Yaël Eisenstat & Carrie Goldberg
Digital Life Initiative | C.A. Goldberg, PLLC
"With Great Power Comes... No Responsibility?"
Abstract
Who bears responsibility for the real-world consequences of technology? This question has been unduly complicated for decades by the 1996 legislation that provides immunity from liability to platforms that host third-party content: Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. In this seminar, Yaël will discuss the current state of play in the debates around who should govern online speech and other questions of how and if government should regulate "big tech". She will be joined by Carrie Goldberg, an attorney who represents victims of online crimes, to discuss how Section 230 immunity has complicated her ability to seek justice for her clients, including in the case Matthew Herrick v Grindr LLC.
About
Yaël Eisenstat is a thought leader and strategist working with governments, tech companies, and investors focused on the intersection of ethics, tech, democracy, and policy. She has spent 20 years working around the globe as a CIA officer, a national security advisor to Vice President Biden, the Global Head of Elections Integrity Operations in Facebook's business integrity org, a diplomat, a corporate social responsibility strategist at ExxonMobil, and the head of a global risk firm. Currently, she is a Visiting Fellow at Cornell Tech's Digital Life Initiative, where she explores technology's effects on civil discourse and democracy and teaches a multi-university course on Tech, Media and Democracy.
Carrie Goldberg is founder of Victims’ Rights law firm, C. A. Goldberg, PLLC. The Brooklyn firm does groundbreaking work nationally fighting for targets of sexual violence, online and off. Her landmark cases include Herrick V Grindr which introduced the novel legal approach of applying product liability law to dangerous tech products and K.M. v City of New York which is the highest known recovery in a Title IX case in NYC. Carrie’s well-known work for victims of nonconsensual porn is featured in the documentary Netizens and profiled in The New Yorker, Elle, Cosmo, Wired, Glamour and more. Carrie is the author of “Nobody’s Victim: Fighting Psychos, Stalkers, Pervs & Trolls” a 2019 NYT Editor’s Choice. Carrie attended Vassar College and Brooklyn Law School.