[Music] last year I was invited to debate at a 200 year old debate society called the Oxford Union I debated against senior government officials from the United States and UK government and Oxford students regarding cybersecurity it was truly my kind of fun but the best part about it was it was the first time that my three boys thought that I was doing something cool but it had everything to do with the fact the video was on YouTube my son shared the video with their friends and my older son who was 15 at the time came
to me and said hey mom you should take a look at the comments he seemed embarrassed I got nervous top comment I'd [ __ ] that next one yeah I'd [ __ ] that too then a feminine sounding alias jumped in and said hey not cool this is an articulate woman and we should focus on the argument and then added but I'd [ __ ] that too so here's my fifteen-year-old son trying to show pride and his mom and these comments were there for his friends and his younger brothers to see I was mortified what
was a substantial talk both online and offline became an opportunity to violate me and to negatively contribute to my online persona these commenters they didn't want to discuss the topic or give me critical feedback they just were anonymous trolls hiding behind anonymity it was then that I realized that I can't control my online persona or how I want others to see me because the trolls get to contribute to it I have a love/hate relationship with the internet I love that the internet made it possible for my talk to be seen by anyone anywhere at any
time but I hate that the internet made it possible for those comments to be added for my boys and my dad to see what was once an issue reserved just for famous people now becomes relevant to all of us in a world where information is universally accessible how do we control our online privacy the line between our online lives and our offline lives is blurring and our privacy and our control over who we are and how we want others to see us is disappearing now we know that nothing is free not online not offline we
know that there's a value exchange for those free apps and services that we use and that our information is collected and stored and shared my companies we agreed to it when we hit except on some privacy policy somewhere but no matter how in control that you think you are of your privacy you are not you don't actually own your Facebook profile and your photos Google scans still today at least scans all of your Gmail your iPhone knows exactly where you are at all times even if you have location services turned off but I'm not afraid
of Google or Apple or Facebook for the most part I trust those companies I know who they are I know what they're doing now I'm afraid of is that unknown villain that person making anonymous threats that company that I've never heard of or that that stranger that has unbelievable amounts of data about me and my family now everything that you do online leaves behind a breadcrumb it's a piece of you you might be sitting there saying I don't care I'm so boring nothing like this matters to me but what about your name your search for
abortion pregnancy divorce wedding rings what about all those videos you watch what about the private support groups for addiction for cancer religion it's so personal and then let's think about the information I can find out about you offline where you work where you live where you go and when you go there the list goes on and on I can take your online information combine it with your offline information create a pretty massive dossier about you does that scare you didn't scare me until I hired someone to do it so despite me being up here I'm
actually a pretty private person outside of work you won't find many photos of me and my family online Facebook or Flickr I actually keep a pretty low profile outside of work I'm what you call privacy aware and I try to control as many breadcrumbs as I can so I wanted to know what could someone find about me online to offline so I created my own villain simply by giving them my name Danelle Dixon they followed the trail of breadcrumbs from my online life to my offline life and created a whole loaf of Dixon bread and
here's what they found my physical addresses for the last 25 years my email addresses for the last 25 years where I live where I intend to live what cars I Drive what cars I own hundreds of pages from my divorce and custody proceeding that contained highly personal information about me and my family that villain followed the trail to my house stood outside and without me knowing took a picture of my oldest son that's my oldest son that is my home this is what scares me it was so simple it took them just a few hours
to know more about me than my parents do so what could happen when someone follows the trail of breadcrumbs to you hashtag gamergate gamergate is a movement that uses a hashtag as an opportunity to harass people both online and offline it all started when a guy posted false accusations about his ex-girlfriend who was a female game developer harassment campaigns spiraled out of control online and offline against multiple women and the social justice warriors the men who defended them they found personal information phone numbers and address and they posted that online the release of this personal
information resulted in real physical threats in their offline lives of rape and death and massacres and bombings many women had to flee their home as a result of these threats one social justice warrior sold his company and left the gaming industry altogether the villains in this case they were hiding behind anonymity much like the commenters on my Oxford talk they were investigated they were never found or prosecuted as you can see it just took one breadcrumb one tweet one blog post that led to their online profiles which led to finding them and making threats in
their real life gamergate began in 2014 there's been some progress some platforms they've made improvements technically to their filtering to their reporting technologies with respect to hateful content it is some progress but it's not enough we are literally seeing behavior like this happen today in the current political movement in the United States today we need a better future because soon everyone will be victimized with their own personal information just think about what we learned this week from Equifax passwords will be hacked somebody could be using your credit card right now online and you have no
idea who they are we need a better future I imagine a world where we are in control of all of our personal information because in the future it's gonna become harder and harder for us to disconnect our online and our offline - I imagine something like this privacy control center if you followed all the breadcrumbs here you can see that I had cancer last year but I don't want anybody to target me or any company to know that about me so I've looked it I don't want people to target my children they're under 18 none
of their information should be used or collected so I've locked that too when I'm in control of my information I don't want to share all the information that I just shared with you imagine if this was like a paper shredder equivalent to your digital footprint now here's the thing this is actually possible today and some companies they've even built pieces of it but we still don't have the ability to control all of our information why is that it's because we haven't demanded it and most companies they think that we don't even care about it but
we know that we can change behaviors of companies just by our reactions but technology it can only solve part of the problem it can build this really powerful control center but it can't change our behavior we need to do that we need to work together to create a better future and we can do that by taking two actions first we need to become accountable trustworthy humans as part of this online global community to there are billions of us we need to remember that behind every blog post every comment every tweet every troll every but there's
a human and we need to remember not to become one of the villains ourselves so what are you gonna do when you see online harassment are you gonna ignore it are you gonna reply to it or are you gonna stand up report the abuse and stop it that's what I did with the Oxford Union video I reported those comments and got them deleted don't reply or engage with the trolls it just gives them power report the abuse to the companies and make them understand who they work for second we need to demand that the products
that we use that they actually hold up to the control standards that we want we need to demand that companies work together to build the products like that control center we need to use our voices there's strength in numbers call them contact them through their websites use social media together we can make a change and if that doesn't work stop using the products vote with your loyalty and show them your value so this is all in our hands it's in my hands and yours I know what I'm gonna do and I know what I'm going
to teach my kids to do so what are you gonna do remember someone can follow the breadcrumbs and that whole trail to you - thank you [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music]
