MAC 325 Lecture Notes - Lecture 4: Social Justice Warrior, 4Chan, Reddit
26 Jun 2018
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Week 12, Lecture 2
4/19/18: Trolling, Doxxing, and Harassment Online
● Doxxing
○ Comes from the term “documents”
○ Documents → .docs → dox
○ Private phone number, place of business, any personal information being posted
for anyone online to see
○ Online mob justice campaigns
○ A reaction to someone that is tried via some sort of digital community
○ Possible consequences
■ Get in trouble at their jobs or places of business
■ Frequently leads to more mob justice
■ Becomes a part of public shaming campaigns
■ Those who are doxed get personal threats from anonymous users who
are very upset with them
○ Is doxxing ever justified? If so, when? Discussion
● Lisa Nakamura, “The work of race in the age of digital reproduction”
○ Web 1.0
■ Naivete in the value of equal voices on the internet
● We still do not all have equal voices
○ Norms online are just as oppressive as norms offline
■ Race and gender and not embodied online but we have certain cultural
expectations of who we are speaking to online
○ Double-Bind scenario
■ You either speak normally or mark yourself as different
■ Anonymity online allows the empowered majority to pretend they are
others more than it allows disempowered to have freedom of expression
● #Gamergate: A case study in gender and harassment online
○ A hashtag that users rallied around in late 2014 and these users saw themselves
as a legitimate social movement
○ Used the communication strategies of the digital social movement but was really
just misogynists enacting in hateful speech against women
○ Legitimization of extreme viewpoints through networked connections
○ A study in how the affordances of digital communication can lead to toxic and
troubling behavior carried out by masses online
○ Costs of speaking publicly online
○ These dynamics are not new; this case just makes them very visible
■ Many of the things and types of harassment happened repeatedly to
women in this story years before the gamergate movement officially
began
● Hard to identify a starting point
○ Zoe Quinn
Document Summary
Private phone number, place of business, any personal information being posted for anyone online to see. A reaction to someone that is tried via some sort of digital community. Get in trouble at their jobs or places of business. Becomes a part of public shaming campaigns. Those who are doxed get personal threats from anonymous users who are very upset with them. Lisa nakamura, the work of race in the age of digital reproduction . Naivete in the value of equal voices on the internet. We still do not all have equal voices. Norms online are just as oppressive as norms offline. Race and gender and not embodied online but we have certain cultural expectations of who we are speaking to online. You either speak normally or mark yourself as different. Anonymity online allows the empowered majority to pretend they are others more than it allows disempowered to have freedom of expression.
