How to Dox Yourself on the Internet
No one wants their home address on the internet. That is personal information we typically only give out to friends, family and maybe our favorite online stores. Yet, for many of us, that information is available and accessible to anyone with an internet connection. And increasingly for journalists, public figures and activists, this kind of information is dug up and posted to online forums as a form of harassment, or doxxing. Doxxing (also sometimes called “doxing”) is a low-level tactic with a high-impact outcome: it often does not require much time or many resources, but it can cause significant damage to the person targeted. Once sensitive information — such as home address, phone number, names of family members or email addresses — about a targeted individual is posted to public forums, it can be used by others for further targeting.
The tactic is typically used to intimidate and silence, to prove a point or to discredit someone’s work. In 2019, a far-right group that disagreed with news coverage posted the personal information for three dozen journalists from news organizations in the United States, including The New York Times, on a site run by the group. After Christine Blasey Ford testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee in 2018, her personal phone number, home address and more were posted on Twitter and she soon started receiving death threats and harassment. During the Hong Kong protests in 2019, doxxing was a tactic used by both sides to expose personal information of protestors, police officers, journalists and social workers.
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