Trial By TikTok With Amber Heard's Lawyer, Jen Robinson

(upbeat music) A list-snuff production. Today's guest is genuinely a bit of a hero of mine. Jen Robinson is one of Australia's most famous human rights and media lawyers. She's a barrister at Doudy Street Chambers in London, a road scholar, and has advised some of the biggest media organizations in the world and has spent her career fighting for freedom of speech and the rights of journalists and women to tell their stories. She's also been a part of Julian Assange's legal team. She worked with the New York Times during its investigation into the Murdoch Phone Hacking scandal. She's represented political prisoners and human rights defenders around the world, and she represented Amber Heard in the 2020 UK defamation case bought by Johnny Depp against the sun. And that last case is part of what I really wanted to talk to Jen about today, because we're living in this incredibly strange era where a court case can be happening in an actual courtroom while an entirely different trial is happening simultaneously on TikTok. We've seen it with Amber Heard and Johnny Depp. We've seen versions of its sense with cases involving some of the biggest celebrities in the world. Clips the cut up, algorithms reward the most outrageous interpretation, bot campaigns and coordinated online activity can distort what looks like public opinion, and suddenly millions of us can feel like we understand a legal case from a 30 second video on our phones. So I wanted to ask Jen what we should actually be watching out for when a high profile case takes over our feeds and how we distinguish evidence from content. But this conversation is all about something much bigger. Jen also wrote the book How Many More Women, which examined the ways that defamation laws and other legal mechanisms can be used against women and journalists who speak out against violence and abuse. And how that work inspired her documentary silence. I saw silence recently. I was incredibly moved by it. I think it's horrifying to see how global this problem is and the personal legal and financial costs that come with speaking out continue to carry. But what I loved about this film and about Jen's work more broadly is that it doesn't leave you feeling hopeless. So today, I want to talk to her about the reality of trial by TikTok, her experience representing Amber Heard and what social media has done to our understanding of high profile court cases, the weaponization of defamation law and the chilling effect this can have on women and journalists and what Jen thinks needs to change. (upbeat music) Jen, it is such a pleasure to have you on this podcast. You are, I know, I feel like I say this every time, I guess comes on and I gush, but like you really are like a hero of mine. So, that's such lovely kind words. Thank you, and it's really fun to be here with you. Thank you so much for coming on. And I was saying this just for us out of recording, but I've seen the film silenced. I rewatched part of it in the office yesterday prepping for this and just in my producer term, he was like, "Girl, you okay, you're crying?" It's such an important watch for everyone. Yeah, congrats for making it and thank you for making it. Oh, look, it's something I'm very proud of and something I felt compelled to do as part of the responsibility I feel to contribute to my skills, to ending violence against women and talking about it from the perspective that I bring as a free speech lawyer, but it's a real honor to be able to honor the legacy of my grandmother too. And you're not the only one who comes away. It's a very moving film. And I don't want people to come away crying from it, but I do think the subject matter warrants it. And actually what I really love seeing people's reaction is that they are moved by these women's stories. I don't think you can watch that film and not be moved by them. But also women come out with anger. Yeah. And the kind of anger that motivates us to act. It was such an overwhelm of feelings. It was anger, it was sadness, and it was also hopeful. I'm so glad you brought your grandmother up because she was such a takeaway from the film for me. What an incredible woman. And it was so nice hearing more about you in the film as well, like knowing that you grew up in Barry in the South Coast and then what a pivot then to the career that you've had. Actually fun fact. So are you Falcon's cousin? Yes, I am. So very few people understand Matt Ford or Falcon, as he is known, is Mike first cousin. So we grew up together on the South Coast. That's so funny. So I'm Falcon's producer. I've produced the voice podcast for about six years. Oh, that's funny. I know. People do find it like this kind of, because they have such an amazing following. And I'm so proud of him. And so it's so exciting seeing what he does. And also for me, such a huge disjunct from the Matt that I knew growing up to seeing this sort of character who's all over the world and doing all these amazing things. It's, as we're really tight as cousins we're from, do you know how big our family is? I've heard about, you have about 30 cousins more. There are 41st cousins on just birth cousins. Yeah, so Matt and I, we have 12 Arnie's and uncles. So our mum and dad are one of 12, or each of the 12 children. Is this Bernie's side? Yes, so Bernie is my dad's sister and we are, there's 12 of them. My dad's the eldest of 12. Then I'm the eldest of six. I was reading that. And so Matt and his wonderful sister Abbey who I just adore, she's like a little sister to me. We were all really tight, we grew up together, we played together, we hung out every summer together. You know, when people look at Matt and I sort of from afar, given the work that we do, it looks so different that people can't imagine that we are related, but we are. And also that sense of humour is there, I think, in our whole family, like we all love a good laugh. And though you just don't see that side of me when I'm talking about sexual violence and detained journalists on the news. No, no, of course not. But no way, I love Bernie and I love Matt and I love Abbey, so I feel like this is such a fun crossover for me. Well, this is the first time in a media interview there's been the kind of the connections being made because I think socially people know or people have made the connection on social media, but not in an interview, but I absolutely love Matt. And in fact, I was hoping it'd come to the film screen in this week, but he's travelling, so we'll do something together when he comes back. I know, I've been trying to get them back in studio, that's not working. Speaking of your family and speaking of your grandmother as well, do you mind sharing a little bit about her? Because I know in the film you said that she was such a big inspiration for the career that you've had. In some ways, what's interesting is that I grew up knowing my grandmother was a survivor of domestic violence. She left my violent grandfather who I don't remember meeting. I think I met him once when I was a baby. He wasn't part of our lives after she chose to leave him. And I knew that she went to work in the domestic violence refuges because I used to go there with her as a child, and I used to go to work with her and play with the kids in the refuge. So my sister and I were very alert to issues around domestic violence and the trauma that that has on families because we were spending time with these kids, and our grandmother would explain to us. So I remember the rules of the refuge. I remember being in the house, adding Western Sydney. We knew we were never allowed to answer the front door. And we knew to be patient and kind with the kids because my grandmother explained to us that they had, didn't have the privileges that we had, and that they had been through very traumatic experiences, and it was important that we were kind and patient. So I think that really had an effect on me growing up in ways that I didn't appreciate at the time. But what I didn't know about my grandmother is that she was like a litigation friend in the court. She was like going to court making submissions in court as a domestic violence refuge worker when it came to sort of sentencing and all kinds of things. And she was training the police on domestic violence strategies and helping them to sensitize them about how to be better with women. And I didn't know any of this, but I went off to university and studied law. And my grandmother, at no point did she share these experiences with me when I was at my, during my law degree. And it wasn't until I must have been in my mid-30s, and I was at home with her one night, and she said she was depressed, and I asked her why, and she said, well, I just heard the statistics about violence against women on the radio and they're not getting better in the 20 years since I left the refuge movement. And I looked at her and I thought, here is this woman who has dedicated her life to turning her experience of domestic violence into something positive for other women, making it easier for other women. And she said in their contemplating whether her, all of her efforts were in vain. And I thought, well, what am I doing about it? And what are we all doing about it? And then she started sharing with me more about her life. I mean, she left the refuge movement because only because she had another nervous breakdown because she'd seen another woman killed, and it was one too many. She couldn't go back. And she started telling me more stories from her work. And I was like, at what point did you not think in the six years I was doing my law degree, the understanding your role in the courts and what you did in the courts would be interesting to me? I mean, she used to take women to court, keep the car running out the front and she'd be inside court literally standing between violent men and these women in court. She said she's been held up against the wall by a man who approached, she stood between him and his former partner, was physically held up against the wall. These women were absolute heroes, but she never thought that her story was important. And that fascinating. And I made two decisions that day. How old were you at this time? I was probably about 35. I was already practicing law in London. I was working for Julian Assange. I was doing all these big media defense cases, defending journalists, doing free speech work. And I thought, right, I'm going to find a way to use my legal practice to continue her legacy. So I'm going to start working on violence against women. I don't know what that looks like yet, but I'm doing it. And the second point was I'm going to find a way to tell her story, because women's stories are so often missed in history, because one, they're not treated as important. And anyway, we are with a film that documents my work in this space and tells her story. So an awe of her and of you and, yeah, and send it to my nan and send it to my mom and I'm just, well, this is, and part of the thing was I actually, one of the things I actually haven't done yet was, I wanted to start a project about young women asking questions of their mom and their grandma, because you know, we grow up around these women who have had lives and careers. Many of them some haven't. We kind of treat them as they are in the relationship to us. So she's my grandma. She's my mom. We don't think about who she is beyond that. Enough. Yeah. Ask the question. I was actually ashamed that I hadn't asked her the questions earlier. You know what? I had a really fascinating experience this year. I had a project where I ended up interviewing my mom. I loved that. I had never done it before. And she had, she is such a story relevant to this. And there was so much I didn't know, even though I lived it and I grew up with it, asking and just having that on tape and like, having those conversations and seeing it in this like zoomed out way was this like breakthrough movement. I cannot like recommend enough that people do that. Like have an interview with your mom. Totally. We all need to do it. I actually wanted to start some sort of, and I'm putting this out there. So in the hope that someone will do it because I don't have the time. I'll do it. That we actually create like an oral history project where young women interview their grandmother's. Yeah. I'm glad you did that. More of that. More of that. No. And also with the work that you do, I mean, there's so many things I want to get into in this interview. I'm going to have to like rein myself in a little bit. That's okay. But a big takeaway from silence. Talking about women, but talking about journalists as well was defamation laws. And, you know, how they're being used to silence women and journalists. But can you explain a little bit more about how that's actually happening? Sure. And this is my entry to working on violence against women actually. So I work in, I practice defamation law at the bar in London. And so I defend journalists against defamation claims. And defamation laws are designed to protect people's reputation. So we are, and it's actually protected under international human rights law. We are entitled to privacy and to protect our good reputation. And so defamation is the means by which under domestic law, there's a cause of action that allows you. If someone says something about you that damages your reputation and is untrue, you can sue them for damages. Yeah. And I get a court judgment that says, this is not true about this person. It damages their reputation. They're going to get compensation for it. That sounds all good and well in practice. And objectively, when you stand back and think about it, of course, we should be able to sue if someone publishes something that damages us. The problem is, is about how that operates in practice. And so what we show in the film, when what I saw in my legal practice, defending journalists who are doing investigative journalism stories on a serial perpetrator who had been sexually harassing women in the workplace. So many of those stories never made it to the media because editors were like, well, how many women have accused him? He's going to sue us for defamation for that. Do we have the legal budget to report it? No. Let's not report that story. So what people weren't realizing is that the big high profile cases that we see in the media about sexual misconduct, sexual assault rape, it's a tip of the iceberg of what's actually going on in our society and what and the stories that actually reach the media, but never get reported because someone will send a defamation letter and say, that's defamation if you publish it, I'll sue you. And that can often be enough because of the cost of defamation proceedings to cause someone to self-sensor and silence the story. And I was frustrated about that in the pre-MeToo world because I could see so many of these stories about violence against women were never making it into the media. And these men were getting away with it. And it made me angry. It's so funny. I remember the first time we got sent to a legal letter of defamation. And I was so scared and I didn't have any money. We didn't really know what to do with it. And at the time it was such a funny thing because people would say to us, like, oh, well, you're not anyone in media until you've been sent a defamation threat. But I hated it because I thought, well, the problem that I'm already seeing is like, even if you have support, even if you have lawyers or whatever it is, generally the advice is it's not worth the headache. It's not worth the headache. It's even if you have the truth to defend, it's, we can't afford it, especially independent media. It's like, you can't afford to fight these cases. What does free speech mean if you can't afford to defend it? Exactly. And so if you as a journalist working for a small independent outlet can't afford to withstand a defamation threat, what hope does a survivor have? A woman on her own. So what I was seeing was most women could not afford to defend themselves. So they would have to self-sensor. And in the post me too, well, so what we saw with me too is, so these laws existed and they were already having a chilling effect on the reporting of violence against women. I saw it in my practice. It was frustrating. Then me too happened and we suddenly had this breaking of the cultural silence. We have women speaking out online media organisations being braver. In that political moment, just suddenly start rushing out these stories, which in many instances they've been sitting on for a long time. But suddenly it became acceptable to publish these stories, or they were willing to take a punt on it because of the moment in time when women were speaking out. And we were all hopeful, right? Won't you excited when me too happened? I was like, finally accountability. Well, ever if there was a moment there, and I would have been what, starting uni or whatever it was, I go, oh, amazing. I'm entering media and every all the problems are solved now. Right. We can talk about it now. We can talk about it. We can report on it. Women can speak out online. But as a media lawyer watching it, I was thinking this, I don't think people understand the risks they're taking when they're posting on social media that their boyfriend raped them or their ex partner hit them or because that person is identifiable. And when you publish something on social media, that is a publication that the world can see. Lots of people are reading it. It is defamatory to accuse someone of sexual violence or gender-based violence. And it should be because it's a terrible thing to do. Yeah. So of course that will damage people's reputations and the eyes of others. Now, but if it's true, we should absolutely be able to say that about the person and they should wear all the consequences that follow from their conduct. The problem with defamation law is that people know they can weaponize a legal system, that it's often enough to send a threat letter to silence. And what we then saw in the wake of me, too, was a massive avalanche of defamation claims. People being sued for what they post it online, journalists being sued, women being sued for speaking out. And I had these women coming into my office as saying, Jen, but how can he sue me? It's true. And I have to explain, well, yes, he can sue you. And even if it's true, you now have to prove that in court. And that takes time and money and expense. And so do you have the money to prove that it's true in court? Because if he pursues you, that's what it's going to take. And it won't matter. You need to have lawyers who can prove it. And you need to be able to afford those lawyers. And what we were seeing was so many women having to apologize to their perpetrator publicly for having called them the rapists they are and promising never to say it ever again. And not only is it unacceptable for her, because it is we have the right to free speech. And as part of broader international human rights protections, we have the right to live free from violence. We have the right to free speech. We have the right to tell our story. So these women's not only were their rights violated by the violence, the silencing about that violence is another human rights violation on top of that. And when you put all of that together and think and then zoom out in terms of the societal impact that we're having, one in three women suffered gender-based violence in our society. How can it possibly be in the public interest to be silencing and stopping women from talking about it? Because if we can't talk about it and tell people what happened to us, how can we possibly understand the extent of the problem? How can government make policy? How can we deal with it? For me, it's also looking at the court of public opinion with this problem as well, because if you hit the dead end with defamation and people don't understand, that is because of these limitations that we're having with the law, then you get the likes of Joe Rogan and Piers Morgan and whoever else being like, "Oh, see, me too has gone too far. This is all now proof that it went too far." And I don't know, I think that was sort of this huge backslide that we all noticed, which was. We are in that backslide. We are so in it right now. So if you look historically, what's it really interesting looking at the history of defamation laws? In the context of the civil rights movement, so equal rights for white and black Americans. In the context of that movement, we also saw an onslaught of defamation claims brought, for example, by the police and others against civil rights activists who were calling out police brutality against black people, and about the discrimination against black people. So historically, we've seen defamation claims, like these raft of defamation claims being used to push back on progressive social movements, actually. And I think the Me Too movement ought to be seen in that context, in that historical context. We're seeing it again. So for me, I think we have to zoom out and look at it in that way, which is what we do in the book. But what we really wanted to show in the film is, I think this is tendency, you know, when I talk about defamation, people say, "Oh, but why did she go to the media? She she should have gone to the police and if it was true, she should have gone to the police and. What about his reputation? It's going to ruin his life and his career. And I think, well, okay, one, so few cases are ever investigated and prosecuted by the police. So if we are going to limit our public discussion in the UK, it's something like 2% of rape cases are prosecuted, which effectively means it's been decriminalized. But 2% of cases, in Australia, it's maybe a little bit higher. But let's just say 10% of cases are prosecuted here. That means we can't talk about 90% of cases of violence against women, ever. And so that can't be right. Because if we're going to deal with violence against women, we have to talk about all of it, whether it ends up in the criminal justice system or not. And then the other point I'd sort of make is like, women lie in the report statistics are 2% of cases. So if why are people so concerned about the 2% of cases where women lie, as opposed to the vast damage to individual women, their families, their communities, our national economy, as a result of violence against women? It's just like, where are we putting the focus and why? I think this is just the PR, the narrative of it all, which is that men are being falsely accused. And they're doing a great job with their PR on that. A lot of people really believe that stat is a lot higher than it is. But who does that serve? It's an old trope about violence that women lie. Yeah, universally, the women that I interview, they speak out because they want it to stop, they speak out because they want to help other women. None of this nonsense of as she wanted revenge, she wanted to make money. Women do not make money. They also look at the reality of speaking out. No one does that unless it's true. And that's what I wanted to show in the film was the lived experiences of survivors who speak out and the journalists who report their stories to show just how hard it is. And what it means to be super-deformation. The very real personal, emotional, economic, physical toll that it has on people. Both survivors and journalists, by the way, have you actually been through a defamation trial? No. A lot, I hope it never happens to you. No, I know. Look at what Lisa Wilkinson's been through with the Bruce Lerman case, and millions of dollars in fees. You know, it's really affected her career and her ability to work. It's taken years of her life to get to a point where the judge found that it was true. What she reported was true that Britney Higgins was raped in Parliament. But all of this stress and money to get to the point to prove that she reported something in the public interest and it was true. Honestly, one of the most emotional parts of the film for me was when Amber heard and Britney Higgins hugged each other. And Amber said, "You're going to really unfun club." And I couldn't believe the bravery of these women and it makes me cry thinking about it too. Yeah. You'll make me cry looking at you talk about it. Yeah. It was really important for me to get them together as women who have been obviously Amber on a global scale, but Britney here in Australia, vilified. And Amber didn't even speak out and go to the media. You know, her ex-husband drags this case into the media. She did what perfect victims are supposed to do. She went and got a restraining order to stop him a bit having access to her property where they lived because he would come in and trash the place. So she went and got a restraining order in the court and then never spoke about it to the media. Signed in on disclosure agreement and got on with her life. He was the one that brought it up. But both of those women, whether they chose to speak to the media, Britney chose to speak to the media, both of those women have become the subject of global and/or national media controversy because of their experiences and have really suffered for it. Yeah. Both being forced to give evidence of sexual violence, live online broadcast to the world. At least in Britney's case, we have content protections in this country, which couldn't be recorded and shared. Amber's was cut up and shared and put all over the internet. I want to get into that because I think this is the other part of this discussion that, and having you here today to talk about, like especially focusing on Amber Heard's case. Like, I don't think enough people realize, interestingly, that there was a UK trial first and that Johnny Depp filed for defamation against the Sun over reports of domestic violence against Amber and that the Sun decided to use the truth's defense. And as you said, that meant that even though she's not the one that gave the interview to the Sun, she was then called in as a witness to defend her truth. And being there for her at that time, like, what was it like explaining that to her, talking her through that case? My first phone call with Amber when she called to talk about whether I would act for her. I was actually already working on this book and was following cases around the world, including what happened in the Jeffery Rush case with the complainant in that case. And so I said to her, I was like, look, you're in a difficult position just as what happened in the Jeffery Rush case. A tabloid newspaper has reported this story without talking to you, without your consent, without, you know, you're giving an interview, but they've reported the fact. And now they're running a truth defense, which means your truth is on trial. So if you don't give evidence, they could settle the case. So if she chose, if she said to the Sun, I don't want anything to do with your tabloid journalism, I don't want to, I don't want to be involved in this, what will be a media circus. They might have made the commercial decision at the newspaper to say, well, we don't think we can win it without her testimony. So let's just settle it. And Johnny Depp could have run around the world saying, look, the Sun refused to defend this. They know it's not true. I know it's not true. She's a liar. I'm off the hook. I'm off the hook. And I said to her, so you're in an invit-- a terrible position. So you either stay out of it, and that's the risk that happens, or you give evidence. But I said, watching what happened in the Jeffery Rush trial where the complainant was reticent to support the Daily Telegraph's defense, and so it didn't become involved until very late in the process, and that I think affected the way the case could be prepared. So if we're going to do it, we need to get involved now. And so I worked with her for two years on that evidence. She agreed to give evidence for the Sun. And I worked with her and the Sun's lawyers in preparing that evidence. And we proved that Johnny Depp was violent towards her on 12 separate occasions. And there's a long reason decision judgment. And for me, that was a really satisfying win for women, for Amber and for women. And it was heralded by domestic violence groups saying, look, this shows that powerful men can't weaponize the legal system and defamation to silence allegations of domestic violence. Women were coming out saying, if this has happened to you, you can talk about it and people will defend your truth. And then he sued her personally in the United States. And it went before a jury in Virginia, a conservative state, where there's no anti-slap protections, where the jury was not sequestered, where it was broadcast live online. And in the context of what became this, I wasn't in that trial. I represented Amber in the UK, not in the US. So I was an observer to that, those proceedings. But it was really disappointing because having just won the trial in the US, it's right in the UK, where it's actually really difficult. The UK has a more difficult standard of proof. But the burden was on us, was on the newspaper. So it was on the side of the newspaper, for whom Amber was a witness, to prove that he was violent towards her. And we proved it. So when it went off to the US and she was being sued there, I actually said, I was like, great, now you're in the US. We proved it in the more difficult jurisdiction. You'll be fine, first amendment. Who's gonna ask did you think that was like? I said, we proved it when the burden was asked. Now it's on him to not only prove that it didn't happen, but prove that you lied with malice. And there's no evidence of malice in this case, quite the contrary. If you look at his text messages. No, it was all about him wanting to destroy her after she left him. And so, global humiliation. Honestly, honestly, I thought that case should be an easy slam dunk win for her council after we won in the UK. You were with her when she received the news that she was gonna be sort of slapped with this $50 million. I was. We were in London when the news broke that he was suing her for $50 million. And over an opinion piece that she'd written that had been legaled by her lawyers and by the ACLU. So she was the women's rights ambassador. This is how this whole case came about. Yeah, they got that. An op-ed that she wrote in her capacity as ambassador for women's rights ambassador for ACLU. The biggest civil liberties group in the United States and incredibly well respected. The organization that she had pledged to give all of her divorce settlement money to a large chunk of it to this organization and had given some of it before debt sued her. And she couldn't afford to keep giving the money because she had to then defend herself against his legal suit. So she did this op-ed and all it was was really saying I am a survivor and we need to better protect survivors. She didn't speak about the violence she suffered. She didn't name, joined up as the perpetrator. And as is public now, Amber is a survivor of domestic violence here in her own family. She was also a recognized domestic violence survivor by the UK court, by the way. But she didn't get into it. All she said was we have to better protect survivors when they speak out. And he sued her for $50 million. And I remember sitting with her in London and I was like, this is obscene. And it's also forum shopping. I thought you've already sued the Sun and lost. Also given all of that context, knowing that, knowing his legal team knows that. just like, how is that not perceived as just like monstrous? behavior. I really think the Amber herd trial is something we are already doing and will continue to do over the next few years where we will all look back on this and go what the fuck happened there. Totally. Well, that's why I'm in my book. So I didn't intend to write so much about that case in my book because I've worked on lots of cases and really working with Amber and the sun in defending that case that he took against the sun. That was like a couple of sentences in a chapter in our book, which the film is based on really where we were saying, "Look, the truth defense works. So if it's true, you go to court, you can prove it." But as we were about to press print on our book, the decision came down the United States and I remember just sitting there watching it live on the BBC and texting support to her and when they read the verdict, I cried because I thought, "How can they have heard the evidence that I know is there and reach that conclusion?" That is terrifying. That is terrifying for every woman. Every lawyer should find that terrifying, actually. But for her person, I thought she's going to walk out past that awful scene out court. I just sat there and I was like, "I have to write about this because I don't think the public has done. " Because of the awful. Like the way it played out online. The way it played out online, people were not understanding what was happening because so many people come up to me, "Oh, Amber's a liar, she's this, she's that, using all this phrasiology." I was like, "How do you know that?" I've been watching the trial. I said, "Have you been watching the trial?" Yeah. As a lawyer, I find it funny when people say, "I've been watching the trial." I said, "Oh, you watched the trial. So you sat and watched weeks and weeks of hearing live online." We found out that. I mean, people could have and some people did. But most people were like, "Oh no, I've just been watching the snippets on social media." I said, "Well, you're not watching the trial. You're watching the snippets that there was a huge online campaign against her. You are watching the snippets that are deliberately picked up, packaged, many instances manipulated and pushed out online. I couldn't get over the social media campaign. I remember before the US trial actually warned her lawyers and said, "We've got to do something about what's happening in the online space because for us in the UK, it doesn't matter. We're in front of a judge, but you're in front of a jury." Unless they're sequestered, whether not allowed to have access to their phones, and even if they are, the online space of what people are absorbing about this trial is actually affecting people's perception of it in very real ways, even intelligent people. I've had so many women who have confronted about this and have self-reflected and express feeling embarrassment about how taken in they were by the media social media campaign, as feminists, who were taken in by it and didn't critically assess what was happening. That's why I think where we are in a moment of reflection on this. I don't run a whole chapter, her truth on trial twice, because I wanted people to have the facts from the UK trial compared to what was happening in the US so that they would have the material to be able to push back. I think we're now starting to see that, and we're hoping the film will be part of it. Because people just didn't know the UK trial even happened because of this raft of online nonsense. Well, it's a conversation that we're having definitely every year since we've started the podcast. There's a different, sort of, we call it a trial by TikTok. Yes. And I'm really fascinated about how this will continue to shape culture, because if we look at the hate that Amber heard received, it was this clear, horrific, don't be an Amber messaging. And Johnny was successfully portrayed as a victim. And Amber was seen as this imperfect victim, or unlikeable. And we've seen this with other women in the media since. And I remember vividly going on TikTok and I couldn't escape body language experts and people that were, I've been up late watching every single second, and here's what you need to know from the trial. And it was so confusing. And just as you said, intelligent friends, or anyone was saying like, oh, I can't keep up. I don't really know what's happening, but she's a bit crazy. Or it was mutual abuse, though. And I was like, you don't understand what mutual abuse, you don't understand what abuse is then. But also, if it was mutual abuse, this is why I say don't, if it was mutual abuse, and it wasn't, but if it was mutual, mutual abuse isn't a thing. Someone is the aggressor. And if a woman acts in self-defense, that does not make it mutual abuse. Yeah, no, no. And also like, this is what I mean, like women, women are held to these perfect victim stereotypes. I mean, there were even comments made by one of the jurors that they didn't like the way Amber cried. I remember that. And that was like part of their rationale for deciding that she wasn't telling the truth. I'm like, how are you supposed to cry? We cannot hold women up to these impossible, perfect victim standards in order to believe them. Yeah. So not everyone will react the same way. Trauma has an effect on the way that women react. Some women don't want to be seen as a victim, so find it very hard to hold themselves together in a way that makes it hard for someone else who's sitting about watching going, I don't think I'd react that way if I was raped. And it's like, well, it's not, we have to accept that there's a whole range of reactions to that kind of trauma and holding women to these ridiculous stereotypes of what we believe a victim should look like. And that's why in the criminal justice context, and all of this, we acknowledge in the criminal justice context, these male-centric myths about gender-based violence and what is or is not a perfect victim or a real victim. In a criminal justice context, if you go before a judge, there are jury directions, so if you go before a jury, which you would be in this country, a judge will say, do not, you must exclude any sense of who looks like a perpetrator, who looks like a victim. You need to exclude those stereotypes from your mind and just look at the objective evidence. That did not happen in this case. And I think it's really dangerous. Like you said, this thing of don't be an amber. What is really scary about this trial is not just what it meant for amber, or for me as a lawyer watching it going, how can they have turned those facts on their head? And what it means for everybody in a justice system. But what it means to every woman who watched that? So I say to people all the time, well, anecdotally, I had colleagues calling me going, my client won't go ahead now because they saw what happened to amber. Because everyone knows I represented her. Yeah. This don't be an amber thing actually does affect women. Women, a lot of women globally were like, well, why would I take this forward if I'm going to be treated that way? And the thing I say to people too, because it was, as you know, this like, it was everywhere on TikTok. I had friends, kids coming home. Friends were calling me saying, my son just came home and said amber hurt his gold digger. I was like, he's 12. But not only that that shocked me was the amount of women against amber. Oh, that is, that is a whole, what is scary about that? And I would say this to all those women and to, to everyone I say, look, amber hurt is never going to see or is very unlikely to see what you posted about her online or what you've said in private conversations like this about her. But do you know who is going to hear it? The people in your life who have suffered gender-based violence and have never spoken about it. And do you think they'll ever come and tell you their story if they hear you speak that way about amber hurt? And the answer is no, of course. The thing that's scary about these cases in trial by TikTok is, you know, like we know in amber's case, like, tortoise media proved that, you know, 50% of the comments were and posts were bots. And that is so terrifying because I think, and I'm interested in your take on this, but from what I understand is was like, okay, we had hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of thousands of comments and posts that were enabled by a PR company to rewrite the public narrative. From that, we then did have organic posts of people then jumping on board. But is it because that sort of herd mentality that we feel emboldened and being in the majority? Was that misogyny already there or did the bots are like, well, I saw it in the UK trial and then it went, was insane during the US trial. So it is important for people to realize that over 50% of that online activity was inauthentic. So it was there was a deliberate campaign to generate that public discussion, which then was picked up and leveraged and echoed and repeated by groups who had aligned purposes. So like the misogynistic matter sphere, you know, it became a part of the culture war, right? That's going on right now. And so from my point of view, it's important for the public to understand that they were duped by an online campaign. I also think it's important to acknowledge that it wasn't just the online campaign that there was, you know, the rest of the activity was genuine. I'm not a social media expert, so I can't tell you how much of how much that inauthentic campaign contributed or built that organic engagement by real people, how much of that would have happened anyway, had it not been for the campaign, I don't know. What we do know is that it contributed to it. And what's scary about this, I remember, and to your point of like, this is becoming part of our culture, when we saw the whole black lively things start to play out. So for me, I sat there watching this because I'd watched it play out with Amber. And because I was in the middle of the case, I watched it differently, right? Because I knew what was happening in the case and I knew the fact. So I was watching these false narratives being pulled out propaganda, anti-amber pieces going out and then watching them ricochet and echo and grow in momentum around the internet. So I watched that in real time. Have a And I could see that it was happening it just took a long time for the rest of the world to catch up to that Yeah, when the Blake lively stuff happened and the with the release of it ends with us I was sitting back watching it not being at the center of it this time But just what observing it and I was I thought this isn't right Suddenly, I was like she's a spot like stated feminist. She's bringing out this film about domestic violence Why is there so much chat about her being this awful anti-feminist person and about her conduct around this film or suddenly there were all these videos of her from 20 years ago making an off-comment that was Generated around the time of the film's release and I remember thinking This is this feels all too coordinated to me This doesn't feel real to me and then and I kept saying to friends you seeing this online I don't follow celebrity culture, but I was being fed it and God I did the penny drop for you. So four months later Blake lively files a suit Saying that there had been retaliation against her for making a sexual harassment allegation and That she claimed there was a deliberate campaign run against during the context of that publicity campaign In retaliation for her sexual harassment complaint. I sent it to everyone going see I told you so and what's more interesting is it came out that the same PR people that acted for Johnny Depp Acted for Justin Bell don't he and those messages saying we can take down anyone. We can what was it? Very anyone anyone when I saw that I was like yeah, I hope people start to now look back differently on what happened to Amber because We're now seeing it happen again and we'll keep seeing it happen again Unless we start holding these people accountable and calling it out when it happens And so I really hope it's like for me like we wrote our book and made this film because I want people to to watch this film and Actually reflect On what they think they thought they knew about Amber herds case How they reacted to her and what drove that reaction was an unconscious bias was at the online campaign and How might we approach the next case that comes up? It's a really tough one because they think everyone would have to hold a mirror up to themselves Not only a mirror up to Johnny and to the men in all of these suits, but You know, it was so convincing for so many people to be tricked by this that you'd have to sort of admit I think you know similar that was like oh, I I did fall down a bit of a rabbit hole on something and what does that say? About me, but it's actually like yes It probably says you know something to interrogate and us all but like we're at this transition this pivotal time in Social media in the world right now that Blake and Amber were sort of just the first and people didn't understand what the Bot campaigns were they didn't even know that was a thing yet So I hope that people are able to look back and be like okay Just because I might have got something wrong doesn't mean that I'm a bad person or done the wrong thing It's just absolutely we're all part of it. It's bot campaign. We've never seen that before I think we are I and I actually I don't want to be overly critical look I if I sit back and I used to say this about Julian Assange people people had certain views about Julian Assange and I would sit back and say look I'm happy to sit and talk to you about it But if I had if I wasn't at the center of it and I was sitting back and just consuming the media coverage about Julian Assange I might share your views too because the media coverage has been so filled with government propaganda and really negative about him So of course you're going to be affected by that But this is where media literacy comes in and people being educating themselves That perhaps the narrative they're getting about a particular person the media or online may not may not be the truth And looking for alternative sources, but I think we also need to I think government also needs to have a good look at how the online space and the algorithms are being Manipulated and used to push particular narratives particularly to young boys in our society Including the misogynistic content about Amber heard and the joint-app trial. Yeah, that was part of this problem and The impact that's having on young boys and young girls in our society and what it will mean in the future About equality for this country about violence against women in this country is really scary I don't blame those young boys who were being affected by this. I blame us all of us collectively I blame the platforms. I blame the people propagating this material Yeah, I blame the platforms and I blame our policymakers. I suppose my other question is When we have moments like this online that take over and dominate the space and dominate public opinion How does it impact their right to a fair trial? Look in front of a judge I don't think it does our judges are trained to ignore what's happening in the public space and Objectively assess the evidence before them. I think when you're in front of a jury It's a very different different prospect So I do think that the online space had a material effect on the outcome that that Jury came to the verdict. They came to that's my opinion. I Also just think the verdict was the the jurors got the law wrong. They didn't understand the law They were swayed by the male centric myths and tropes that joint-eps team were deliberately using Basically, I mean they said things like This is portrayed as a me two case, which is not by the way. This happened what happened to Amber happened before me too So there's me to has nothing to do with what happened to her It's only in the post post the me two movement people actually started to care that he had been violent towards her He was still getting that's what that was the whole the whole point was no one cared That was a question. They were still casting him in films and suddenly after the me two movements She did not speak out but people started to go hang on a second. Didn't he? Didn't she get a domestic violence restraining order and that started the whole thing But they would say things in court like oh, this is a me two case, but no one else has accused him And so it's like well just because no one else is standing here accusing him doesn't mean he didn't do it No, I know but that plays to people. They're like oh, well, he didn't do it 20 or no So he mustn't have done it in this case It doesn't seem to matter what the evidence is even with Blake Liveley She had some huge wins in her case and yet it didn't seem to move the needle If I'm even thinking like the diddy trial for example like the amount of people online that was saying that Cassie his ex girlfriend was a willing participant because she stayed is just a fundamental misunderstanding of how abuse and trauma works It's the same they said the same with Amber. Why did she stay in Amber's case? She gave evidence in court saying I loved him and I had grown up in a violent home where my mother stayed So I was taught that you stuck it out and Also, he was a drug addict and I was trying to help him get better and I believe that if I could help him get better and stop Abusing drugs and alcohol that the violence would stop And so she stayed to try to help him but people are like oh, she stayed so it can't be true But also can you imagine you're Amber heard and you're in love with Johnny Depp who's one of the biggest celebrities in the world It's not that easy to go to the police If you make a decision to go to the police you are starting a huge global controversy the deterrence that That sits around that and also so many women Amber included didn't want to go to the police. They don't want their partner Whatever they've done to them. They don't want them to go to prison No, and that is a very common. I hear that a lot from women who you know their partner was violent towards them They've got kids together. They don't want to see their partner in prison They don't want to deny their kids access to their dad. They just want to get out of the relationship And so going to the police is not always the answer We have to find alternative ways of managing this but and also there's the very real economic Concern absolutely for many women in this country leaving is economically impossible our frontline services are Overstretched beyond belief. I'm such a huge supporter of our refuge movement and women shelters Not just because my grandmother worked there, but because we know they save lives Yeah, and we need to give them all money to give them more spaces to ensure that the Women who who need to leave can yeah, so I just think like people need to check their prejudices about These old male centric myths about gender-based violence with it's true Why didn't you go to the police if it's true? Why didn't she leave? Why did she stay? There are so many reasons why women stay and it's often Altruistic for the kids for him to help him It makes me so angry that that people don't understand this and all won't and so that's why I really hope lots of people See the film to listen to these women's lived experiences It did such a good job at humanizing these names and these figures that we've heard a thousand times over You know even with Britney when I was watching I'd forgotten that she was 24. Yeah, you know Like there was so many things in it that I went wow This is someone's name. I've seen in the headlines and I've been reporting on but there is that distance I suppose You know have a degree of separation when you're coming at it through just headlines Well also, I think for me with Britney too. There's just been so much noise in the media, right? What is it five years now? Yeah, that you got the teak you get fatigued by it You just so overwhelmed by all the different aspects of the story like the various legal processes the judicial review the criminal case the You know the controversy around parliament the you know defamation proceedings Ultimately, I think sometimes people forget she was a 24-year-old woman who was raped in parliament Can we not get back to that and what that means for her? I know the number of articles in the Australian about Britney Higgins is It's diluted, I mean, it's so disproportionate, but that's exactly the tactic. If you kind of flood the space, whether it's in tabloid, whether it's in media, whether it's bot campaigns online, is you successfully create this perception that they're the controversial figure? Right. And so that's why I also wanted to locate Brittany, not just have her tell her story and to put it all together in one space because people forget because so much has happened. So I wanted them to hear her voice and see the story put together in a short period, but also locate her in the context of the broader problem globally. What is really interesting, both interesting and scary to me, is the commonalities between her cases and cases I see around the world. And I'll list them for you. A young woman who speaks out about her rape or sexual assault, horrendous discussion of her in the media, filled with malcentric tropes about why she's a liar, then legal proceedings, being caught up in tied up in legal proceedings, on and on, online media campaigns against them which are horrific, to the point where the woman involved wants to take her own life and does try to take her own life, or has to leave the country. All of that happened in Brittany's case. All of that happened in Shiori Ito's case in Japan. All of that is happening in at least three or four other cases I could list in different countries around the world, some of which I can speak about publicly, some of which I can't. So it is not just that this is Brittany Higgins. It is that her case is emblematic of a much bigger problem. So it's not just about her. There's nothing particular about her in many ways or what happened to her that is about her or the particular perpetrator. The same pattern plays out and for the woman involved, that's why to your point about how powerful it was to see Amber and Brittany come together in this film, it was so important to me to get them together and it's kind of a miracle we managed it because no one else knows what it's like to be at the center of these things and these women. And even though I'm a lawyer who worked very closely with Amber, I've observed it and experienced it with her. I don't know what it's like to be the person at the center of it. And you did experience, like people came for you as well, right? Oh, absolutely, but as a lawyer, you know, I'm one step removed and I have broad shoulders, but yes, absolutely, they came from me like death and rape threats, scary online campaigns about my personal life, about my professionalism, about, you know, what did or didn't happen in the case. It still goes on today. I just don't look at it anymore. There's so many crazy people on the internet. Yeah. And one of the things from our book is that women say to me, here in Australia when they read it and give me their reaction all around the world is how validating it is for them to understand that it wasn't just them, that they weren't going crazy, that it wasn't just their experiences, that this is actually part of a broader cultural and legal cultural problem. I think we're in a really scary time that just even the reputation of someone being litigious is enough to shut down newsrooms and that's not going to bird well for democracy. I hear that all the time, the people that I need to avoid talking about and things like that, which is. No, of course, but you know this as a journalist. If someone is known to be wealthy and litigious and you are going to do a story about them, there's caution. Totally. There is a decision in that newsroom, are we willing to take this risk? Are we willing to risk our legal budget on this? Can we fight it? Can we prove this in court? These are the conversations that the public doesn't understand we have, as journalists and as lawyers for journalists, when you're weighing up whether to publish a story. So the stories that end up in the public domain are just a small fraction of the stories that actually could be reported. Journalists know so much more and the reason for that is the law. Like, look, we've just seen, and I've got to be careful about the way I talk about it, but we've just seen, there's been a suppression order recently about text messages about high profile sports, sportsmen talking in derogatory ways about violence against women. That the ABC wanted to report upon and as a result of legal action taken by them and they can't be named because of the suppression order. It's a public fact that the suppression order exists to stop the publication of text messages of high profile footballers, male footballers talking derogate in ways about violence against women, which is. In this context where we're talking about the culture in our, for example, AFL, around what's happening with the Sydney swans. The question of the culture in professional male, professional sports in this country is right at the forefront of our discussion right now and there's a suppression order preventing us from being able to see. Who is this protecting? And why? Yeah. I care about free speech from a much bigger perspective, which is not just about violence against women. It's about what that means for our democracy. But in the context of a national emergency on violence against women, in the context of massive real concerns about culture and rape culture in our professional sports, in our private boys schools, that you've got these reputation management tools silencing using the law to silence discussion of these stories, I think is really problematic. To me, if we can't talk about violence against women and we can't call these people out for their conduct, how are we ever going to change it? Well, exactly. And that's why we haven't seen the stats change. And then so much of that is because we can't speak freely and that's like the most powerful tool we have as women is to be able to keep talking to each other. But I'm just so grateful for the work that you do and that you continue to do and I couldn't recommend this film any more than I have, I think every woman should watch it. Every man should watch it. Every man. But thank you so much for coming on this show and for speaking at length with me about this. It's been just an honor to have you on. Oh, thank you for such a thoughtful conversation and I really hope that the film helps journalists like you as well and that's part of my aim that we help women and men who want to speak out about their abuse and make it easier for journalists like you to be able to report on it. Thank you for coming on.