very practical solution, but I hope that it
33:34is.
33:35I actually did for many years teach self-defense.
33:38And I do think that physical self-defense is a big part of what women are going to have
33:43to, and I wish that this were not true.
33:46I really do think that that's one of the most valuable things that women can learn, is actually
33:50how to defend themselves physically.
33:52Not just because of the physical aspect of it, but because of the other things that are
33:56taught in good self-defense programs, which is reinforcing for women that no is a complete
34:02sentence.
34:03People who are trying to push their boundaries early on are going to do much worse things
34:07later.
34:07Here are the red flags.
34:09Here are the kinds of things to avoid.
34:10Here's how you can engage in solidarity with people who are also vulnerable.
34:15So I think that's a big part of the conversation is try to change men's behavior because they
34:20have to be held accountable, but also try to make sure that should it not go that way,
34:25that you will be prepared to be able to physically defend yourself and maybe help others.
34:29To that end, what advice would you give young men starting college about best practices?
34:34What are some of the traps, particularly in the tech space, that you see young men getting
34:38caught up in and what can they do to basically avoid them or be better?
34:42Well, here I would start with something that I think probably is advice that I would give
34:46to men and women both, which is be much more intentional about why you are engaging with
34:51technology and social media in particular.
34:53I used to teach a class called law policy and technology, and I would start it out by saying,
34:59when the last time you were on your phone or doing something on a social media site, do
35:04you remember why you were on it?
35:07Or were you drifting through?
35:08Was it something that you were doing kind of thoughtlessly or was, were you trying to
35:12have a, were you trying to reach a certain goal with it?
35:15And part of what I wanted them to think about was, you know, I, I can use social media, but
35:20I don't want it to be using me at the same time.
35:23So be intentional about why you're on it, what you're getting out of it.
35:26Ask yourself after you've engaged on social media, do you feel better or worse?
35:30Have you learned something?
35:31Do you feel stupider?
35:32Are you angry?
35:33Right.
35:34Just to ask yourself, what am I actually getting out of this experience?
35:37Because what I found is that people becoming much more conscious about their social media
35:41practices, they already know a lot of things that probably sound obvious, but maybe they
35:47haven't confronted, which is social media might be making us angrier and dumber and wasting
35:53our time because what are the other things we could actually be doing with our time intentionally?
35:57So a big part of it, totally neutral, is try to think intentionally about why you're
36:02using social media and then think about all the things that could go wrong and why.
36:07And also think about how if it's not something that you would do, right, in front of somebody,
36:12why would you do it online, which sounds obvious too, but sometimes escapes us because there
36:16is a gamification and dehumanization factor to being online.
36:20And I think that that's what I would suggest, that there are patterns here that everybody
36:25should know about.
36:26And they're probably not patterns that you want to embrace.
36:28So try not to embrace them and really have answers for why it is that you're making decisions
36:33every day, including the ones that you're making online.
36:36What does that actually look like, though, in terms of being intentional about the way
36:39you use social media?
36:40Does it mean deleting certain apps?
36:43Does it mean engaging less?
36:45Well, specifically when we would have conversations, and we do have a lot of conversations about image
36:49based sexual abuse, right?
36:50It's a question about, one, for everyone, because we've actually seen a lot more victimization
36:57of young men when it comes to sextortion schemes.
37:00There's this kind of epidemic that's happening that's really targeting young men, I mean, like
37:05young teenagers.
37:07And what breaks my heart about it, and what breaks my heart about a lot of these things
37:10is how many of these interactions begin because boys, girls, everyone are so lonely.
37:16Because they are being told, oh, you're very attractive, or I'd like to get to know you better,
37:21or I find you really sexy, send me a photo, show me this.
37:25How much of it begins in this really heartbreaking desire for connection, right, that obviously
37:30people are so eager for.
37:32And then it turns into something really dark really fast.
37:35So I would think about, you know, what that, you know, again, what does it, what is the
37:40interaction that you're trying to have here?
37:42Do you want to put pieces of yourself out into the world because you want connection, or
37:48is it because of something, is it something that you are grasping for that you're not going
37:53to get out of the social media connection?
37:55And a big part of it is just telling them all the horror stories of what can happen to
37:58you, right, without trying to blame people for what happens to them, just telling them
38:01these are the kinds of things that can happen.
38:03So I think think really carefully about what you want to reveal of yourself to others.
38:07Think of yourself as something precious, right, that does not need to be parceled out to other
38:13people because you are enough in yourself.
38:16You don't need to be chasing after someone else's validation, hopefully, that you probably
38:22have skills, and you probably have hobbies, and you probably have interests, and you probably
38:25have important actual connections around you that you could be spending time on.
38:30So a lot of this is do less of it because there are probably more valuable things with your
38:34time, but also be aware of the things that can go so badly so quickly and how those things
38:41are almost always going to begin in a place of vulnerability, either yours or someone else's.
38:46And try to not look at vulnerability as something to exploit.
38:49Look at it as something to guide or to support or, if nothing else, to not make worse when
38:56you see it in someone else.
38:57I understand that the work you do can be incredibly stressful.
39:01I know I'm stressed out every single day looking at my feed.
39:05What I want to know is what gives you hope?
39:08What do you see changing right now in real time?
39:10It is sometimes hard to find hope, but looking at the Cornell Daily Sun editorial, when I saw
39:17that headline, Cornell Won't We Will, when I saw that these were students who had kind of stuck
39:24with the story, that really wanted to tell the story, and they knew that it was a risk, right?
39:29That they knew that there were going to be all kinds of legal and other implications of bringing
39:32the story out.
39:33I just thought, I don't know why these are not the free speech hero stories that we're telling,
39:37because to me, that's a free speech hero story.
39:39That is such a dedicated, brave kind of thing to do, and that really does make me,
39:47it does give me some hope.
39:49It does actually give me hope that people continue, despite all of the terrible things
39:54that might be awaiting them for doing so, people do continue to speak out because they know
39:59something to be true or because they're trying to highlight something that is important.
40:03And so journalism is one of those things that really does speak to me still.
40:07When there are stories like yours, when there are stories like the Cornell Daily Suns,
40:11I think, okay, there are still people who are going to talk about this, no matter how
40:15much negative consequences are going to come from that.
40:19And I think that that's important.
40:20And as long as people are still willing to do that, then there's still something worth
40:23fighting for.
40:24Here's hoping.
40:25Thank you so much for being here today, Marianne, and for taking the time to talk about this.
40:31I really appreciate it.
40:32Thank you so much, EJ, for having me on.