1y ago

I deleted pasts posts with personal information in them after at least two users admitted to doxing me

After two users admitted to doxxing me, and another admitted to digging through all of my past posts and comments, I decided to deleted my past posts. One user put my name, and my husband’s name into a comment box on one of my posts, and then tried to claim he hadn’t doxxed me for that information.

Another user decided to stalk my page, and then followed me to a post about my cat, where he proceeded to tell me I needed mental help for all of my other posts and comments. I called him out for stalking my page and digging through all of my past posts and comments in order to tell me that. I think stalkers need mental help, and a Lemmy user named Steak is totally a stalker. So to prevent people like that from digging through all of my past comments and posts, I have decided to delete many of them. Stalking is a mental illness, and many Lemmy readers don’t want to admit that. I hope readers like him seek mental help. There isn’t something wrong with searching for a missing spouse. There is something wrong with stalking and doxing a woman you’ve never met.

17 comments

Information posted publicly on a public site is... public, anyone can see and use it.
Always keep that in mind
- I didn’t post my name and my husband’s name. I also didn’t post our court documents. Some Lemmy reader did some internet digging and doxxing to find our names and personal information, and proceeded to publish it in goodoffmychest. He broke the rules. It wasn’t something I had posted on this site. I think you misunderstood my post.
  
  Hey so you obviously have some issues to sort through, so I’m going to respond this once to clear the record, then go back to be blissfully unaware of your existence. You literally did post your name, you shared a PayPal fundraiser begging for money, and that had your name and location in it. Like literally, saying you didn’t post your name is completely wrong.
  
  I am not going to condone any doxxing behavior, but you definitely made it very easy for these people giving them information that, if they didn't have, would have probably made it impossible to figure out. So while their behavior isn't right, I think like others mention in this thread, you have to be very careful with the information you divulge online. Be careful out there.
Nobody deserves to be stalked or doxxed, and anybody doing that is in the wrong.
As a separate point, just from what I can see on your profile now, you have put a remarkable amount of identifying information in your Lemmy posts. I’m pretty cavalier about the possibility of someone connecting my account to my identity, but you are orders of magnitude beyond anything I would feel personally comfortable posting. I seriously believe you can protect yourself from these things if you modify your posting habits.
For example, you have photos of your face posted, high school photos that could be shared on other people’s social media, current photos of your head and identifying features, pictures of bills that identify local businesses you use (you didn’t black everything out successfully)…that was just what I noticed in about 10 seconds of glancing. With reverse image searches, it would be trivial to find some of those photos on a classmates Facebook where you have been tagged with your real name.
As a general rule, never post personal media to Lemmy that you intend to post somewhere else (or that someone else may post who can identify you). Once a photo appears in two places, it becomes a lot easier to start connecting dots.
- You mean a picture of me where I am in a group of other people? I didn’t say which person I am in that photo.
Your comments can still be seen, even if the posts cannot.
And deleting them off your home instance does not mean they are necessarily deleted on others.
Hi, I'll assist. Let me look into this.
- This person seems to have invaded your privacy, but the snippets of their comments make it seem like they were (at least originally) well intentioned and trying to find information about your husband and legal situation. They told you how easily they found information on you and exactly how they did it—this furthers my point that you can avoid this type of thing by modifying your own posting habits.
  In my opinion, from the limited evidence in this screenshot, the other person needs a warning and you need a crash course in basic online safety.
  Again, just to be clear, anybody who doxxes or stalks someone is in the wrong and should be held accountable. Likewise, we should all be accountable for our safety and privacy online also.
  
  That screenshot is also doxxing yourself and should be removed.

17 comments