The Dox Files

the_author | March 30, 2023

r/internetvigilantism Internet Vigilantism. That’s pretty much the only thing I can call this. It’s more than just harassment, more than just wishing physical harm on someone they hate—it goes way past that. Doxxing represents a culture in our society that does not trust our legal systems to act in their best interest. 

In every case of doxxing, or at least the ones I studied for this archive, there is a person behind a computer deciding that they are doing what needs to be done to rid the world of those they don’t believe should exist. 

Doxxing puts people at risk of being swatted, stalked and assaulted. It has and will continue to result in death. And doxxers will continue to be complicit in this because if that person gets hurt or dies, they’ve done their job. 

Cloudflare argued that they didn’t have the right to decide who should and shouldn’t be on the internet and that dropping Kiwi Farms wasn’t the right way to solve the issues that the forum was causing. When I first read that statement, I got angry. I thought that Cloudflare was just another company operating under an impossible ideal of neutrality on the internet (Hicks, 2021). But as I continued to read more about the issue, and what happened after they finally decided to drop the site, I came to understand what they meant. By dropping Kiwi Farms, Cloudflare was putting the information of every single user on the site on display for every supposedly well-meaning but ill-intentioned vigilante to get their hands on, to do anything with. If someone had been harmed by that release of information, Cloudflare would have been complicit in it. By dropping the site, Cloudflare allowed every single Kiwi Farms user to get doxxed.

Some people would say good riddance, knowing that the people who caused so much pain and harm to so many will finally get what’s coming to them. But if we choose to engage with those kinds of thoughts, to revel in beliefs of justice finally served, what makes us any different from the posters themselves? 

It's easy to justify doxxing when you agree with it—and there are countless examples of it being used to catch criminals or expose members of hate groups. But even so, it is undoubtedly dangerous. Doxxing is too effective. It gives people a way to take revenge against those they don't agree with, to work outside the law and seek 'justice', and get away with it. 

Doxxing is not a tech problem. It may be possible because of technological advancements, but solving it with bans, online moderation, and A.I. is not going to stop it from happening. No, doxxing is a people issue (Hicks, 2021). It happens because someone, somewhere, decides that putting others at risk by exposing their identity can be justified. 

I don’t know how legislation would tackle this. Reporters and the police dox their targets all the time (Eckert & Metzger-Riftkin, 2020). Lawmakers would have to decide who to protect, and they’ve never been great at that. What I do know, however, is that talking about it is a start. And we need to start somewhere.