What Is Doxxing? Is It A Cybercrime? Find Out Details On The New Twitter Policy Here

Tweeting this Wednesday Elon Musk notified the world of the updated policies on doxxing after his son X was being tracked in real-time by a stalker.

The tweet said 

Any account doxxing real-time location info of anyone will be suspended, as it is a physical safety violation. This includes posting links to sites with real-time location info.

Posting locations someone traveled to on a slightly delayed basis isn’t a safety problem, so is ok.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 15, 2022

“Any account doxxing real-time location info of anyone will be suspended, as it is a physical safety violation.” 

Doxxing or also spelled as doxing is a form of online harassment by revealing an individual's personal information online, it could include publicly exposing someone’s real name, address, job, or other identifying data. 

This happens without a victim’s consent, with the aim of humiliating or bullying them.

Coming from the word “documents” the 1990s hacker culture shortened the term to “docs” and then to “dox,” which inspired the word doxxing, with a “dropping dox” referring to finding personal documents or information for example someone’s physical address and posting it online. 

The word was popularized by the hacker collective Anonymous.

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What is Doxxing?

• Doxxing is publishing someone’s data online without their consent or exposing someone's anonymous identity online. 

• Doxxing attacks can be for harassment or revenge purposes. 

• Doxxing is very dangerous as the individual's physical address, job location, phone number, email, or other information which is out there, can be misused.

• Doxxing attacks can start fake mail sign-ups and can be used to perform illegal activities like harassing a person’s family or employer, physical harassment, swatting, identity theft, and other forms of cyberbullying.

Doxxers have a range of methods they use to collect information about their targets through your : 

•  IP address,
•  social media profiles, 
• buy data from data brokers, 
• phishing campaigns, 
• and even intercept internet traffic. 

Steps To Stop Doxxing 

If you think you're being doxxed, you can stop it by. 

Here are a few simple steps you can take right away if you think you’ve been doxxed:

• Document the evidence in case you need to report it to the police.
• Report the doxxing to the platforms.
• Report the cybercrime (doxxing is often a cybercrime  to the appropriate authorities in your area)
• Lock down your accounts. 
• Consider changing your number. 
  

Twitter’s policy on doxxing

The first violation of disseminating private information or media will get your account locked and you’ll be asked to remove the information/media. 

On the second violation, you will face a permanent suspension. 

Those accounts devoted to disseminating somebody’s live location will be automatically suspended.

Sharing the following information about an individual without their approval is considered to be a red flag:

1. home address or physical location information
2. identity documents
3. contact information
4. financial account information
5. media of private individuals without the permission of the person(s) consent
6. medical records

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