A 'Doxxing Truck' Displaying Students' Faces Comes to Harvard's Campus | Hacker News Reader

A 'Doxxing Truck' Displaying Students' Faces Comes to Harvard's Campus

thecrimson.com

49 pointsjrflowers75 comments

(I hadn't heard about the letter in question, and, FWIW, I'm sympathetic to what I understand of multiple groups in recent tragedies. Am commenting on a separate topic.)

Before globally-accessible campus newspaper Web editions, and especially before Twitter mobs, I had the impression that universities were a relatively safe space for dialogue, including on controversial topics with impassioned viewpoints.

Are students and society being shortchanged, when students are afraid to say or ask something "stupid" and be corrected or informed, are afraid to discuss certain topics or accidentally say the wrong thing (because they'll be doxxed publicly, or shunned by fellow students), won't listen to and try to understand the perspective of a (good faith) speaker with whom they assume they'll disagree, etc.?

Especially in the case of high-prestige schools like Harvard, these students will disproportionately be going into positions of influence over the world. We need them to be learned and thoughtful, to be comfortable with and promote honest dialogue, to understand and have challenged their biases and assumptions, to be humble but to aspire, to be genuine.

I hope that at least individual professors are declaring their classrooms a safe space for good faith dialogue. Student groups and others of the university should also consider when they want to be public-facing, and when they want to be supporting a more nurturing environment -- to help students learn and grow, so that the later graduates will be better able to help tackle the problems of the real world.

Academia, especially humanities, has gotten amazingly intolerant of any divergent viewpoints over the past decades. Harvard is among the worst in this case. Try to get a marginally right wing personality to speak at Harvard. Students, encouraged by administrators, have increasingly turned on any thoughts that are even nanometers outside of the groupthink line. Professors are better, but they have less power.

If that's true of Harvard, I wonder whether the nature of it there is different than at most universities.

For one reason, Lawrence Summers, quoted in the Crimson piece as "former University President", was actually very publicly forced out, over some things he said. I thought it was harmful for him to be speculating quite like he had done, but maybe administration and faculty didn't take the optimal lesson from that bad experience?

For another possible reason, Harvard is a unique global prestige brand, for the richest and most powerful, global is complicated and nuanced, the students tend to be very privileged and connected, and maybe Harvard has to be more globally diplomatic than most universities do?

>"Harvard Economics professor Jason Furman ’92 shared a similar statement on X, writing that he had been contacted by a student who had been doxxed despite no longer attending Harvard or affiliating with the co-signing group."

Undeniable tragedy what happened, innocent lives lost and countless more will die in this war, but accusing and doxxing innocent people whose lives will be overturned seems like the wrong approach here.

DEATH TO NAZIS!

KILL YOURSELF!

They’re lucky Antifa stopped punching, doxxing, and harassing people who explicitly espouse anti-Jewish sentiment.

citation needed. about them ever having done it, as an organised policy. also: beautiful propaganda, the way you formulated it with the famous "have you stopped" trick, making denial ambiguous.

2023 version of 9/11. I recall Indian shop owners being dragged out and beaten for a while after that fateful day.

As much as I hate doxxing anonymous accounts, I’m kinda ok with this. You want to release heinous statements without a retraction you deserve real world consequences. The student groups that issued retractions should be spared but anyone who supports barbarism should be shunned and punished. Also don’t give me the bs that they posted they hate all civilian lives lost, they only posted that after the NYU student lost their job for that horrible newsletter and got worried about consequences. Before that there was no mention of them caring one bit about the innocents massacred at a music festival or dragged out of their safe rooms, then beheaded. Instead there was a celebratory undertone in all their posts as if they were celebrating the massacre of innocents Typo edit

Yeah, this is like, incitement to get them killed, so: no. Even if they were murderers, instead of people who said stuff - and believe me, I hate what they said - you wouldn’t stick their faces on a truck and flirt with getting them killed.

I don't think anyone is going to get killed over this at Harvard

Ok, but why should people who never received the statements some group signed with which they were affiliated be fired from their jobs? This is beyond a free speech issue. You can't ask people to always know everything happening and raise their hand for the right thing at the right time.

>Ok, but why should people who never received the statements some group signed with which they were affiliated be fired from their jobs?

Employers have the right to fire anyone for almost any reason in the US. That is a consequence of both freedom of speech and freedom of association.

>Employers have the right to fire anyone for almost any reason in the US.

Yeah, and that's a load of utter bullshit.

Who has been fired for being associated with these groups? Give me a link. The only one that has been fired was that NYU student sending out that horrendous newsletter

Because no-one would ever travel for some political violence?

At what point does it become incitement?

If I think you said something stupid and make a poster to that effect, is that incitement? If I make a digital poster, ie a website, with that same information is that incitement? If I add your major or club memberships, is that incitement? If I include your address is that suddenly incitement?

If people are scared of the consequences of speaking out and voicing their opinions, then they really should just shut up. Free speech is not a diode.

You might be okay with this, others are not:

    Harvard Hillel, the University’s Jewish center, released a statement Wednesday afternoon saying that it “strongly condemns any attempts to threaten and intimidate” members of co-signatory organizations.

    “We will continue to reject the PSC’s statement in the strongest terms — and demand accountability for those who signed it,” the statement reads. “But under no circumstances should that accountability extend to public intimidation of individuals.”

Solid response. The Jewish center remembers that Jews have too often been on the receiving end of "public intimidation of individuals".

I do wonder how, specifically, they're going to "demand accountability", though.

All of this is just awful.

The posturing over it in America is terrible, it's not about you and your political tribes, but you're somehow making it about you, when people are dying. Did their statement cause deaths in the Levant? No, it's just posturing. Does this truck prevent any deaths in the Levant? More useless posturing, with an added element of incitement to violence against those who dare disagree with us.

Jesus wept.

I know the Evangelical Right has been making the State of Israel about them for years, their eschatology demands its existence, but when the political hacks are trying to link Ukraine and Hamas to score some imagined point, it's disgusting.

And your support of these tactics for the suppression of thoughtcrime, in the alleged land of the free, is both terrible and awful.

So we shouldn’t have consequences for our actions? Are you saying I don’t understand forgiveness for mistakes? That is why I said the student groups that retracted their statements should be spared, but this is saying you should be able to run into a crowded theater and yell fire with no consequence.

Also like usual with the over reaction. This isn’t a thought crime. It’s simply amplifying their own hate speech. If they don’t like the attention so much maybe they shouldn’t be making such heinous statements. This is just the community reacting to something you are I guess are fine with. And good job trying to smear me instead of responding with facts!

edit for clarity

> That is why I said the student groups that retracted their statements should be spared

How would being spared work though? Would the truck run the route again with crossed over, corrected names? What if someone was doxxed by mistake, run an apology list truck?

So if I was a former member of the KKK and someone published that they are the bad guy?

But what if you weren't a member and someone published it, are they the bad guy? Can they "un-publish" it?

That’s not the case here. No mistake was made. And yes, typically you would issue a retraction or “unpublish” as you call it.

> No mistake was made.

The article in question disagrees with that.

> “... I’m even more appalled since many of them had nothing to do with the letter,” Furman wrote.

I guess they'll have to drive the truck backwards, and with mistaken names crossed out? And if anyone was affected the truck driver will personally vouch for them in an attempt to reverse the damages.

> ...displaying the names and faces of students allegedly affiliated with student groups that signed...

The article certainly makes it sound as though there is a definite possibility that the students who were doxxed did not actually sign anything. The accusation made by the doxxers is one that could lead to serious consequences, especially given the inflammatory nature of this.

I can't disagree with this strongly enough.

The whole "well their side did something bad so that justifies this action in return" is exactly what caused this problem in the first place.

To continue it only invites escalation.

This isn’t eye for an eye. It’s simply amplifying their own statements. If they don’t like the attention, don’t make such horrible statements that blame innocent victims for their own deaths. Plus many organizations have realized that this letter was not appropriate, I think that putting more pressure on people who think that this statement is fine is American. I would think we don’t support people who murder innocents is a universal moral concept in the USA.

See the counter argument there is that they weren't blaming innocents for their own deaths, they were saying the government of Israel is responsible for the situation.

And then it will turn into "oh but Israeli actions are/are not justified military action" etc etc.

And then it will turn out that many of the people doxxed didn't actually sign the letter and do not agree with it and merely signed up to a mailinglist/membership/something.

And then someone will physically attack someone who was doxxed.

etc

This cycle doesn't get stopped by amplifying bad actions.

Not giving a strong response ( 2014) invites more escalation by the agressor ( 2022 - Russia ).

Israel is almost surrounded by extremist Muslims/ Arabs, which hasn't changed much in those decades.

1948 - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1948_Arab%E2%80%93Israeli_Wa...

Tbh. I don't think Israel has much of a choice to be safe for another couple of decades.

Are you comparing writing a letter to invading Ukraine and saying both require similar deterrence? That seems a fairly extreme position to take?

Regardless of the circumstance, intimidation tactics like these undermine free speech.

I don’t agree. If you make public statements, you should be more than prepared for others to amplify your public statements with your name attached.

The solution to speech you don’t like is more speech. This is the system working as intended. Free speech does not mean freedom from social consequences for expressing unpopular opinions.

Threats of violence and guilt by association is not part of proper discourse.

This isnt more speech, its saying shut up or find out, its an attempt at mob justice, one makes websites with disregard for privacy and truth (did they say it or just associated to the organisation like the old student?), one amplifies the identified people with a truck, the other intimidates with death threats, and none feel very guilty because each carry through a fraction of the whole ordeal. More speech is great, but thats a romanticised view you have, because these people are putting themselves above the law.

Should we tolerate people that advocate the murder of civilians?

There’s also an easy solution. You can very publicly state that you don’t agree with the group that you were once part of. But this is saying you should be able to make a heinous statement and then walk back it when you get confronted about it.

> Should we tolerate people that advocate the murder of civilians?

What do you mean by "tolerate" here? You don't have to support their views. But they should absolutely be allowed to speak. In a society that values free speech, we often have to tolerate speech we don't like.

There’s a level of attenuation that makes a meaningful difference which you are not acknowledging.

    > displaying the names and faces of students allegedly affiliated with student groups that signed onto a controversial statement on Hamas’ attack on Israel.

The doxxed students didn’t make public statements, and it’s far from clear that they even approved the statements made by the groups they are allegedly affiliated with. In one case mentioned by the article, a former student who no longer attends Harvard was among those being billboarded.

Statement here - no signatories showing. Twitter screenshot being passed around just shows a number of signatory organization names, although there has been a reference to a number of individuals that were signatories as well. Would be nice if the facts were clearer.

https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2023/10/10/psc-statement-...

Wow, amnesty international was a signatory before the backlash. Really speaks volumes of them.

I don't really tend to agree with this sort of thing, but on the other hand, I think the types extremist enough to loudly signal support like this are also likely the ones doing the same to others, so I have mixed feelings.

This post is currently flagged. The post is referencing only doxxing as consequence of criticizing Israel, it's not even criticizing the state of Israel itself.

Is there any public forum or institution in the US where criticizing Israel won't cause a shitstorm? Is there any other topic that has a similar effect?

> Is there any other topic that has a similar effect?

Race.

China.

Trump.

Are these people just largely early-20s to not-even-20 year olds? They say stupid, potentially heinous shit all the time. The correct punishment is usually just to call their legal guardians, professors, stuff like this to get them scolded and to issue public apologies as needed, and maybe they lose privileged positions like membership to social clubs or something like that.

I don't know about the letter, was it advocating for more violence or saying proceeds go to fund terrorism or something direct like this? At least that kind of response would make more sense... but if it's just a bad opinion with no actual causal relationship to terrorism I don't get it.

A scolding is mild. Harvard has a history of rescinding admissions of students sharing inflammatory comments. What should be done here?

https://www.insidehighered.com/admissions/article/2019/06/24...

Don’t hold your breath expecting rules to be applied equally.

This is troubling for more than the obvious reason: This age group has gotten so used to the way they treat people online, that they think it's just normal and acceptable — hence the real world transposition of online doxing.

I fully support isreal defending themselves (both from a security perspective and a revenge perspective).

With that being said, i get what these people are also saying. Equating palistine with hamas is like blaming me for obama droning a wedding.

Were these student groups actually supporting hamas or did they just identify with the people of palistine?

I'd say it's much more like blaming you for American terrorist actions (interestingly, I can't think of examples). Obama is the president of the country.

I mean, do civilian massacre in Vietnam count? Drone striking a wedding?

No, I don't think so. I'm the first to be down on American foreign policy, or just American culture in general, but this isn't the same things as terrorism. For one thing, it's the official state, not some randos.

There was a public message posted; people decided they din't want to publish that a little too late?

They're gonna have to be loud about how they made a mistake. Hopefully that will be heard, too: everyone makes mistakes.

The younger generation seems to have no problem with doxxing and canceling other people, but flip out when they get the same in return.

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