NRPLUS MEMBER ARTICLE {R} ecently, students have been shocked upon realizing that their public expressions of sympathy toward Hamas (and fierce condemnations of Israel) were seen as highly objectionable. Progressive students at elite universities assumed they had immunity by virtue of their credentials, and they imagined that the university administrators would protect them from the consequences of commending terrorists. (And, of course, they didn’t expect that the mainstream media could possibly hold an alternative view, since it rarely does.) So, how did they respond to criticism? By complaining that they’d been “doxed.”
Although the formal definition of “doxing” is the disclosing of private information about a person “especially as a form of punishment or revenge,” college students have expanded it to mean “referencing a person’s public act where there was no presumption of privacy.” Supposedly, it’s a serious offense on campus to identify someone who attends a protest, even though the purpose of a protest is to attract attention for a specific cause or position. Consider the following examples.
When Alexandra Orbuch, a Jewish conservative student and reporter at Princeton University, attempted to record a pro-Palestinian demonstration, a demonstrator used his Palestinian flag to cover her camera.
After the Harvard Undergraduate Palestine Solidarity Committee held a “die-in” event, the group released a statement: “As hundreds of people were laying on the ground . . . an individual unaffiliated . . . [began] recording their faces as they laid in a vulnerable position.” In response, the student group practiced the “non-violent, de-escalatory practice” of “public pressure” by chanting “Shame.” Later, the organization released a photo of the student who had been filming them, revealing his face but blurring that of a demonstrator.
On November 11, the dean of Harvard Law School sent an email to students stating, “Our Muslim students have recounted the impact of the doxing campaigns and other harassment they’ve experienced, also feeling fear in their daily lives.” The dean did not specify how “doxing” was defined.
Campus protesters set a condition that they expect us to honor: Do not film me with your phone as I willingly participate in this public disruption for a political cause, an action that I want people to notice. They exercise their free-speech rights while insisting that nobody broadcast (or even criticize) the speech. The protesters want group visibility and individual invisibility; they defend a freedom of association that recognizes the collective and glosses over the individual, thereby enabling maximum disorder without any self-sacrifice or costs.
Apparently, it’s also “doxing” to cite that a person signed a public statement or open letter with their given name. Yet the entire purpose of signing such a statement is to publicly declare your position; you implicitly consent to having that position accurately attributed to you, thereby assuming a degree of risk. Surely, activists don’t have some inviolable right to anonymity once they decide that the previously stated position is no longer socially, politically, and professionally advantageous.
There’s another perplexing issue: Why would signatories complain about their letter receiving greater exposure, and why would they dislike having such a letter associated with themselves? I’m sympathetic to the idea that some students changed their minds once presented with rigorous counterarguments to the statements they signed. I can also grasp that, in some instances, a student organization (perhaps one without an obvious commitment to supporting the Palestinian cause, like a dance group) endorsed a statement without consulting its membership. But aside from these two narrow exceptions, I cannot conceive why people would oppose having greater attention showered on an open letter. Presumably, people endorse a letter because they think it defends something true, good, and moral. Surely, you should thank the people who disseminate your perspective, for it allows a larger number of people to gain exposure to your arguments.
According to progressives, I have been “doxed.” When I signed a letter in support of free speech as an undergraduate in 2020, a particularly offended student collected the internal university ID photos of the signatories and released them on social media, instructing readers to “maintain tabs on them” and “make it suck to be them,” adding that “it should be threatening.” Sure, it was distressing that a peer wanted to corral a watchful mob. Still, I wasn’t alarmed that my photo had been shared, since it would be untenable to associate my name but not my face with a letter that I did (and still do) endorse. We received hostile comments over the following weeks, but I didn’t mind because that only implied more people were engaging with the letter. The entire purpose of publishing it was to have it read, while my reason for signing it was that I agreed with it — and no tornado of insults could destroy my convictions.
I have two rules: I won’t publish an opinion article if I don’t want people to know that’s what I think, and I won’t write anything that I think is (or could be) false. Simple, right? I write what I think is correct, and if someone shares my article with the intention of ridiculing it, that’s fine; I perceive greater benefit in converting a possible dissenter than in feeling some affirmation from a supporter. Certainly, in the internet era, there are disproportionate costs for expressing public opinions; during a job-application process, your prospects might be harmed when a potential employer searches you online and doesn’t like what comes up. But there are also disproportionate benefits, insofar as you’re able to accrue supporters (assuming your position is well presented and merits support). The onus is on the individual to be more judicious when signing statements rather than on society to be more forgiving.
I’m a free-speech fundamentalist, and I disagree with the false binary that’s been presented across the political spectrum; supposedly, it’s “accountability” for someone else to criticize a person I disagree with, and it’s “doxing” for someone else to denounce a person I agree with. But before we can debate to what extent certain social penalties are legitimate responses to an expressed opinion, we have to learn a simple lesson: Don’t sign something if you don’t want people to know you signed it. If doxing means “sharing something I wrote,” then please, bring it on.