Unfortunately language tends to get diluted. Nowadays in pop culture it means publishing anyone's personal information, usually against their wishes.

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Aurornis 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

This does seem close to the original intent of "doxxing", where information ("dox") is publicized that connects a real-world identity to a previously anonymous online persona. These are hackers in the classic sense who were going out of their way to stay anonymous.

The dilution of the word doxxing has been interesting, though. Some of the recent "doxxing" controversies have been about figures who weren't all that anonymous to begin with. The pop culture meaning has been extended to cover any mention of someone's real identity at all, even if it wasn't a secret.

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lovich 2 hours ago | parent [-]

Beyond diluting it also seems that people are increasingly under the impression that internet rules are also the same in real life.

I’ve been seeing it come up in discussions about court cases where people are under the belief that requiring online personalities real names in the court documents is somehow illegal because it’s doxxing.

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ffsm8 2 hours ago | parent [-]

It's just the usual millennials and zoomers finding out that their fantasies aren't actually how the world works

Most of us grew up on the Internet, and consequently our world view is incredibly screwed and not particularly based on facts

	▲	lovich an hour ago \| parent [-]
		I grew up on the internet but early enough that the phrase “the internet isn’t real life” was bandied about, which I think made it easier to understand the different set of rules existing.

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KingOfCoders 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

“When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.”