I have been reading Slate Star Codex for a long time and consider it a source of many great texts, but i do not really get this step from Scott Alexander.
Term 'doxxing' is a loaded term that may describe both revealing private information and revealing personal information researchable from public sources. While the former is condemnable, the later is more neutral and part of basic journalist work, especially if the exposed is a public persona.
Seems to me that for impartial third person it would look like a reporter wrote a neutral article about SSC mentioning authors name, SSC author overreacted and punished himself and its readers by removing the blog, and by Streissand effect much more people would know autors name now.
> the later is more neutral and part of basic journalist work, especially if the exposed is a public persona.
This is where the problem comes in-- best practice on the Internet is to let people who want to be anonymous stay anonymous. This is analog world culture butting into digital world culture, and in this case _digital world culture is right_, and also a case of the NYTimes being hypocritical.
The guy who wrote the NYTimes Resistance piece is allowed to stay anonymous, but a guy who writes about the efficacy of different depression medications isn't? [0]
Is it really just new online norms? As a German I am astonished that this is even legal, let alone journalistic norm.
Here in Germany a “right to informational self-determination” is legally well-established going back to a judgement in 1983 and journalists know that they have to weigh freedom of press and public interest against this right. I am pretty sure that what the times is doing in this case would actually be illegal here, if they cannot justify why public interest in knowing Scott’s real name would outweigh his right to informational self-determination.
Does anybody know what the legal situation regarding doxxing is in the US?
Term 'doxxing' is a loaded term that may describe both revealing private information and revealing personal information researchable from public sources. While the former is condemnable, the later is more neutral and part of basic journalist work, especially if the exposed is a public persona.
Seems to me that for impartial third person it would look like a reporter wrote a neutral article about SSC mentioning authors name, SSC author overreacted and punished himself and its readers by removing the blog, and by Streissand effect much more people would know autors name now.