I propose categorizing doxing into three types: deanonymization, targeting, and delegitimization. Each attempts to remove or damage something different from the subject: anonymity, obscurity, and credibility, respectively. Each type of doxing also creates new possibilities to further interfere with the life of the person involved. Deanonymization makes it easier to obtain other types of identity knowledge about the subject, and so creates greater opportunities for the other types of doxing to occur. Whatever advantages or protection the subject sought to gain by seeking anonymity or adopting a pseudonym will be lost. Targeting doxing creates the possibility that future harassment may take a physical form, with the uncertainty and risks of harm that it brings. The subject may be harassed and inconvenienced by others using her personal information to impersonate her. Finally, delegitimization presents a motivation for carrying out harassment and potentially further doxing by detailing how the subject is somehow unworthy of respect. These categories are listed and summarized in Table 3.
I now describe each category of doxing in further detail.
Deanonymizing doxing
Deanonymizing doxing releases information that reveals the identity of the person (or persons) who has previously been anonymous or known by a pseudonym. It also covers instances where someone’s identity is revealed publically regardless of whether she has deliberately sought to conceal her identity or not.
Deanonymization is the broadest of the three categories of doxing as it can affect every type of identity knowledge and negates every rationale for anonymity. Depending on the subject’s rationale for anonymity and the type of identity knowledge released, it may not cause significant harm to the subject, and there may be plausible public interest justifications for disclosing it. For example, there is at least a prima facie public interest justification for revealing someone’s identity when anonymity or a pseudonym is being used to deceive others for personal gain (a con artist impersonating someone else to gain money or prestige, for example). Literary hoaxes are an example that I will return to later in discussing the potential justifications for doxing.
A famous instance of deanonymizing doxing is the reveal of the supposed identity of the person behind the pseudonym ‘Satoshi Nakamoto’. Satoshi Nakamoto is the name adopted by the creator (or creators) of the Bitcoin crypto-currency (Nakamoto n.d.). The true identity of Bitcoin’s creator is still uncertain. An article in Newsweek identified Dorian Satoshi Nakamoto as Bitcoin’s creator, a claim he has repeatedly and consistently denied (Goodman 2014). The creator of Bitcoin has a number of clear rationales for anonymity: avoiding interference, protection, and a desire not to draw attention away from the creation itself.
Another example is the deanonymization of the notorious Reddit moderator ‘Violentacrez’, who was revealed to be Michael Brutsch by the blog Gawker.Footnote 6 Brutsch was a volunteer moderator who contributed to and oversaw various forums (or ‘sub-reddits’) on the Reddit website. Violentacrez was heavily involved in deliberately provocative sub-reddits such as ‘creepshots’ (which featured voyeuristic photographs of unsuspecting women) and ‘jailbait’ (which featured photographs of girls under the age of consent) (Chen 2012a). Brutsch claimed in a television interview that he treated his activities on Reddit as a game (Chen 2012c). This is the rationale of play from Marx’s list of rationales for anonymity. Violentacrez was an example of an Internet ‘troll’: someone who deliberately flouts social norms and provokes others for her own amusement, often under some form of anonymity (Phillips 2012).Footnote 7 The pseudonym allowed Brutsch to entertain himself and others by deliberately offending people and breaking social taboos with the material he posted on the website. Protecting his reputation (and employability) is another important justification (and another of Marx’s rationales for anonymity), and an accurate one given that Brutsch lost his job as a result of his legal identity being connected with that of Violentacrez (Chen 2012b).
Targeting doxing
Targeting doxing reveals specific information about an individual that allows her to be physically located. It reveals physical locatability (rather than communicative locatability, like a telephone number or email address) identity knowledge about the subject.Footnote 8 Targeting doxing increases the subject’s physical accessibility by removing the obscurity surrounding where a person lives or works. Losing this obscurity makes someone more vulnerable to physical harassment because of whom specifically she is.
Targeting doxing often follows from deanonymization. As Marx’s rationales for anonymity suggest, seeking anonymity is frequently adopted to reduce the risk of being targeted. The identity knowledge revealed through deanonymizing doxing makes it easier to uncover further identity knowledge, such as the subject’s physical location and workplace.
The forms of harassment made possible by targeting doxing range from irritating pranks to physical assault (or worse). Relatively harmless but annoying pranks can range from calls from car dealers responding to supposed interest in a car to having to cancel unwanted deliveries ordered in the subject’s name (Matisse 2015). Even these seemingly minor annoyances can serve as a form of intimidation. Mantilla (2015) mentions a case where a subject received an unordered pizza that had been ordered under the name of an accused murderer known to that individual. Another possible form of harassment is ‘swatting’, where an attacker makes a hoax call to the police claiming that there is a violent disturbance at the subject’s address, prompting an armed police response (Mantilla 2015).Footnote 9 The identity knowledge gained through targeting doxing can be used to impersonate the subject, and in extreme cases, has been used to make it appear that the subject herself is encouraging others to attack or sexually assault her (Jouvenal 2013; Citron 2014).
‘The Nuremberg Files’ website is a notorious example of targeting doxing. This web site began in 1997 and listed the names and personal details of doctors who performed abortions in the US. The site also listed the personal details of the doctors’ families (Solove 2007). The Nuremberg Files example illustrates the importance of the context within which identity knowledge is presented.Footnote 10 At least some of the information presented there (particularly, the addresses of abortion clinics) would already be publicly accessible. What makes it targeting doxing (beyond the additional identity knowledge about the doctors and their families) is presenting this information in a manner that promotes harassing the subjects.
Delegitimizing doxing
Delegitimizing doxing releases private information with the intention of undermining the subject’s credibility, reputation, and/or character. It attempts to shame and humiliate the subject, often by portraying her as a transgressor of an established (or supposed)Footnote 11 social norm. Whether the subject herself accepts or promotes the social norm is irrelevant. Revealing the subject to be a hypocrite (by publicly supporting a social norm while privately breaking it) is certainly an attempt at delegitimizing her, but delegitimization goes beyond revealing actual or supposed hypocrisy. It can serve as a tool for maintaining the ‘tyranny of the majority’ that concerned John Stuart Mill. By drawing attention to how the subject differs from “prevailing opinion and feeling”, delegitimizing doxing serves to “fetter the development, and […] prevent the formation of, any individuality not in harmony with its ways” (Mill 1989[1859]: 8).
Reporting information and seeking advice, information, or assistance (rationale 4 in Marx’s list) presents the possibility for delegitimization depending on the information sought or reported, and the help requested. The traditional confidentiality of medical records and library borrowings is also motivated by a desire to keep potentially embarrassing or easily misunderstood information secret, so that people can seek medical help or read controversial books without fear of being ostracized for doing so (Rindfleisch 1997; Bowers 2006). A straightforward example is a teenage girl anonymously seeking a pregnancy test or an abortion. If her identity was revealed, she risks being stigmatized and shamed for being sexually active at a young age, especially if unmarried motherhood and/or abortion are unacceptable in her society.
Sexuality is frequently used to delegitimize others. The violent and misogynist language surrounding many instances of delegitimizing doxing implies the objectification of the subject, portraying her as a thing to be used and discarded rather than an autonomous person worthy of respect (Nussbaum 2010). An example is involuntary pornography or so-called ‘revenge porn’, where intimate or explicit photographs and videos of individuals are posted online without their consent, either by former lovers or by third parties who have somehow acquired them (Mantilla 2015). These images are sometimes accompanied by personal information identifying the person (Citron 2014). As Citron writes, “Harassers post women’s nude images because they know it will make them unemployable, undateable, and at risk for sexual assault” (2014:17). While men are also victims of involuntary pornography, the overwhelming majority of victims are women. For example, Reynolds (2016) reports that images of women were involved in 80 % of the 139 cases of involuntary pornography reported in the UK between January and April 2015. Involuntary pornography and other forms of delegitimizing doxing of women based on their sexuality are only the latest instances of the long-lived and surprisingly resilient activity of ‘slut-shaming’, where women and girls are ridiculed and harassed for their real or imagined sexual activity. Such harassment has a history going back to at least Roman times (Webb 2015). It also reveals a double standard in the social norms associated with sexuality, as male heterosexual activity does not share the same social disapproval (Poole 2013; Citron 2014).
Part of the harm delegitimizing doxing causes is what Franks (2012) calls ‘virtual captivity’: the abuse directed at someone on the Internet is potentially available to everyone who interacts with her, and so might affect every social relation she has. The possibility that everyone the subject interacts with (personally or professionally) has been exposed to the delegitimizing material is enough to cause significant emotional distress and social withdrawal. Martha Nussbaum describes something similar with her concept of subjectivity-violation, where for an abuser, “pleasure is taken in invading and colonizing the person’s inner world” (2010: 72).
The context or framing within which delegitimizing doxing occurs is significant, and much of the harm it can cause is a result of taking documentary evidence out of context. An incident described by Boyd (2011) presents a good illustration of this problem. A college admissions officer asked boyd about an apparent contradiction in a prospective student’s application: the student claimed to want to leave the ‘gang-ridden’ community he lived in, but the admissions officer found the student’s MySpace page included gang insignia. The officer questioned why the student would lie in his application; Boyd’s (2011) response is that adopting gang insignia is a necessity for survival in such a community, and that there is no contradiction in adopting the social norms of a community and secretly desiring to be free of their influence.
Delegitimizing doxing is often accompanied by targeting doxing, and so it might be questioned whether there is a significant difference between them. The difference between is that delegitimizing doxing supplies ‘evidence’ for targeting the person involved. If targeting doxing supplies the means for harassing the subject, delegitimizing doxing supplies the supposed ‘motive’ for doing so.
The combination of targeting and delegitimizing doxing is demonstrated by the ‘GamerGate’ incident, where several high-profile female computer game developers were subjected to prolonged harassment, intimidation, and vilification. The catalyst of this incident was an account posted on the Internet by Eron Gjoni, a former boyfriend of the independent game developer Zoe Quinn, of their failed relationship (Mantilla 2015). Quinn’s personal details were released on the Internet and she became the target of prolonged and sustained harassment, intimidation, and vilification (Mantilla 2015). While attempts were made to justify these attacks as attempts to expose wrongdoing in computer games journalism, as one of the men Quinn was alleged to have had a relationship with was a video games journalist (who had not even written about Quinn’s game), misogynism is a more convincing explanation (Mantilla 2015). Following the attacks on Quinn, other prominent women associated with computer games, including developer Brianna Wu and critic Anita Sarkessian, were also targets of sustained harassment and intimidation that included targeting and delegitimizing doxing (Mantilla 2015).