Doxxing is one of the worst things you can perpetrate on the internet, with maybe exceptions for doxxing people who post videos of themselves throwing puppies off cliffs or something. And even then we probably don’t want to be part of that.
I understand that the OP probably had to go through almost no effort since the name was leaked by a minor news outlet, but it’s still doxxing.
Doxxing can seriously ruin lives, and it happens with disturbing frequency to women, especially. (Along with trans people and homosexual people). This goes far beyond mere jerkitude, I honestly believe it’s one of the worst non-violent crimes you can commit against a person. Even more than things like literally stealing your stuff because at least when someone commits theft the police don’t shrug and say “I don’t know what you expect us to do about it, ma’am ”
Even if it’s just a name, if she had any social media presence, a forum where registered under her real name ages ago, an email on a site that’s been hacked in the past, a website domain registered under her name, or any other number of things it is entirely possible that somebody with just that info and a grudge could blow her wide open in a day. Obviously that’s true of any name given on the internet, no matter how innocuously, but this information was clearly given with malice, and was an implicit invitation for like-minded individuals to do this.
As internet-wide forum precedent goes, I believe any attempt at doxxing can get you instabanned from larger sites like Reddit nowadays. With the caveat that there are also more people to capitalize on the info on larger sites. Even if you let the OP slide with just a warning because it’s undocumented, I strongly recommend putting it on the books as an instaban offense for anyone that does it in the future.
There’s honest mistakes, of course, if someone thought the name was common knowledge that can be edited out with a note. But posting the name of someone who should be anonymous with an implicit undercurrent under your posts that you have a grudge against them is serious shit. It can be even worse than a direct attack because you “didn’t even do anything”, you just provided the means for others to do it. It means you’re enough of a coward that you can’t even ruin someone’s life your own damn self.
Not really, no. If ‘whore’ isn’t in your autocorrect dictionary, ‘white’ is the obvious replacement, since i->o t->r are both a single key shift to the left.
A multiple page Pit thread about some Kane guy I literally had never heard off, no I didn’t read the full thread, just the last page with the warning. I don’t really care about it either, I was just curious about a warning for repeating the name when apparently it had already been made public. Is that doxxing?
Another question. I see from the last few posts in the Pit thread that the case seems to very shaky and lawyers for the accuser have just walked away, so, does it change anything if the OP was right?
Ban the guy or don’t ban him, I don’t care a whit, but if he felt no responsibility to protect the accuser because he didn’t believe her claims at all, then does it matter if it turns out that he was correct and that she was lying all along?
What history? “…slamming women he sees as “gold diggers” and supporting sports stars no matter what.”? Is that against board rules? ff not, and I’m pretty sure it isn’t, then it isn’t ‘history’. His opinions may be unpopular and he certainly overstepped the mark this time but let’s not start banning people for views the majority don’t hold.
There most certainly is. ‘Don’t be a jerk’ is the cardinal rule of the Straight Dope Message Board.
It’s been pointed out already in this thread that we have no interest in ‘you didn’t say we couldn’t’ rules enforcement. It doesn’t work with my kids and it’s not going to work here. I, for one, have a great confidence that using that standard - everything not explicitly forbidden is allowed - would lead to great cleverness on the part of some of the posters to find new ways to push the limits and we’d end up with a thousand new specific rules. Far better to leave the DBAJ rule with wide interpretation.
I’m astounded at the existence of this rule. So if Jane Smith accuses John Doe of rape, then publishing John Doe’s name in the news and on this board is fine. We are not worried about the harassment of John Doe or the damage of his reputation regarding these yet unproven allegations.
But if John Doe (or others commenting on the story) says that Jane Smith is lying, then, ye gads!, we cannot even mention this poor delicate flower’s name in public lest she be harassed.
The whole convention simply assumes the guilt of the accused which hasn’t been proven. She isn’t a “victim” until a jury decides that she is. I have no opinion on the case or its merits, but the accusation that she is a gold digger is a far less serious one than that this man is a rapist, yet the former is prohibited but the latter is permitted.
Even assuming this was a good policy, her name was nonetheless already revealed anyways. The poster didn’t break into the courthouse and release non-public information.
Lots of people in physical space know my name. I have a house, work, etc. And lots of people on this board know my real name. I don’t make a secret of it.
But if someone in a thread says that my name must be revealed, that I need to be called a whore to my face, and then posts my name?
For right or for wrong, historically there is a precedent in protecting alleged sexual assault victims names. This came to be because, in the past, the alleged victim was harassed, shamed, degraded while the alleged attacker was protected by the public.
That’s the standard right now and whether that’s still needed is a different conversation.
The OP revealed her name in the context of wanting to harass and shame her, which puts us right back to why this convention was made in the first place.
That must be clear to everyone except me. I kept up on that thread since the beginning. It’s basically the OP jumping to conclusions about the accuser being a gold digger with near universal condemnation of his viewpoint for another six pages. If he was trying to start a smear campaign against the alleged victim, he came to the wrong place.
Of course he came to the wrong place. He’s been in the wrong damned place for years. He keeps starting threads like that and keeps getting hostility in return.
But saying it’s okay to throw out the bait if no fish bites is not a good standard.
This seems pretty weak. You’re unwilling to defend the standard as being appropriate, but you think it’s so obvious that violating it is jerk behaviour that you say it doesn’t require any advance notice.
ISTM that whether the identity of rape-accusers should be shielded while accused rapists’ identities are trumpeted from the rooftops is a matter of legitimate opinion, about which reasonable people may differ - and it seems that you agree with this.
Looks to me like the guy was effectively warned for having a very unpopular position on this and related issues.
I just went through the thread in question. He posted 33 times. More than anyone else, but it is his thread, after all. The majority of the posts were referring to this or other alleged rape victims as liars, whores, and golddiggers. Most were referring directly to this woman. Specifically, he called for her name to be released (and image, too, so I guess we can all **see **what a whore she is?) directly 5 times that i counted. He posted that her social media accounts had supposedly been deleted. And he said that she needs to be told she is a whore directly to her face.
Then he rather gleefully posted the woman’s name. An unusual name - and he had already posted her location (of course, that would be inevitable) , her alleged career aspirations, and speculated about her family’s wealth and her looks. He said he wanted to more about the NFL players she had “associated” with in the past. If he had had more information I believe he would have posted that too.
I’m not sure what’s “weak” about my response. I was replying to poster who noted the double standard and was trying to give a historical explanation for it. My own opinion is irrelevant to the history.
I have made my personal opinion very clear in this thread. The guy was warned for a nasty move to doxx a rape victim. He wasn’t warned because his actions were unpopular. His actions were unpopular because it’s a jerky thing to do.
Is this message board REALLY in any legal jeopardy by someone revealing the name here, assuming the name is already in the public domain? If not, then I don’t see the point of having a rule against doing so.
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