Nobody's Victim: Fighting Harassment Online and Off

"Carrie Goldberg is a warrior who was herself a victim of sexual violence. The stories she recounts of dates that turned violent in her own life are horrific. After one first date, she woke up with a swastika stitched into her bottom. Support Five Books Five Books interviews are expensive to produce. If you're enjoying this interview, please support us by donating a small amount . The book is about helping people deal with abusive partners, especially those who are victimized through digital means. It also calls out the technology platforms that proliferate violent and vitriolic content with total impunity. These tech companies are shielded from responsibility by Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which absolves social media platforms of responsibility for the content they disseminate. It’s either naive or nefarious that social media platforms, especially Facebook and Twitter, act as if they’re innocent. It is cognitive science 101 that the mind is malleable and repetitive messaging can twist minds. These social media platforms bear some responsibility for brainwashing. I think that there needs to be a class action lawsuit against them. There is a need for better education and public awareness about different forms of violence. This is something that Roxane Gay talks about in Not That Bad . She discounted what she experienced at ‘not that bad’ because others deal with more. I discounted my situation because I thought: what I’m experiencing is nowhere near as bad as what my mother experienced. She got black eyes while I just had a stinging cheek. I believe that the punishments should fit the harm. But there are not enough repercussions for the forms of intimate partner violence that don’t involve bodily bruises."