From the Message Board to the Front Door: Addressing the Offline Consequences of Race- and Gender-Based Doxxing and Swatting
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From the Message Board to the Front Door: Addressing the
Offline Consequences of Race- and Gender-Based Doxxing and
Swatting
If you've never been on the receiving end of a viral Internet hate mob, it's
hard to convey the confluence of galloping adrenaline and roaring dread. 1
I. INTRODUCTION
At ten o'clock on a Sunday night, while her children were in bed, flashing
police lights suddenly flooded Congresswoman Katherine Clark's home.2
Clark looked outside and saw police cruisers barricading both ends of her street
and officers with long guns facing her home.3 The officers informed Clark
that an anonymous tipster with a digitized voice had reported that Clark's home
was under attack by an active shooter. As a vocal activist against cyber
harassment, Clark knew that she had fallen victim to swatting-an aggressive
form of online abuse in which perpetrators falsely lure police into dispatching
heavily armed tactical units to victims' homes.5
Swatting often emanates from doxxing, or the public release of an
individual's personal information or documents on the Internet.6 Doxxers and
swatters exploit the anonymity and instantaneousness of the Internet to
intimidate and silence victims both online and offline.7 This social and
emotional harm is compounded by the fact that doxxing and swatting
disproportionately affect women and people of color, and are often coupled
1. LINDY WEST, SHRILL: NOTES FROM A LOUD WOMAN 203 (2016).
2. See Ann Friedman, Katherine Clark Is Taking on the Trolls, ELLE (July 13, 2016),
http://www.elle.com/culture/tech/a37728/katherine-clark-harassment-abuse-legislation/ [https://perma.cc/EY32
-DE9N] (describing Clark's personal experience with swatting); Joshua Miller, Police Swarm Katherine
Clark's Home After Apparent Hoax, BOS. GLOBE (Feb. 1, 2016), https://www.bostonglobe.com/
metro/2016/02/0 1/cops-swarm-rep-katherine-clark-melrose-home-after-apparent-hoax/yqEpcpWmKtN6bOOAj
8FZXJ/story.html (recounting scene of incident).
3. See Friedman, supra note 2 (describing officers' rifle-like guns).
4. See id. (detailing Clark's interaction with police).
5. See id.; Miller, supra note 2 (defining swatting).
6. See Patricia R. Recupero, Commentary, New Technologies, New Problems, New Laws, 44 J. AM.
ACAD. PSYCHIATRY & L. 322, 325 (2016), http://jaapl.org/content/jaapl/44/3/322.full.pdf [https://perma.cc/
X3TT-NG9V] (defining doxxing); Victoria McIntyre, Comment, Do(x) You Really Want to Hurt Me?:
Adapting lIED as a Solution to Doxxing by Reshaping Intent, 19 TUL. J. TECH. & INTELL. PROP. 111, 115
(2016) (positing doxxing leads to swatting).
7. See Danielle Keats Citron, Cyber Civil Rights, 89 B.U. L. REv. 61, 64 (2009) [hereinafter Citron,
Cyber Civil Rights] (describing social and emotional effects of online intimidation). Citron suggests that online
harassment both terrorize[s] victims and impair[s] [their] ability to participate in online and offline society
as equals. See id.; see also infra Section H.A (explaining how Internet allows aggregation of online abuse).](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.journals/sufflr51&div=7&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)
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From the Message Board to the Front Door: Addressing the Offline Consequences of Race- and Gender-Based Doxxing and Swatting
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