Finally. Dox is the one thing on the internet that can cause real world harm, through swatting and harassment (actual harassment that has cost people their jobs and stifled speech, not the BS definition of harassment). As far as I am concerned, this is preserving Voat's stance on free speech far more than harming it, since as far as I've seen dox is almost exclusively used to stifle speech a small, obsessive minority deem inappropriate.
The two big adjustments I would make are requiring intent to violate the rules, and excluding visibly public information such as a person's own twitter account/profile. For the former, this is the difference in posting say a leaked email that happens to contain a phone number somewhere in it and posting the same phone number in a pastebin with the explicit or implied intent to flood the number. I saw Reddit ban and threaten a number of users and subreddits for posting massive document drops (the Games Journo Pros leaks come to mind) that contain Personal Information somewhere within but the leaks are far too large to "clean up" everything, not to mention there could very well be nothing within them and it's impossible to prove the negative. Whether this leads to harassment (once again actual harassment) or not a massive document coincidentally containing PI is vastly different than purposely posting someone's PI, and this would give future Voat admins an ultimate veto against posting any large document under the guise of preventing dox. (You have to assume that all powers will be abused when granted them, it's what keeps powers in check.)
The other adjustment, excluding personal information posted by a person themselves, is much more straight forward. Reddit banned subs from posting any twitter or archived twitter links because they considered it "Personal Information". This meant fan subs can't post links to what their person/organization posted on twitter, even with the persons blessings. It also made anything posted on social media very easy to dismiss as fake, since social media posts are so easily fake able without direct links or archives. Every social media site in existence has privacy controls and if a person doesn't want this info public, they should make their accounts private or delete them all together. It's not on Voat to "protect" them and give them a massive new censorship tool in the process.
view the rest of the comments →
7602167? ago
Dox Policy
Finally. Dox is the one thing on the internet that can cause real world harm, through swatting and harassment (actual harassment that has cost people their jobs and stifled speech, not the BS definition of harassment). As far as I am concerned, this is preserving Voat's stance on free speech far more than harming it, since as far as I've seen dox is almost exclusively used to stifle speech a small, obsessive minority deem inappropriate.
The two big adjustments I would make are requiring intent to violate the rules, and excluding visibly public information such as a person's own twitter account/profile. For the former, this is the difference in posting say a leaked email that happens to contain a phone number somewhere in it and posting the same phone number in a pastebin with the explicit or implied intent to flood the number. I saw Reddit ban and threaten a number of users and subreddits for posting massive document drops (the Games Journo Pros leaks come to mind) that contain Personal Information somewhere within but the leaks are far too large to "clean up" everything, not to mention there could very well be nothing within them and it's impossible to prove the negative. Whether this leads to harassment (once again actual harassment) or not a massive document coincidentally containing PI is vastly different than purposely posting someone's PI, and this would give future Voat admins an ultimate veto against posting any large document under the guise of preventing dox. (You have to assume that all powers will be abused when granted them, it's what keeps powers in check.)
The other adjustment, excluding personal information posted by a person themselves, is much more straight forward. Reddit banned subs from posting any twitter or archived twitter links because they considered it "Personal Information". This meant fan subs can't post links to what their person/organization posted on twitter, even with the persons blessings. It also made anything posted on social media very easy to dismiss as fake, since social media posts are so easily fake able without direct links or archives. Every social media site in existence has privacy controls and if a person doesn't want this info public, they should make their accounts private or delete them all together. It's not on Voat to "protect" them and give them a massive new censorship tool in the process.