Netizens

Cynthia Lowen’s powerful documentary Netizens highlights three women as each wages war against one of the internet’s most malevolent forces: prevalent and un-policed misogyny, harassment, and stalking. Directed at thousands of women daily by way of social media, it lies in plain sight, and its ramifications never remain only online. The film deftly depicts not only the forms digital abuse can take, from non-consensual pornography to invasion of privacy, but also the consequences for its victims. Lawyer Carrie Goldberg battles a justice system that largely refuses to acknowledge digital abuse as a prosecutable crime; Anita Sarkeesian, a media critic and activist, takes on the ambivalent response of Silicon Valley companies to the threatening behavior they enable; and Tina, a successful businesswoman, struggles to regain control of her career after a vicious campaign of cyber harassment. Combining intimate, vérité footage of its subjects with illuminating interviews with experts and advocates, Netizens is both an urgent call to action against digital abuse and an acutely observed portrait of those fighting against it. (Tribeca Film Festival)