Jenna Sherman, a campaign director at the advocacy group UltraViolet, said, “Opt-out models are not consent.” She argued that warning sounds can be missed in places such as parties, concerts and children’s playrooms, leaving bystanders to monitor devices they don’t own.
“Opt-out models are not consent,” Jenna Sherman, a campaign director for the advocacy group UltraViolet, which focuses on the impacts of consumer tech on gendered and sexual violence, told The Verge. “Being given the option to opt out rather than choosing actively to opt in are very different. One requires a person to be informed and to be enthusiastically and intentionally choosing something, and the other is passive and doesn’t actually place any power into the consumer’s hand. This decision is being made by the companies, and the consumer is being forced to adapt to that decision, and the default model is that you will be subjected to that surveillance.”
Sherman notes that companies are likely well aware of the fact that many people will find it difficult or impossible to truly opt out when always-listening and always-watching devices become ubiquitous. “Not everyone sees the recording light, not everyone hears whatever warning sound is playing on a watch, especially if you’re at a party or a concert, or if you’re a parent at a children’s playroom,” said Sherman.
Activists have been equally vocal about the move. Shaunna Thomas, co-founder of the women’s rights group Ultraviolet, also decried any possible payment.
“CBS’ decision to fire Moonves for cause is clearly the right decision. If they reward Moonves’ decades of sexual harassment with a massive golden parachute, it will be shameful and compounds the damage of his decades of unchecked abuse,” she wrote in a message to The Post. “As the first Fortune 500 company executive to be held accountable, CBS is setting the new standard that should become the norm across corporate America: ‘if you abuse women, you lose your job and your golden parachute.’”
Ultraviolet, a women’s advocacy group, had also called on the network not to settle with the network chief. “If the CBS board gives Moonves any amount of severance in the event of his termination or resignation, you will compound the damage you’ve already inflicted on the progress towards stopping sexual violence with your decision to allow Moonves to continue working,” stated UltraViolet co-founder and executive director Shaunna Thomas in a letter to the CBS board dated Aug. 23.
Along with fears about the future of the country, Shaunna Thomas protested Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearing for young girls like her daughter — and was ultimately detained by U.S. Capitol Police for four hours.
“I believe it’s possible to be successful, but only if we are willing to put our own bodies on the line, and that’s what I had to do yesterday — not just for myself, not just for UltraViolet members, but frankly for my daughter,” Thomas, executive director and co-founder of the women’s advocacy group UltraViolet, tells Bustle of protesters’ efforts to block Kavanaugh’s confirmation.
Shaunna Thomas, 37, was arrested for disorderly conduct around 30 minutes into the hearing, she said. “Senators, on behalf of millions of women whose rights would be stripped by a Kavanaugh court, I demand you reject this nomination,” she stood up and shouted over the committee chairman, Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa.
Thomas is the co-founder and executive director of UltraViolet, a left-leaning organization that works to fight sexism. Her main concern, she said, is that Roe vs. Wade is at stake. She missed her three-year-old daughter’s first day of school to be in the hearing.
In July, the women’s rights group UltraViolet issued a call for an inquiry into what Kavanaugh might have seen as a law clerk to Kozinski from 1990–91. This was an entirely reasonable request, given that for many of us, it was hard to sit on a panel or go to a dinner with Judge Kozinski and his law clerks without seeing or hearing some form of hypersexualized grotty dinner theater. In response to this request, the White House issued a statement.
On Tuesday, American Bridge, a left-leaning political action committee, and UltraViolet, a women’s advocacy group, launched their “Worst for Women” campaign, calling out 15 sitting members of Congress they say have dubious track records on women’s issues. The groups drew up their rankings based on representatives’ and senators’ votes on the Affordable Care Act, GOP tax legislation, defunding Planned Parenthood, abortion rights, wage increases, and workers’ rights.
But activists said that waiting was a mistake.
“This is a vulnerable moment — a moment when Les Moonves is still in power and the CBS board is keeping him in power,” Shaunna Thomas, executive director of women’s organization UltraViolet, told The Post. “This is when everyone who can speak out should speak out.”
Thomas said she remains unconvinced that the operating dynamic on Moonves was simple of an industry wary of passing premature judgment.
“There’s something to the theory that he’s just more powerful than the other guys,” she said.
Meanwhile, women’s organization UltraViolet issued a statement, saying “For years, Bill Shine actively covered up Roger Ailes and Bill O’Reilly’s sexual misconduct at Fox News, created and fostered a toxic work environment at the network, and actively retaliated against women who reported their abuse.
“While certainly disturbing, Fox News’ Bill Shine is an unsurprising pick for the Trump White House. Since taking office, the Trump administration has been a revolving door of abusers of women and their enablers—and Shine is just the latest perpetrator to be added to those ranks.”
Shaunna Thomas, a co-founder of Ultraviolet, said in an interview on Friday that Spotify’s reversal was “shameful” and “disheartening.”
“There is no consequence for abusing women and they’re just affirming that in a really straightforward way,” she said. “They’ve decided that their bottom line is important.”
Ms. Thomas added that she agreed with the critique that Spotify had been problematic in narrowly targeting only specific black men, but the solution, she said, was “not to reverse the hateful conduct policy, but rather to expand it — to be comprehensive.”
“Women weren’t asking Spotify to play judge and jury,” she said. “We were just asking the company to stop promoting artists that have a documented history of physical and sexual abuse.”
On Monday, Executive Director Shaunna Thomas (who is white) penned an open letter to Spotify head Daniel Ek with the belief that their new public Hate Content and Hateful Conduct policy is a step in the right direction, particularly for black women.
“Your action demonstrates that Spotify is following the lead of Black women who demanded that these two men [R. Kelly and XXXTentacion], who have sexually and physically abused women for years, not be promoted and celebrated,” it reads.
And before you assume that the organization is only coming for black or black-adjacent artists and music, they’re also imploring Spotify to remove The Red Hot Chili Peppers, Don Henley of The Eagles, Ted Nugent and Steven Tyler of Aerosmith. (Yea, they’re not playing).
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