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< | Toxic Fandom May Invade Your Privacy Leveraging the Power of Social Media |
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> | Social Media Doxxing: Nothing New, But Something Alarming |
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< | -- By YingLiu - 20 Nov 2020 |
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> | -- By YingLiu |
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< | Let each fan has a voice of their own could be a way to showcase participatory and democratic culture. But the Web 2.0 fandom gradually drifted away from that vision. Giving people a sense of community is great, but social media locks fans in a self-reinforcing cycle where breeds groupthink and polarization. Fandom turns toxic: fans who are inundated with information that aligns with their own beliefs will not tolerate any dissent and social networking sites provide them with a handy weapon to suppress such rebellious voice: doxing.
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> | In addition to Big Brother’s surveillance and tech companies’ data mining, there is another threat to netizens’ personal information: doxxing. The penetration of social media into people’s daily life further made doxxing less difficult and more threatening. |
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< | From Liszt Fever to Facebook Fan Groups |
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> | It Happens Everyday, Everywhere
How would you react if you stumble upon a statement you don't agree with? Most people would simply stop reading that. But someone is trying to mobilize large-scale harassment campaigns against such dissenting voices by discovering and broadcasting and publicizing personal information of the dissidents. |
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< | Idolatry is not a new phenomenon. Back in the 19th Century, Heinrich Heine created the term "lisztomania" to describe woman's then prevailing fervor for Franz Liszt. After the Technological Revolution, more and more stars, or idols, were born in Hollywood, Rolling Stones Records and the NBA. The corresponding fandom flourished -- individual fans started to ally with those who had a shared obsession to form a fan community. |
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> | This is what people call doxxing. Doxxing used to be a tactic used mostly in subculture forums, however, it has become something of a mainstream phenomenon that is taking hold of the social media landscape. |
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< | The penetration of social media into people’s daily life further promoted the communication between fans, and the traditional fan clubs evolved into online taste groups Facebook, Twitter and Instagram offer fans a free space to trumpet their private fanaticism with the world and make it easier for them to connect and communicate with like-minded users transcending the geographical boundaries. As Henry Jenkins pointed out, this kind of fandom transformed the personal reaction into social reaction. |
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> | Fandom attacks is the best showcase of how social media doxxing is used as a cyber weapon. Fan accounts have been releasing the personal information of those who had shared dissenting opinions about BTS, the largest Korean pop group, and some victims even suffered from violently detailed death threats. With a fan base of over 100 million people, such K-Pop fandom may have more cyber power than nation-states. |
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< | It Turns Sour Soon |
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> | Social media doxxing is also used in political campaigns. During the Hong Kong Protest last year, both sides of the protest line used social media to distribute opponents’ names, identity card numbers, dates of birth, phone numbers, addresses and names of family members. Victims, including both pro-democracy activists and pro-government police officers, found their names and other personal data being used to borrow money, order merchandise online or register for organ donation. Children of police officers suffered from on-camps bullying after their parents’ identity and family information were made public. |
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< | An Echo Chamber for Like-Minded Fans |
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> | What is more ridiculous and outrageous is that one might become the target of social media doxxing simply because she was infected with Coronavirus. The victim’s personal information, recent whereabouts and family background were released on WeChat? and Weibo and what caught mass attention was that she had been to four pubs during one night. Following the next was the slut-shaming and criticism on her lifestyle. |
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< | We see group polarization in the presidential election, and fandom is also an extreme manifestation of this tendency. What caused it? Twitter users may assume they have full control over what appears on their timeline since they can decide who to follow, but the reality is that their online behavior is manipulated by algorithms. Once a fan’s interest in a celebrity is detected by Twitter, it starts to supply the fan with personalized recommendations and newsfeeds that are specifically tailored to his own interests and prejudices. Driven by both self-sorting and algorithms, consequently, all tweets on his timeline are of nearly homogeneous sentiments, that is, repetitive expression of fanatical love and support for that celebrity. |
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> | Why Things Are Getting Worse When Doxxing Meets Social Media
Subjecting dissidents to public humiliation is not a new method of aggression. During the Cultural Revolution, the Chinese Communists employed the very same tactic called pīdòu: the “class enemies” were forced to confess their bourgeois family background or rebellious political thoughts before the crowds who would then verbally or even physically abuse the confessors.
There is nothing new under the sun. Then why should we still be vigilant about social media doxxing? |
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< | But there exist outsiders. People who don’t belong to such fandom may post their comments and reviews of the celebrity and his works on the web, sometimes in a negative tone. When fans are surrounded by a large group of people who agree with them, they become overly sensitive to dissent. Once they spot someone who’d dared to scorn their “king” or “queen” with insufficient praise, they spare no efforts to silence and destroy dissenting voices like what Marxists do. |
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> | Because social media enables the vast majority to share this malicious weapon once only owned by despots. Thanks to social media, everyone can easily make another person be the target of public humiliation, and the lethality of such cyber insults can be way much more widely-disseminated and long-lasting. |
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< | Social Media and Collective Action Make Doxing Easier Than Ever |
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> | First, each user enjoys freedom of speech on social media. Social media sites are proud of their participatory and democratic culture. While Twitter, Facebook and Instagram all adopted a “report-and-takedown” policy that users can request the site to remove a post if it invades their private information, there are little pre-screening content review procedures. To leverage Twitter as a platform for doxxing, one only needs to fill in his email address and password to register an account. |
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< | Social media lends a helping hand to fans again. For one thing, everyone inevitably leaves piecemeal personal information on the Web either by actively opening an SNS account or passively being mentioned in others’ posts, and such information furnishes a database for doxing. For another thing, doxing used to be done mostly on underground sites with limited forum members, but social media has made it possible to broadcast information to a massive audience instantly, which better serves the public humiliation purpose of doxing. Meanwhile, fandom can use its inherent collective power. An individual fan is not capable of much beyond some light cyber-bullying; while collectively, fandom’s power can be overwhelming and immense. |
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> | Second, the “social” characteristic of social media makes it possible for users to have millions of listeners transcending the geographical boundary. Prior to the advent of the web, shouting with a loudspeaker in Central Park could only make your voice be heard by a limited group of people; and the access to make a public speech on radio, television or newspaper was not open to everyone. Social media is more powerful than all other expression-sharing channels in terms of gathering audience — the number of users who refreshed the timeline and randomly saw your new tweet is likely to be larger than the number of the New York Times subscribers. |
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< | If Fans’ Infatuation Lasts, Who Can Stop the Chaos Caused by Such Fave? |
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> | Third, everything that happens on the Internet leaves on the internet. On one hand, this means it is much easier for attackers to obtain your personal information. We all have certain digital footprints: the metadata embedded in the group selfie your friend uploaded on Instagram, the geographic location you once checked in on Facebook, and the work experience you shared on LinkedIn? . Putting these pieces together enables attackers to uncover your identity and background. On the other hand, word-of-mouth gossip may be less remembered a hundred years later, but if your personal information once suffered social media doxxing and has not deleted thoroughly by the platforms, imagine your descendant who lives in 3021 feels curious about you one day, with the help of powerful search engines, he may still be able to review the insult you tolerated back then. |
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< | Simply accusing or mocking these fanatics for their immaturity and irrationality will not solve this toxic kind of activism enforced by a small but vocal group. Idolatry and fandom will not extirpate in the near future, especially when a growing number of teenagers are dreaming about being a Key Opinion Leader on social media. In addition, a research surveyed more than 1,500 technologists and scholars showed that over 80% of the surveyed expect that the tone of online discourse will either stay the same or get worse in the next decade. |
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< | Private Information Policy Doesn’t Help, As Fans’ Anger Is Appeased by Social Media |
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> | Arise, Ye Potential Victims of Social Media Doxxing |
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< | When users can't alter the overall atmosphere of lack of civility across the Web, they may hope that the social media sites would take precautionary and remedial actions to shelter them from attack. To achieve this goal, social media sites should have a comprehensive privacy protection policy both in the sense that it will not track, use and reveal user data without consent; and in the sense that it can effectively prevent user privacy from being maliciously publicized by other users. |
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> | Everyone knows that social media companies should be held accountable to tackle the doxxing issue. However, for a long time, they were tacitly tolerating or even encouraging doxxing since hate and anger helped to drive participation, and user participation could be then translated into advertising revenue. Twitter CEO admitted that the current anti-doxxing system is broken. |
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< | Almost all internet companies failed on the first prong since user data is their dominant monetization source. What may look reassuring is that mainstream SNS sites adopted a “report-and-takedown” policy that users can request the site to remove a post if it involves their private information, but it is just a sugarcoated placebo. At the moment when one’s privacy is disseminated, this remedial measure is futile because it is impossible to force the audience to forget. In fact, internet companies are fully aware that user privacy is vulnerable to invasion but they will not step in before egregious harm occurs -- because hate and anger drive participation with the platform, and user participation can be translated into advertising revenue. |
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> | If pinning the hope on tech companies’ conscience in terms of fighting social media doxxing is futile for the time being, netizens shall take the initiative proactively. Staying away from social media is an effective solution to prevent personal information leakage. People may argue this is a compelled compromise of their freedom. |
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< | The greater irony is that when being asked how would they react to Taylor Swift fan’s doxing posts, Instagram responded that it is adding posts containing the personal information of the two victims to a database that allows the company to automatically delete other attempts to post that information. Isn’t it more inherently risky when one’s personal information is uploaded to an SNS provider’s server? |
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> | Of course, you are free to tweet, but you should think twice if the new tweet may cause potential harm to your freedom of life. Is it really worth putting your privacy in jeopardy to enjoy such digital cocaine? If your answer is yes, then at least you shall try to use pseudonymity and proxy as a bulletproof vest when attackers are pulling the trigger on your personal information. |
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< | Arise, Ye Victims of Cyber-Revenge
There is a more powerful and practical solution. Anyone who has closely followed the discussion on data mining and capitalism surveillance should realize that they could never pin their hope on entrepreneurs’ conscience in terms of digital privacy protection. They shall take the initiative and save themselves proactively. Staying away from social media is the most effective solution. But people may argue this is a compelled compromise of their freedom of choice and freedom of speech and they are not ready to quit that digital cocaine. Yes, you do have the freedom to social media, but you cannot sit back and watch the troop of fans pulling the trigger on your privacy. It is time to review all of your digital footprints and remove or request the websites to remove anything that might enable crazy fans to trace your real identity. Once your personal information is cleared from the web domain, you may proceed to create pseudonymity for your internet profile, and you can start simply by selecting a false answer when Facebook asks which university did you attend. Next time you accidentally exasperate the loyal fans to someone, they will spend hours to identify a person who never exists in this world.
The most valuable route to improvement here is to clarify what the essay is about.
"Fandom" is treated as a phenomenon in its own category, apparently originating in 19th century Europe. That doesn't make any sense to me. What are the circus factions of the Roman Empire, or the clan and totem systems found across the human race from indigenous Australia to pre-Columbian North America to the Turkic and Mongol nomads of the ancient Asian steppe, etc.? Whether the form of analysis employed is sociological or anthropological (and that seems to me an open choice, because the existing draft actually undertakes neither) the opportunity rests precisely in the fact that this is not a recent or localized aspect of human behavior.
The relationship to unauthorized disclosure of personal information seems to me tenuous at best. Why this is different from other forms of interpersonal aggression is unclear. To me, the "doxxing" behavior seems about equidistant from Inuit song combat and Athenian ostracism, in cultural terms. In general, the instrumental concentration seems to me more misleading than helpful: do we find value in discussing "telephone revenge" as a category? Who uses phrase "poison pen letter" now? Defamation as a mode of aggression is no doubt as old as complex articulate speech, say 200,000 years. Imitative or performative contempt and efforts at social exclusion are a constant tactic of chimpanzee politics, as Frans de Waal shows. So that takes us back to the 5,000,000-year line where we and our chimpanzee cousins began separating 1.5% of our shared DNA. What does presently-existing social media have to do with all of this, specifically?
The separation of "fandom" from other forms of social faction and the reification of "social media doxxing" as a phenomenon distinct from another near-universal of human sociality might be the subject of the essay, but in that case the analysis necessary to the heroic struggle to make them uniquely different needs to be added. If these are instead reflections of deeper structures, then the next draft has a focus not about difference, but about what we can learn from similarity.
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You are entitled to restrict access to your paper if you want to. But we all derive immense benefit from reading one another's work, and I hope you won't feel the need unless the subject matter is personal and its disclosure would be harmful or undesirable. |