ウィスパリング同時通訳研究会コミュのVice President Harris Launches the White House Task Force to Address Online Harassment and Abuse

Speaker 1: (00:00)　Please welcome Jen Klein, director of White House Gender Policy Council.
Jennifer Klein: (00:09)
Good afternoon, everyone. I’m Jennifer Klein, the director of the White House Gender Policy Council. Thank you so much for joining us today at the launch of the White House Task Force to address online harassment and abuse. I’d like to thank Vice President Harris for launching the task force today, along with Attorney General Garland and Surgeon General Murthy.
(00:31)
I’d also like to thank Dr. Elizabeth Sherwood Randall from the National Security Council for co-chairing the task force, as well as [inaudible 00:00:40] from the National Economic Council, Dr. [inaudible 00:00:43] Nelson of the Office of Science and Technology Policy, and senior officials representing nine departments and agencies, all members of this task force for being here.
(00:53)
Earlier today, the president signed a presidential memorandum officially establishing this task force, advancing the Biden Harris Administration’s commitment to prevent and address all forms of gender-based violence wherever it occurs. This task force will address the pervasive problem of online harassment and abuse, which disproportionately targets women, girls, and LGBTQI+ people.
(01:17)
It will focus on five broad areas. First, prevention. Second, services and support for survivors. Third, research to better understand the scope and impact of the problem. Fourth, accountability. And fifth, the connection between online harassment, hate, and extremist violence.
(01:37)
Within 180 days, this task force will present recommendations in each of these areas, including policies and programs for the government, as well as the private sector and civil society. At today’s inaugural meeting, we’ll hear from survivors, prosecutors, legal scholars, and victim advocates who will share their recommendations. To get us started, it is my pleasure to introduce Sloane Stevens, US Open Tennis Champion, survivor, and mental health advocate.

Sloane Stevens: (02:19)
Thank you for the opportunity to speak today. I’m humbled to share the stage with these incredible survivors and I’m hopeful that our collective voices can help address this issue. Many of you might first associate me with being a professional tennis player, which of course is my day job, but is not the sum of who I am. I’m a daughter, a sister, a wife, and I am more than an athlete, more than a label. Yet, all of that is disregarded when people online seek to harass me and harm me. No matter whether I win or lose, someone online is mad and they will make it known. There have been times when I’m walking off the court after a loss and not even thinking about anything related to tennis. And I’m just worried to see what will be on the other end of my phone, because I know what will be waiting for me when I unlock it.
(03:02)
People know where I live and everything that I do. I have been harassed and very credibly threatened. I understand that I’m a public figure. So this comes with the scope of my work, but that access and exposure should never come at the expense of my safety. It is so triggering to constantly advocate for myself and relive the trauma of these messages while knowing I’m getting more messages because I’m speaking up. No matter the emojis I block or the filters I put in place, I’ve learned that if someone is determined to be abusive and threatening, they will get very creative. But I love social media. I love being online and I use these platforms every day to keep up with my loved ones and have direct dialogue with my community. I’m constantly sharing memes and posts with my friends. In that same inbox, there are people threatening to harm me.
(03:46)
When I went public with my experience after last year’s US Open, I was shocked by the outrage and the outpouring of support. It was baffling to me because this has been my daily lived experience for over a decade. Out of sheer survival, I’ve spent my career trying to desensitize myself on how unacceptable this is, escalating to authorities when credible and constantly in therapy to process. But then I thought about all the people out there who don’t have a team filtering their messages or a direct line to law enforcement or access to mental health services. What about them? What about the young boys and girls and people of color or anyone that’s terrified that they’ll be harmed or driven to harm themselves? I’m here today for them. I use my platform to have direct conversations with tech companies, fellow athletes, and anyone who thought I might have some power to influence the situation.
(04:33)
This is how I arrive today here at the White House. I hope that by hearing these stories and bringing decision makers together, we can make a difference for everyone, no matter the size of their platform. It is now my pleasure to introduce someone who inspires and motivates me as a black woman and advocate and a trailblazer, someone who has dedicated her entire career to fighting for survivors of abuse and led the way in shining a light on cyber exploitation years before it was even an issue in the public’s radar, the vice president of United States, Kamala Harris. Thank you, Madam Vice President for all you have done and continue to do. (05:08)Thank you.

Kamala Harris: (05:20)Thank you your time.

Sloane Stevens: (05:21)Thank you.

Kamala Harris: (05:24)
Please have a seat. Hi, everyone. Well, let me start by saying it is so good to be with our Attorney General Merrick Garland, our Surgeon General Vivek Murthy. And Gender Policy Council… Where she? Director Jennifer Klein and all the members of the task force. Thank you all for the work you do, for the extraordinary work that you do. Sloane, thank you for your courage. It takes a lot to put yourself out there as a public figure period, but then to speak out about something so many people, regardless of gender are experiencing. So thank you for your leadership. Thank you.
(06:02)
And to all the other survivors who are here today, you motivate us, you inspire us, and you are the voice of so many people who are in this room because of the voice that you express around these issues. And so I thank you for that and your strength and your sense of purpose. And in particular, I also want to acknowledge Matthew and Francesca. So I know it is not easy to talk about what you’ve experienced. And as all of you know, most of my career, I spent it as a prosecutor. And the majority of that time, I was focused on crimes affecting women and children, crimes that involve sexual abuse. And in many of the cases, in particular, when they were going to trial and we were prepared to go to trial, I’d sit down for extensive periods of time to talk with the survivors about their case and talk with them about what it would be like when they were going to walk out of my office and walk down the hall and walk into a courtroom.
(07:09)
And for some, as you all know, it was impossible to imagine what it would mean to speak publicly about what they’d been through when most don’t want to even speak about it in private. But every time I have to tell you, I was inspired by their bravery for so many reasons, both because of the courage it takes to tell a story that is a story that is informed by some of the most horrible experiences, but also informed by such pain. But I was also inspired because again, the courage that it takes to be that voice. When I would prosecute a case and the prosecutors here know that, I would stand in front of the jury and I would say Kamala Harris for the people and the charging-
(08:03)
And the charging document would not be the name of the victim or survivor versus the defendant. It was the people versus. Because, you see, in our form of justice, we have rightly said that individual should not be made to fight alone. A harm against her, against him, against them is a harm against all of us as a society. And so, it is with that spirit that we are doing the work we are doing today, to convene and to inaugurate this task force, understanding this affects all of us, if it affects any one of us. We, therefore, all of us have a responsibility to stand together to support those who have gone through this, but to also recognize they shouldn’t have to be alone fighting on this issue. So that’s the spirit with which we convene today and the spirit with which we are doing this work. I will tell you as attorney general, many of you know, when I was in California, I prosecuted the first case in the country of an operator of a cyber exploitation website. I’ll never forget. My office was mostly in Sacramento and we were dealing with a case … (09:25)
If you could know, California, in another part of the state. I flew down to meet with the person who was actually handling the case to go … I went through the files to see where were we? What was going on? What were we going to do about this case? Because it was, in many ways, a case of first impression, although it wasn’t when we thought about the pathology of what was at play, when we thought about the … We call it the MO, modus operandi. When we talked about and thought about how it was being done, what was motivating it, and how it was making that victim and that survivor feel.
(10:01)
So, yes, it was the first in the nation, but we’d seen that kind of stuff before. The point was that we needed to update and upgrade ourselves as law enforcement and as the criminal justice system as a justice system, to recognize where it is now occurring, and update our approach to deal with it in all places where it exists, in a way that causes harm and pain and injury.
(10:26)
And so, that website in particular, what it did is it let people upload sexually explicit photographs of their former partners, the photographs that were taken and shared with consent in a consensual relationship. But, of course, what ended up happening is that one of those partners usually in that relationship had a grudge or an issue or a motivation to embarrass or to harm and would allow the photograph to be posted with the explicit intent, certainly with the implicit effect, of trying to embarrass and degrade and hurt and cause pain and attract judgment to that individual.
(11:12)
Well, in that case, I’m happy to report that the person who ran that website went to prison, because I do believe that there should be consequence for behaviors that harm other human beings. But this kind of justice is still so rare, because many of our laws have not caught up with the advances in technology.
(11:36)
So as the United States senator, I introduced legislation to make these acts a federal crime. Thanks to the recent … And our president, Joe Biden, and the recent reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act, for the first time, cyber exploitation victims can sue their abusers in federal civil court. This is progress, yet we still have so much more work to do to protect people from online harassment and abuse, which is why the work of this task force is so important.
(12:14)
Context. well, the internet is an essential part of life in the 21st century. Can’t get around it. Can’t get around without it. And for far too many people, and Sloan told her story, the internet is a place of fear. One in three women under the age of 35 report being sexually harassed online. Over half of the LGBTQ+ people in our country are survivors of severe harassment. Nearly one in four Asian Americans report being called an offensive name, usually motivated by racism, being called an offensive name online. Black people who have been harassed online in our country are three times more likely to be targeted, again because of their race.
(13:12)
No one should have to endure abuse just because they are attempting to participate in society. Of course, the impact of this abuse extends beyond the ability to use the internet, the internet system, and the power of the internet without fear. It’s beyond that. In many cases, cyberstalking have serious mental health consequences for its victims, sometimes leading to self-harm, sometimes leading to suicide.
(13:44)
We continue to see how some acts of mass violence, the most recent included, have followed expressions of online hate and abuse. The white supremacist who murdered 10 Black people in Buffalo, New York was first radicalized, by all accounts, online.
(14:04)
After the massacre of 19 children, of 19 babies, and two teachers in Uvalde, it was revealed that the shooter had threatened to kidnap, rape, and kill teenage girls on Instagram. One of the girls he harassed described the abuse, I quote, as “just how online is”. Think about that. Hate has become so common on the internet that as a society, it’s becoming normalized and, for users, some might say unavoidable.
(14:53)
Recent events have also made it clear that we face new threats. Earlier this week, I met with a group of legal experts about how overturning Roe v. Wade will impact the right to privacy.
(15:04)
Now just think about this. In states where abortion is criminalized, an abuser could purchase a woman’s location history through a data broker. This is a realistic scenario. If that history shows that she sought an abortion out of state, he could then turn it over to law enforcement in a jurisdiction that has deemed that a crime. This is a horrifying possibility for that woman.
(15:38)
So let us be clear, no one should be afraid that an abuser will use their private personal data or that a person’s private personal data will be used against them. All people deserve to use the internet free from fear. This task force then will tackle a threat that has been far too real for far too … (16:04)
… Will tackle a threat that has been far too real for far too many people for far too long. And the recommendations of this group and the extended group of experts, and those who have been advocates in this space for so long, the collective work will help modernize the federal government’s response to violence against women and people of all genders. It will lead to more evidence informed policies and interventions, and it will support more federal funding to address online harassment and abuse, including grants to train law enforcement and prosecutors.
(16:40)
It is incumbent on all of us. Government, local law enforcement and the tech sector to respond to the task at hand with a sense of urgency. So I thank you all for your tireless fight and for your advocacy, for your strength to prevent these harms from happening in the first place and to hold perpetrators accountable. And the president and I look forward to hearing all of your recommendations. Thank you also very much. Thank you

Speaker 2: (17:23)Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome-
Kamala Harris: (17:25)The voice of God.
Speaker 2: (17:26)Attorney General. Merrick Garland.
Attorney General Merrick Garland: (17:35)Thank you, Madam Vice President for convening this important meeting-
Speaker 2: (17:38)Of course.