With all the turmoil that is going on in the world today, the real movers and shakers who control the underlying political narrative have started to employ a new tactic—greatly aided by social media—to manipulate and suppress voices which don’t explicitly support their machinations of supreme self-interest and privilege. This insidious new practice—essentially an extension of the cancel culture—is called “doxxing.”
Doxxing is defined as the collection of an individual’s private information across multiple platforms (particularly social media) by an unauthorized individual or group, who then publishes the information in an attempt to shame or embarrass that individual. The action may comprise something as innocuous as “un-friending” on Facebook due to divergent opinions expressed by that individual, all the way up to publishing and disseminating a person’s physical address in order to incite threats of violence and intimidation against that individual, as, for example, former U.S. President Donald Trump has done on multiple occasions against those whom he has perceived as threats.
Doxxing may be conducted by researching public databases, hacking, or through social engineering. The term “doxxing” is derived from the phrase “dropping dox (documents)”. It typically involves those tied to a political or social cause or opinion attempting to shame, embarrass, extort money, or simply manipulate that person’s future actions by publishing photographs, images, and video/audio clips obtained, either legally through extensive web searches or illicitly through hacking techniques compromising personal data. Even more disconcerting is the increased propensity for anarchistic vigilantism against those with a diverging viewpoint from the predator now that AI technology has taken hold.
At the end of this feature, advice will be provided as to how to protect oneself from doxxing. However, before that is done, the intent here is to expose just how extensive this phenomenon has become with the tension in Gaza boiling over.
Shortly after the Gaza conflict began on October 7, 2023, various individuals representing various student groups at Harvard University in Massachusetts, U.S.–viewed as the world’s most prestigious institution in some circles–signed on to a statement asserting that Israel essentially brought on the Gaza conflict itself through its practices throughout the course of its existence, which, to paraphrase, have defied humanitarian objectives and international law since the Nakba. A gigantic backlash ensued, with university leaders roundly criticized for not doing enough to condemn and “punish” students for simply voicing their opinion on this matter.
Of course, since “money makes the world go ‘round,” when billionaire alumni such as hedge fund manager Bill Ackman threated to pull donations from the university unless such speech was stifled, things got interesting. Not only did the administration of Harvard and other Ivy League schools such as Cornell capitulate to Ackman and his agenda in the form of taking a more hard-line stance on their position on the matter, but “billboard vehicles” started magically appearing on campus in an attempt to identify, intimidate, ostracize, harass, and circulate photographs of those individuals who signed their names to the petition identifying the actual cause of the Hamas offensive.
The individual leading the billboard truck doxxing campaign at Harvard to “out” students–who merely aligned themselves with basic humanitarian values–is Adam Guillette, of an organization entitled “Accuracy in Media” (ironically), whose self-purported objective is “holding public and private officials accountable.” He said that his organization’s next move is to create online domains basically using the students’ first and last names to create sites identifying them as “antisemitic” (an obvious semantic misnomer in-and-of-itself, anyway).
“When they apologize, we remove them from our billboards and from our website immediately,” Guillette said to ABC News, as if blackmail can actually be undone. Students to whom ABC News reached out, by the way, asked that their names not be used, saying that they are scared and facing intense backlash, including death threats.
“Falling into the old trope of conflating valuing Palestinian lives with anti-semitism is an unfortunate and lazy response,” said one Harvard law student who put his name to the controversial statement.
The self-disclosed, alleged goal of the aforementioned “billionaires’ club” is to protect itself from the event of unwittingly employing future professionals who are amenable to the Palestinian cause. However, the practice of blacklisting clearly holds far-reaching and long-lasting reverberations, and goes far beyond what is associated simply with cancel culture. One Harvard student has already had her employment offer rescinded because of this doxxing campaign.
As if tensions weren’t high enough, an FBI manhunt last month resulted in the arrest of a psychiatrically disturbed Cornell University student who admitted to writing in chalk homicidal threats to Jewish students on the streets of the Ithaca, New York campus. This also resulted in spy trucks emerging to “expose” students who dared publicly express concern at the thousands of Palestinian children who have been killed by IDF bombardments.
As a result, the Cornell Student Assembly passed a resolution at its October 26th meeting and forwarded its demands to the university’s administration. It stated that media sources—including but not limited to the “Canary Mission”—use “defaming language to ruin the public reputation of those that they post without verifying information.” It called on administration to directly condemn doxxing by considering it digital harassment within the student code of conduct framework, to provide emotional, legal, and academic support for doxxing victims, and to support free expression or at least define the parameters of legal acceptability for such expression.
Doxxing has embodied the following activities in targeting both students and faculty: international harassment campaigns, circulation of personal addresses, unsolicited hate mail, threats to family members, calls for employment termination, office vandalism, donning of intimidating logos in classroom space, photographing and videotaping, and threats of poor course evaluations. The statement goes on to reference the ensuing toxic work and study environment, specifically with implications for emotional, social, and financial health.
Speaking of financial health, Moroccan-Dutch former Main 05 (Germany) FC Mayence player Anwar El-Ghazi just took the ultimate hit to his future bank account balance when he showed that principle is more important than money. Earlier this month, his football contract–speculated to be valued at several million euros—was terminated by the team for his social media posts on the Gaza conflict. Of course, this does not even begin to address how the separation will impact his future playing and earning ability. However, his unrepentance in speaking his mind when money is involved is something refreshingly rare today, especially within the sports, music, and entertainment realms.
Besides, El-Ghazi, a veritable laundry list exists of athletes who have simply expressed calls for an end to the violence and who as a result have been harassed by either Israel itself or by global or national athletic governing bodies influenced by that State. They include but are not limited to Ons Jabeur, Tunisian tennis player and personal financial donor to Palestinian relief efforts who drew the ire of the Israeli Tennis Association for simply “following” a “Free Palestine” Instagram story, and Moroccan Noussair Mazraoui, who was closely scrutinized by his team, Bayern Munich, and was threatened with deportation by a right-wing German minister for posting his thoughts on the current travesty.
Hollywood celebrities who have spoken out simply with compassion for those suffering on both sides in Gaza have suffered blacklisting repercussions in an industry widely-alleged since its infancy to be an arm of the Zionist lobby.
Melissa Berrera, a “Scream” franchise actress (they are already on “Scream 7”), was fired for objectively calling for an end to the genocide, which producers interpreted as “anti-semitism.” In an even more striking development, Tinseltown mainstay of almost a half century, Susan Sarandon—best known for her work in “Rocky Horror Picture Show,” “Bull Durham,” and “Thelma and Louise”—is no longer represented by United Talent Agency as a result of the comments she recently made expressing sympathy for those suffering in Gaza. Also, Roger Waters–co-founder of the English rock band Pink Floyd—was recently refused hotel reservations in Uruguay and Argentina due to his history of support for Palestine.
In a startlingly disturbing development reported today by Al Jazeera, 64-year-old Stuart Seldowitz, a former U.S. State Department advisor for President Barack Obama, was just arrested for hate crimes against an Egyptian-born, New York City food cart vendor. In the video, he expressed the opinion that “not enough” Palestinian children had yet been killed, all the while threatening the vendor’s relatives with torturous intentions. Once the video was leaked, a Manhattan-based government relations firm did indicate that it had cut all ties with this individual; however, the situation demonstrates the level of vitriol required to result in repercussions when the “other side” draws attention to itself.
As promised, information follows with regard to how to protect oneself from doxxing. It is suggested that social media settings be adjusted so as to ensure that profiles and usernames are kept private. In addition, addresses—particularly those of a residential and professional nature, along with frequently visited spots—should be removed from accounts. Posts should be adjusted to a “friends only” setting, and discussions that could reveal physical location information should be avoided.
VPNs (Virtual Private Networks) are also advisable, and if there is no option other than to utilize public wi-fi, the public network sharing functionality should be deactivated. As in all domains of society these days, strong passwords are imperative for security, and these passwords along with their associated usernames should vary across platforms. Finally, hide domain registration data from the WHOIS database, which keeps track of all registered domain names on the World Wide Web.