Yeah, I’m not okay with this. Doxxing is a term with an extremely negative connotation and is often done to people who, bluntly, weren’t hiding or doing anything wrong. The correct term for the same act here is either “accuse” or “unmask”.
I'd rather "doxxing" just mean "de-anonymizing" because that's 1) how I already read it, 2) removes the whole "who is the more moral side in this dispute therefore has the right to make the accusation" problem
Someone who breaks the law and is actively searched for obviously has no expectation of privacy, or do you think the people visiting Epstein's island were doxxed?
Yesterday I drank a beer out in public - a perfectly legal and culturally/morally acceptable thing to do here in The Netherlands, but deemed wrong to such a degree that it is apparently punishable by death in Iran[1].
I have actively broken Iran's moral stance, societal norms, and laws/jurisprudence against public alcohol consumption from without their jurisdiction, and as being a person unbeholden to their societal norms in any way, shape, or form.
Do I obviously now have no expectation of privacy? Is it now okay for these peoples finding themselves to grievously offended by my actions to collect and publish my private data with damaging intent? Is it then doxxing? Am I really a bad person now? Or maybe it depends on the color of your glasses, maybe there exists an entire world outside of ones own cocoon?
[1]: https://www.hrw.org/news/2012/06/29/iran-quash-death-sentenc...
Its almost always associated with a private person (ie not police or anyone of a judicial system) releasing personal information with malicious intent.
As the person above you said, semantics are important. This is a judicial system specifically searching for a person they believe to have caused severe criminal harm.
As you said, in this particular case, the respective judicial entities purposefully released the personal information with the intent of arresting both. Whether that is successful or not remains to be seen but that's a different story.
For me personally, I understand doxing to be the release of personal information with malicious, indirect intent. For example, hoping that an angry mob will find the home of a person and attack them, send the person death threats through the post, etc.
Assuming a decently functional justice system, I don't consider an arrest warrant a malicious intent.
"Doxxing" certainly doesn't carry a negative connotation in that usage. Unless you live in a culture where torturing domesticated animals is a good thing.
ANd I recall that, before that, hackers would doxx other hackers in the 90s in order to get them arrested. Again, that seems like the exact same usage as here: tying a pseudonym to an IRL for purposes of law enforcement.
If it's negative depends on if you think they deserve the hostility.
In my experience, plenty people use "doxxing" to refer to their own actions positively. There are even calls to action: "let's doxx him"
See the canonical example of this going wrong: the Reddit 'investigation' of the Boston Bomber, where someone was misidentified, doxxed, and their family was harassed.
Of course, law enforcement is capable of making the same mistakes. But ideally they have better safeguards, and victims of their negligence have much better recourse.
I disagree. Tying a pseudonym to an IRL persona for purposes of law enforcement is a part of an official investigation.
Doxxing is specifically non-government unmasking and dissemination of that tie for extrajudicial purposes, almost always for harassment. There is a world of difference between them and we should not fudge them together with terminology. My 2c.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extrajudicial_killing#United_S...
'Extrajudicial killing' is just an apologetic euphemism. An indirect term, since murder is usually considered to be a bad thing.