Doxing is classed as the act of taking personal information about someone and posting it online against their will; it’s often done maliciously in a deliberate attempt to make the person suffer in some way. When posting private details of someone, you’re taking away that person’s right to anonymity not only online, but also in the real world. After all, things that are posted online can have many real-world consequences. Publicising information about someone can be dangerous, because you never know who that information’s going to reach and what can happen as a result of it being publicly posted. An example of doxing is when Michael Hirsh, editor of Politico, published the home address of Richard B. Spencer, a white nationalist, on Facebook. Hirsh ended up resigning from his post.
Is doxing morally acceptable? Absolutely not. We all have the right to privacy and if someone doesn’t want personal details of any kind, that’s their choice. They shouldn’t have to suffer the consequences of someone posting their details online for goodness knows how many people to see. The only person who should ever post sensitive information about you online is you. Many of us already do post openly and freely on the internet – a huge percentage of us forgo privacy and let the world know what we’re doing through social media. But even those of us who are active on social media deserve to be in control over what goes online and what doesn’t.
If you post details about someone else online, there’s no telling what can happen, especially if it’s things like contact info that’s posted. It’s scary that something like doxing can happen and what’s even scarier is the consequences that can happen because of it. No one should lost the right to anonymity online, no matter what they do. If you want to keep your private life private, no one has the right to disrupt that by taking things into their hands and making your private details public.
