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In Defense of Doxing Nazis
With a new DOJ likely to ignore right-wing terror, citizens will have to use every tool to stop fascists, including this one
If you’re uncomfortable with the title of this essay, join the club.
Despite my intention to defend it over the next thousand or so words, I am, too.
My discomfort stems not from any particular concerns I have for the feelings of Nazis. Rest assured, I possess no such concerns.
That said, I still feel conflicted about the title.
I know of the potential abuses of doxing — releasing personal information about people online, like their places of employment, addresses, or phone numbers — because it’s happened to me many times.
As it turns out, though, it is precisely that experience and the consequences of it that have converted me into a believer in doxing when it comes to these people: Nazis, white nationalists, and fascists of all flavors.
Especially those who plot violence from behind the safety of anonymous social media avatars or streaming platform personas, as so many of these cowards do.
Two weeks ago, I discovered I had been one of several dozen people on the hit list of the Terrorgram Collective, a white supremacist terror cell whose two leaders were arrested and indicted in September.
The group’s plans involved assassinating public officials and others deemed “enemies of the white race,” including antiracist activists and writers like myself.
To this end, they offered video and written murder instructions along with encouragement and veritable sainthood to anyone willing to kill one of us for the cause. They did all this on Telegram, a platform favored by extremists and child porn aficionados (or both).
Thus, the group’s name was born: a combo of terror and gram.
Because Nazis are both horribly racist and terribly unoriginal.
I knew the group had been busted because it made the news at the time. I also knew, as far back as three years ago, that my life was being actively threatened because, on two occasions, FBI agents came to the home where I lived with my family…
