4 ms·

Victim blaming/"they deserve it": "For the most part, high-profile "targets" from the troll's perspective are already known to the public anyway."

paddyoloughlin 12y ago
I read that differently from you. I think the author was simply pointing out that well-known people are well known, so their privacy is, almost by definition, limited anyway.
- pmjordan 12y ago
  This handily ignores that doxxing is not some virtuous research and release of pure facts in the public interest. Its purpose is to turn lies about the victim into the publicly perceived truth (defamation) by mixing them with the weight of real facts. That people who have some level of public exposure (as you and I do, posting on a public forum) will have some personal information out in the open is obvious. The thread-starter appears to be playing down the damage that doxxing can do "I do want to gently call into question the danger of the attack surfaces". To me, their admittedly unspoken, conclusion from point 1 is therefore "they had it coming".
  - paddyoloughlin 12y ago
    I agree with that and I'm not sure what that jMyles' point was there, but I still don't think he/she was victim blaming, but rather making some sort of observation about the nature of privacy and popularity.
  - jMyles 12y ago
    That's a cruel outlook and not at all what I meant. I think it's reasonable (and in fact an essential part of calling into question the norms of patriarchy) to point out that attack surfaces are real and they require scrutiny. In this case, the one with which you seem to take issue OP's point #1, which I merely want to point out is a surface that is only available against people who haven't already dox'd themselves. And for those people - people who want to occupy a place on the anonymity spectrum that is far away from a "public figure," the threats to this attack surface are more damning than trolls - they include huge advertising corporations and the NSA.
gknoy 12y ago
I think they meant more that it was the trolls' targeting critera ("Has lots of Attention, and 'doesn't deserve it" implies someone you can google, or who has a relatively large following), NOT that it was any implication that the target deserves such abuse.
- pmjordan 12y ago
  I read it as "If you don't want to be harassed, you shouldn't have a public presence." FWIW, immediately before that sentence, the thread-starter called into question the real danger of doxxing and calls to "action" based on the released information/misinformation.
  - jMyles 12y ago
    > "If you don't want to be harassed, you shouldn't have a public presence." I did not at all mean that. What I meant was that doxxing is a complex attack surface. If someone is already high-profile and public, they can't really be dox'd. If someone isn't, then staying anonymous is a more harder task than avoiding being dox'd. That's all I was saying. If anything, I think that people who choose not to be anonymous need more social / political support, not less.
mkal_tsr 12y ago
It's not victim blaming to say, "this attack surface is larger than that attack surface." Shame on you.

paddyoloughlin 12y ago

I read that differently from you. I think the author was simply pointing out that well-known people are well known, so their privacy is, almost by definition, limited anyway.

pmjordan 12y ago
This handily ignores that doxxing is not some virtuous research and release of pure facts in the public interest. Its purpose is to turn lies about the victim into the publicly perceived truth (defamation) by mixing them with the weight of real facts. That people who have some level of public exposure (as you and I do, posting on a public forum) will have some personal information out in the open is obvious. The thread-starter appears to be playing down the damage that doxxing can do "I do want to gently call into question the danger of the attack surfaces". To me, their admittedly unspoken, conclusion from point 1 is therefore "they had it coming".
- paddyoloughlin 12y ago
  I agree with that and I'm not sure what that jMyles' point was there, but I still don't think he/she was victim blaming, but rather making some sort of observation about the nature of privacy and popularity.
- jMyles 12y ago
  That's a cruel outlook and not at all what I meant. I think it's reasonable (and in fact an essential part of calling into question the norms of patriarchy) to point out that attack surfaces are real and they require scrutiny. In this case, the one with which you seem to take issue OP's point #1, which I merely want to point out is a surface that is only available against people who haven't already dox'd themselves. And for those people - people who want to occupy a place on the anonymity spectrum that is far away from a "public figure," the threats to this attack surface are more damning than trolls - they include huge advertising corporations and the NSA.

gknoy 12y ago

I think they meant more that it was the trolls' targeting critera ("Has lots of Attention, and 'doesn't deserve it" implies someone you can google, or who has a relatively large following), NOT that it was any implication that the target deserves such abuse.

pmjordan 12y ago
I read it as "If you don't want to be harassed, you shouldn't have a public presence." FWIW, immediately before that sentence, the thread-starter called into question the real danger of doxxing and calls to "action" based on the released information/misinformation.
- jMyles 12y ago
  > "If you don't want to be harassed, you shouldn't have a public presence." I did not at all mean that. What I meant was that doxxing is a complex attack surface. If someone is already high-profile and public, they can't really be dox'd. If someone isn't, then staying anonymous is a more harder task than avoiding being dox'd. That's all I was saying. If anything, I think that people who choose not to be anonymous need more social / political support, not less.

mkal_tsr 12y ago

It's not victim blaming to say, "this attack surface is larger than that attack surface." Shame on you.