Doxing: a new form of online harassment

Doxing is one of the latest examples of harassment adapted to recent times. It is an example of how our way of harming others evolves as new technologies develop.

Specifically, it is a type of harassment based on the internet udo and the power that this virtual space has when it comes to harming us, to the point of making us afraid of it. Unfortunately, in addition, doxing is becoming more and more common, and it is especially prevalent with women. In this article we will see what it consists of.

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What is doxing?

One of the characteristics for which the Internet is usually valued more positively is that it lets us do almost everything while maintaining relative anonymity. However, this anonymity can actually be a mirage. The network of networks may be a place where it is common to navigate with a mask on, but it is also true that it gives the possibility that thousands of people see private data about us or that some even manage to find out things about our life that they could hardly get to know if it were not for Internet. With some computer or programming knowledge, a few clicks are enough to remove the mask that stands between a real person and a forum or social network.

Doxing is, technically, a set of strategies aimed at gathering information from a target, be it an individual or an organization. However, in practice it does not have to stop simply by storing this data, and this type of private information is used as a form of harassment on the Internet, threatening and extorting to make public what has been discovered about the victim.

Normally doxing takes advantage of the fingerprint that we leave when browsing the Internet, when leaving comments and when registering and interacting with web pages so that, based on those few data, we will stretch the thread and find things like the place of residence, the names of the closest friends, hobbies, political opinions... or even confessions and videos compromising.

A form of far-reaching online harassment

In an age where an unfortunate photo posted on Facebook can cost you job placement, doxing is a form of extortion that has virtually no limits. If a photograph, video or story published on Twitter reaches a level of diffusion that is close to viral, a person can go on to receive dozens of taunts and threats overnight, from people she does not know and will not know but who, at the same time, have the power to abuse her psychologically.

Doxing is especially used to eliminate the influence of competitors in the political or labor sphere. Information about the past of certain people can be published in view of all from anonymous Twitter accounts, for example, and make more and more people participate in its dissemination, through a kind of snowball effect.

In addition, in these cases the truth can be combined with the lie. Accompanying the falsehoods with data, videos or images that are real allows to give truth to a set in which most of the things are invented, and all this to harm someone in a way remote. In any case, regardless of the veracity of what is disseminated, the footprint left by this type of information on the Internet is permanent, and can be reached years after everything has happened.

The minors are the most exposed

Doxing often goes hand in hand with cyberbullying, and its effects on young people are especially damaging. On the one hand, the end of childhood and adolescence are moments in life in which belonging to the group is usually of paramount importance, and being exposed in this way may see the possibility of receiving social acceptance jeopardized or even to make it more possible for bullying to appear or intensify. In addition, being a type of threat for which one is not prepared, the indecision about what to do and dependence on adults lead to very high levels of stress and anxiety.

However, adolescents and children are not the only demographic especially vulnerable to these types of practices. Doxing is a type of symbolic violence that also affects women a lot.

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A problem that especially affects women

According to a recent study, doxing as a form of threat due to the disclosure of personal data affects mainly the female sex. Specifically, one in 4 Spanish women who have been harassed by the Internet have ever suffered from its effects, through threats from spreading data that can leave them in a vulnerable situation.

How do you explain this? Part of it has to do with the ease with which women are stigmatized. The effect of spreading certain private information does not have the same effect if the victim is a woman, since it is still relatively normal for people associated with this gender to be judged. This disparity makes these types of threats more effective in dominating the victims than in the case doing what is asked of them, they can become increasingly exposed, generating more and more information confidential.