New trend among big tech is refusing comply to victims' requests that a specific platform preserve evidence in anticipation of litigation or a criminal proceeding. 1/
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These "preservation letters" are the one thing that victims of online crimes (e.g. stalking, harassment, revenge porn, child porn, deepfakes, impersonation, sextortion) can do while begging law enforcement to give a sh*t. Preservation letters are common in all areas of lit'n. 2/
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We need pres'n of evidence b/c it's obviously very common for say, somebody who met you through a dating app and drugged and raped you to then remove his profile and all the DMs get deleted. Or the Twitter sock account that's inciting folks to come kill you to then vanish. 3/
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FB accounts that impersonate a 14 year old girl to then manipulate a 14 yo into sending nudes will *poof* disappear. Victims take screenshots, but by the time law enforcement open a case, the accounts are long gone. And big tech will say they the data was auto-deleted. 4/
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In the unlikely event law enforcement takes the case, defense attorneys will say victims' screenshots are doctored. So preservation letters were basically a way for victims to reach out to big tech and say there's a crime on your platform and please hold on to this evidence. 5/
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One day four men showed up at her home for sex at 2am. One account impersonating her was sending foot porn in her name. She was doxxed on Xhamster where her name was paired with deepfake porn of her and links to her FB page. 7/
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It's an ongoing problem to have law enforcement take these cases seriously. Google and Twitter say they'll preserve evidence if they are provided with service of process pursuant to court order. 8/
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But first, suing costs tens of thousands of dollars in attorney time. Usually the defendant is judgment proof. The civil system is built to sue for money, whereas the victim's goal is usually to de-anonymize to get the person to stop or get them arrested. 9/
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Litigation is public. These cases are about sexual privacy violations. We could make a motion to proceed as a Jane Doe. but that involves an additional set of lengthy legal papers and court arguments. and clerks often screw it up anyway -- 10/
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like when the clerk uploaded into ecourts (public database) my motion to proceed as a Jane Doe for my 14 year old client who was raped and filmed. Fixing this involved about 5 more hours of time. 11/
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lastly, how are we supposed to get a court order against Twitter as they suggest? They're immune from everything that happens on their platform. Under Hassell v Bird, you can't name them in a lawsuit b/c cda 230, but you also can't not name them b/c due process. 12/12
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A response from to a standard litigation preservation letter. FB indicates that they aren't allowed to preserve evidence unless a request comes from the government. This is a lie. They tell me to contact law enforcement. Dude, law enforcement can 13/12
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be slow AF and never share evidence with victims. By the time they open a case and subpoena, evidence is gone. And sometimes victims don't want law enforcement -- they want to use the civil system. 14/12
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