Doxxing
Doxxing is the act of publicly revealing someone's private personal information (real name, address, phone number, workplace) online without their consent, typically to harass or intimidate.
What Is Doxxing?
Doxxing (also spelled doxing) is the malicious act of researching and publicly sharing someone's private personal information — such as real name, home address, phone number, employer, or family details — on social media or online forums without their consent. The term originates from "dropping documents." Doxxing is used as a harassment tactic to intimidate, threaten, or enable real-world targeting of the victim. In comment sections, doxxing can appear as replies containing personal details of the post creator, brand employees, or other commenters.
Doxxing in Comment Sections
Doxxing in social media comments typically involves posting personal information about the brand owner, employees, or other commenters. This can range from revealing a creator's real name to posting an employee's home address. Even partial doxxing (posting someone's workplace or city) can escalate to full doxxing when other attackers add additional details in reply threads. Doxxing comments must be removed immediately — they are illegal in many jurisdictions and pose a direct physical safety risk.
Legal Implications
Doxxing is illegal in many jurisdictions under harassment, stalking, and privacy laws. In the EU, posting someone's personal data without consent violates GDPR. In the US, state-level laws (like California's Penal Code 653.2) criminalize doxxing with intent to harass. For brands, leaving doxxing comments visible in your comment section can create legal liability — platforms and page owners have a duty to remove content that creates safety risks once they become aware of it.
How FeedGuardians Helps
FeedGuardians detects comment patterns that contain personal information signals (phone numbers, email addresses, physical addresses, "I know where you live" patterns) and hides them immediately. For high-risk accounts (public figures, controversial brands), the AI can be tuned to flag any comment containing person-identifying information for immediate human review.
Examples of Doxxing
Employee Doxxing After Brand Controversy
After a brand makes a controversial statement, attackers find and post the personal social media accounts, phone numbers, and home city of the brand's social media manager in the comment section of the original post.
Creator Doxxing
A pseudonymous creator's real name and employer are revealed in a TikTok comment thread by a disgruntled ex-fan, leading to harassment at the creator's workplace.
Common Questions
In many jurisdictions, yes. The EU's GDPR, US state laws, and various national privacy laws criminalize sharing personal information without consent with intent to harass. Even where not explicitly illegal, doxxing can be prosecuted under existing harassment and stalking statutes.
Delete (not just hide) the comment immediately. Report it to the platform. If the information poses a physical safety risk, contact law enforcement. Document the comment with screenshots before deletion for potential legal proceedings.
Yes. AI moderation can detect patterns that indicate personal information sharing: phone number formats, email addresses, physical address patterns, and threat language like "I know where you live." FeedGuardians flags these for immediate removal.
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