Comment by JoshTriplett
20 hours ago
> Harassment is persistent attempts to interact with someone
No, harassment also includes persistent attempts to cause someone grief, whether or not they involve direct interactions with that person.
From Wikipedia:
> Harassment covers a wide range of behaviors of an offensive nature. It is commonly understood as behavior that demeans, humiliates, and intimidates a person.
Doxing in the loose sense could be harassment in certain circumstances, such as if you broadcast a person's home address to an audience with the intent to cause that audience to use that address, even if the address was already out there. In that case, the problem is not the release of information, but the intent you're communicating with the release. It would be the same if you told that audience "you know guys? It's not very difficult to find jdoe's home address if you google his name. I'm not saying anything, I'm just saying." Merely de-pseudonymizing a screen name may or may not be harassment. Divulging that jdoe's real name is John Doe would not have the same implications as if his name was, say, Keanu Reeves.
Because the two are distinct, one can't simply replace "doxing" with "harassment".
Generally speaking, every case I've seen of people using the term "doxing" tends to be for the case that specifically is harassment; it has the connotation of using the information, precisely because if you aren't intending to use it there's no good reason for you to have it.
That's just another way the term is used incorrectly.
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