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this post was submitted on 23 Apr 2025
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Privacy
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How is that defensible? Are there no laws to tamp down online terrorism from bad actors like Heritage? I'd imagine they're 100% in the wrong for making threats of any kind but I'm just a wee layman.
The issue with "Wait that's illegal" is that it never work in practice.
If the heritage foundation decide to dox an editor tomorrow. The editor in question would have to file a lawsuit and go against an army of layers the heritage foundation can afford. Even if the editor win at the end, it will be a long and drawn out legal battle where heritage risk almost nothing.
And this is not accounting for the editor having to deal with harassment due to being dox while having to pay for a layer and fighting a legal battle.
And that is why making such terroristic threats should be criminal in the first place.
They absolutely should be. Them being so doesn't stop the problems from happening.
It literally gives people in the US the constitutional right to due process, and that bedrock law is being massively ignored.
There needs to be actual protections for when the law is not being followed
It probably is, but again, it needs to reach a certain threshold before the authorities will get involved. Threatening to reveal the identity of an internet user isn't particularly egregious, because the actual risk to that person from that information is likely minimal (is anyone going to actually hurt them?). If that person then starts to get actionable threats, then the authorities might get involved.
So the best recourse these users have is suing for libel or something if they make false claims about them in connection to the doxxing.
Unfortunately, there is no federally recognized right to privacy in public spaces, and the Internet is considered a "public space," so revealing someone's home address or identity isn't considered a violation of any law. I'm a homeowner, and you can totally find my address if you know my name, or my name if you know my address, since it's all public record. I think most people would assume an IP address is less intimate than that public record, hence why there are no laws against it.
I'm not happy about this, and I personally wish there were federal privacy protections here. I don't want my address being associated with my name as public information, though there should be a legal way to get that information when needed (i.e. a journalist doing a story on crime in an area or something). This should also apply to IP addresses, connecting an IP address to an identity should require some kind of legal measure.
Even if there was, look who's in power. Even if judges ruled against Heritage, I'm not holding my breath of them getting any sort of accountability.
The laws exist to protect bad actors like Heritage
The internet is, by nature, problematic in terms of legal compliance because it is not wholly under the jurisdiction of any singular country.
You can go after hardware physically located within your own jurisdiction, and you can go after operators. But if you start going after folks outside of that, you're rightfully going to be told to fuck off. (Which is why IP holders spend so much money on anti-piracy lobbying)
Its the same reason encryption bans are laughably idiotic.
No laws? Sir/ma'am, we have the 2nd amendment. I can't think of any law higher.
Too bad the 2A nutjobs and right wing nutjobs are the same people.
Once you go far enough left, you get your guns back...
You're not wrong...
Well theres the 1st admendment. The 2nd is for when the 1st is being denied...
The 2nd was meant to ensure the 1st was respected.
It's defensible because it's public record. Wikipedia has been doxing editors by default for decades. It's one way that they intimidate people from making edits.
I've never edited anything there but log in sometimes just if I'm interested in a topic and want to bookmark it. This is making me think I should just delete my account.
You should not make that decision only because of this conversation, what if they are massively misinformed?
Truth. Good point. I'm waiting till I get myself more well informed. Thanks.