What is doxing?

· If you search for doxing, the first entry on Google is from the Ministry of Justice: “What is doxing and how can we protect ourselves?”

Ironically, we are talking about this because an official (who is not an official) was accused of doxing social media users who criticize the government. Santiago Caputo is a presidential advisor, responsible for communications and social media shock groups, a kind of digital parapolitics.

What is doxing?

· Doxing involves publishing a person’s private data, from their bank details, address or telephone number, to data about their family members.

· The first record of doxing dates back to 1765 in the British colonies that are now the United States. Radical anti-colonial groups published the names of tax collectors so that the public would know who they were and where they lived. In the 1990s, the “Nuremberg Files” became famous, publishing the addresses of health professionals who performed abortions (a legal practice at the time) and calling on the public to harass them.

· In itself it is not illegal, however it has become a central element of cyberbullying and violence practices on social networks.

Doxeo made in Argentina

· In Argentina, the latest relevant cases are of supporters of Milei’s government who made criticisms.

· The user of the social network X “Venus and Mars” reported that followers of La Libertad Avanza distributed an audio of men masturbating with her voice in the background and later published her address. Her house was hit by stones and her family was threatened, so she filed a complaint with the Ministry of Security of the Province of Buenos Aires. That ministry tried to contact the Ministry of the Nation, headed by Patricia Bullrich, whose response was “lower your profile.”

· Social media user X “El Tano Giuliani” came across the account assigned to presidential advisor Santiago Caputo (Snake Doc Lives, now suspended for posting images of weapons). When the user reported that he had been doxed to silence him, Caputo replied “if I had sent someone I would effectively be silent forever.”

Misogyny, trademark

· Doxing is a common practice in the new right and related universes (incel, conservative, anti-feminist forums). Pablo Stefanoni on Has rebellion turned right-wing? She mentions two high-profile cases from the United States, that of 11-year-old YouTuber Jessica Leonhardt and journalist and gamer Anita Sarkeesian. They posted their addresses and phone numbers on forums, their images on prostitution sites, and received repeated threats of rape.

· These cases are emblematic because they summarise the characteristic elements of cyberbullying: harassment, doxing and misogyny.

· I emphasize this because women are more frequently targeted and this is because harassers have an advantage because they have social legitimacy (machismo). It is easier to insult and harass a woman and other men are more likely to join in even if they are not interested in the target.

· Violence on social networks also had a specific target in recent years: female journalists. According to a survey of journalists by the Asociación Civil Comunicación para la Igualdad, 75% knew of at least one case of harassment against journalists. The source was 1) social networks and 2) boss/supervisor.

· Two recent news items confirm the situation: Emanuel Dannan (a libertarian influencer close to the government) was convicted of harassing TN journalist Marina Abiuso on social media, and journalist Pedro Brieger was denounced by 19 journalists for sexual and workplace harassment.

Digital parapolitics?

· Doxing and other practices of digital violence leave at least two questions open:

· The first: a reflection by Micaela Cuesta (UNSAM Laboratory of Studies on Democracy and Authoritarianism) on the transition from discourse to action. explain -> https://audioboom.com/posts/8154832-entrevista-conversamos-con-micaela-cuesta-dra-en-cs-sociales-y-lic-en-sociologia-docente-ei that there is no “mechanical causality” between speeches and actions, but that the legitimization of violence by political leaders (today, directly from the State) can encourage a transition from speech to action.

· The second is a more general question: how much of this is decentralized cyberbullying and how much is digital parapolitics by a government that empowered trolls and social media harassers and transformed them into civil servants.