Doxxing discussion out of Market Action

[lklundin]

You clearly don't understand why doxxing is a problem. It's not just knowing someones name and occupation that is problematic. It's because there is no due process, no recourse, no defense, no formal accusation, no constitutional protections and oversight. In short, none of the things that make up the carefully balanced legal system in trying to work towards a just resolution.

I do not feel I have demonstrated a lack of understanding of due process nor the right every person has to it. What I do feel is that no doxing has occurred here.

For my part I consider this debate to be finished, so you are welcome to reply and thus get the last word.

 

[schonelucht]

Tracking down Yevgeny Prigozhin's Russian troll farm was done by the same sort of research.

And I would also not support posting the name and work affiliation of someone paid to write fake news for facebook. Related, I think I'd like my media to be less speculative too. For every story where they succesfully uncovered a fraud there is a story where they ruin someone by putting them in the undeserved spotlight.

Here is the thing : hypothetically speaking. Publicly exposing "Jim Chanos is paying people to spy on Tesla". Fine. "Jim Chanos is paying THIS person that works for THAT company". Not fine.

 

[schonelucht]

Some moderator notes:
1. @schonelucht has convinced me that the original doxxing post is, indeed, against the rules. There's been so much quoting and discussion about it that I couldn't clean it up if I tried, but as a matter of principal I will delete the original post.
2. I shouldn't have edited my comment into another person's posting. The egregious calculation error was mine, not his. I apologize to @FirebirdAlpha for that particular mistake.
--ggr

Thank you for this. I withdraw my earlier (publicly and privately outed) criticism.

 

[jhm]

Yes. There is a person behind the fiction and that person is entitled to their privacy. That's human rights 101. You don't give those up by remaining anonymous.



They are accountable as everyone else. File it with relevant law enforcement if you think they are doing something illegal, file a complaint with Twitter if you think they violate the Terms of Use, ban them here if they disrupt this forum or submit a tip to the SEC if you think they are manipulating the stock. All that is perfectly fine and all that is totally different than doxxing.



Sure, go ahead. But respect their fundamental rights. That means : don't ask the government to outlaw their speech, don't tresspass on their property, don't hit them in the face and don't invade their privacy.

When a person goes into a very public space and performs explicitly public acts, it is difficulty to argue for a reasonable presumption of privacy. It is not an invasion of privacy to identify a person with their public actions. One gives up privacy by virtue of doing things in public.

I cannot put on a clown suit, go out into a public park, hurl insults at passersby, and claim that this gives me a reasonable presumption of privacy. If someone identifies me as the person in the clown suit, that is perfectly fair game. Now if someone steals my wallet and reads my drivers license, that is an invasion of privacy, and I may have recourse against such actions.

The person who believes they have been doxed can also seek recourse with various authorities and administrators. If believe those remedies are sufficient, fine. But I believe there are social and ethical issues that are not sufficiently remedied through such channels. The desire to safeguard ones reputation is very important for inculcating civil behavior. If you have to hire lawyers for remedies, you've already lost.

 

[jhm]

And I would also not support posting the name and work affiliation of someone paid to write fake news for facebook. Related, I think I'd like my media to be less speculative too. For every story where they succesfully uncovered a fraud there is a story where they ruin someone by putting them in the undeserved spotlight.

Here is the thing : hypothetically speaking. Publicly exposing "Jim Chanos is paying people to spy on Tesla". Fine. "Jim Chanos is paying THIS person that works for THAT company". Not fine.

Wow, this is such an extreme position. It basically delegitimizes any sort of investigative journalism. To report that "Jim Chanos is paying THIS person that works for THAT company," is exactly what an investigative journalist ought to be doing. Only when you get to these sorts of particulars can more vague claims like "Jim Chanos is paying people to spy on Tesla" be substantiated, corroborated or refuted by other evidence. Journalists must be able to name names. It's the service they perform to the public.

As for persons working in a troll farm, they are fair game too. Getting paid to harass and mislead online does not entitle one to anonymity. Legitimate PR work is clear about who the PR agent is and who is paying them to do PR work. This is one of the bright lines between legitimate PR work and unethical propaganda. This is unethical whether or not fraud or some other crime is being committed.

It is fair game for journalists and others to identify persons who engage in covert propaganda and follow the story where it will. If you step into a public space and peddle misinformation and deception, that ought to follow your resume. If you don't want what you do for living to sully your personal reputation, then you are in the wrong line of work.

 

[jhm]

I looked back at the post from Twitter handle @loadiabe86. This presents the graphic in question that some have alleged is an act of doxxing. It appears that those who pieced together this information relied exclusively on public information, especially information posted by the persons themselves who have been outed. The investigative technique is merely to look for clues in public information and make connections across multiple online platforms and personas. At least, I could not find any Non-Public Private Information (NPPI) released in this graphic.

Thus, there appears to be no privacy violation at work here. Those who want to claim that this is doxxing need to be able to point to specific NPPI that was not already put into public domain by the named persons. Otherwise, this is not a case of doxxing.

 

[neroden]

The clearly-abusive uses of doxxing have involved making people's home addresses and phone numbers available so that malicious persons could harass them at their homes or call in fake threats to the police. This is truly dangerous and so home addresses and phone numbers should almost never be published.

A small, one-site employer may be subject to the same attack. A billionaire employer with his own security -- probably not. Revealing that someone works for a large employer who has multiple work locations certainly does *not* carry the same risk. Revealing someone's background (college education, former employment with oil firms, etc) certainly does not create any such risks.

 

[defc0n]

@schonelucht you are conflating privacy with anonymity. They are not the same thing.

 

[strangecosmos]

Doxxing is a grave sin and it is disturbing to see so many people defend it here. Pseudonymity is important for the Internet and has long been important for writers even predating the Internet. Many folks on this forum are pseudonymous, for good reason.

If you feel threatened by the opinions or the factual claims that someone is posting online, then refute them or point out the lack of evidence. Exposing someone’s identity who has chosen to be pseudonymous is wrong. Exposing them just because you feel your worldview is threatened by their speech is especially wrong.

I also think folks are way overestimating the impact of what gets said by random, pseudonomyous, barely followed accounts on Twitter. 62% of Tesla is owned by large financial institutions. Another 22% is owned by Elon. And 3% is owned by other insiders — executives and board members. So that’s 87% of Tesla stock that is owned by institutions and insiders. Neither institutions nor insiders pay any attention to what random pseudononymous accounts with barely any followers say on Twitter. This stuff is completely immaterial to Tesla’s actual future as a company. It’s just a weird hobby for people with a particular obsession.

If you want to do something helpful, put that time and energy into research and writing or videos or podcasts that refute myths and advance your point of view. That’s something that might actually make a difference because if your research gets picked up by mainstream news sources and you therefore have an influence on the financial media, that might conceivably impact the perception of institutional investors. Arguing on Twitter with random people is just futile masochism. Doxxing them is equally futile, and it’s unethical and harmful.

However, research and writing or producing audio/video is hard work, and Twitter arguments are easy and trivial. Twitter arguments are a great way to trick yourself into thinking you’re doing something when really you’re doing nothing. If you’re in the mood to fight someone, you might as well play Overwatch instead. It’s a lot more fun.

 

[Mario Kadastik]

Refuting their claims is a futike effort. The work needed tomrefute BS is an order of magnitude bigger than to create said BS meaning that this is a losing battle, especially in cases where full troll farma are used hence the work they put in tomgenerate BS is already large.

This means also that giving this the standard procedure of reporting to police/SEC is going to have a marginal impact. Trolling and distributing misinformation isn’t really that hardly punished if at all. This means that these people feel that they are close to untouchables.

They post under false identities (and don’t confuse pseudonyms with multiple false and throwaway identities) because they know what they are doing isn’t either legal or ethical. So the only recourse for such action is to oust them. Make their personas public and known and especially if they are hiding relevant connectiona that motivate their misinformation campaigns. Such open ties betwen the false accounts and real persons is the only way to dissuade future similar pehaviour and the possibility of action against their real persona is a deterrent to continue such behaviour.

However as already mentioned extremely private data that can lead to actual physical etc harm shouldn’t be oustes, but wasn’t in this case as I have deduced. Ousting their names and employment data (if relevant to their info campaign) is however fully the right course.

People have gotten too cocky on the internet behind their hope of anonymity and twitter and law enforcement couldn’t care less most of the time as it’s an uphill battle on minor inconveniences from their perspective. Manipulating stock might fly against SEC but I doubt they could or would fight troll farms...

 

[neroden]

IFTF: Government Sponsored Trolling

Yeah, these people need to be outed. Again, not home addresses or phone numbers, but employment and background and names are legit.

 

[neroden]

And apparently the exposure of Lawrence Fossi as the purveyor of disinformation "Montana Skeptic" has been helpful.

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct...wgr%5Eauthor&usg=AOvVaw3g03_FwaYaEPLeiu74w3iS

"Montana's" boss did deserve to know that he was spreading disinformation under an assumed name. Not the sort of thing you want your employee to be doing. If "Montana" hadn't been spreading outright, provable lies, I might feel differently -- but he was and I caught him in them more than once.

 

[oneday]

And apparently the exposure of Lawrence Fossi as the purveyor of disinformation "Montana Skeptic" has been helpful.

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=15&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwi6gr3SgLbcAhWPrVkKHfs8AxQQ6F4wDnoECAQQCw&url=https://twitter.com/QTRResearch?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor&usg=AOvVaw3g03_FwaYaEPLeiu74w3iS

"Montana's" boss did deserve to know that he was spreading disinformation under an assumed name. Not the sort of thing you want your employee to be doing. If "Montana" hadn't been spreading outright, provable lies, I might feel differently -- but he was and I caught him in them more than once.

Wow. Something something disinfectant.

 

[defc0n]

And apparently the exposure of Lawrence Fossi as the purveyor of disinformation "Montana Skeptic" has been helpful.

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=15&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwi6gr3SgLbcAhWPrVkKHfs8AxQQ6F4wDnoECAQQCw&url=https://twitter.com/QTRResearch?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor&usg=AOvVaw3g03_FwaYaEPLeiu74w3iS

"Montana's" boss did deserve to know that he was spreading disinformation under an assumed name. Not the sort of thing you want your employee to be doing. If "Montana" hadn't been spreading outright, provable lies, I might feel differently -- but he was and I caught him in them more than once.

LOL! Good riddance.

 

[Wnuk]

Interesting if true

Tesla Bull on Twitter

 

[FirebirdAlpha]

Interesting if true

Tesla Bull on Twitter

Two prominent shorts are saying that Elon called the guy’s boss to get him to stop posting about Tesla.

Pretty extreme if true.

 

[MP3Mike]

Interesting if true

Tesla Bull on Twitter

Well it is true that the Twitter account has been deleted. But we don't know if the reason stated is true or not. (But seems reasonable.)

For those that don't click Twitter links:

A week ago @shortshorterhmm exposed @MontanaSkeptic1, a fierce Tesla critic, as Larry Fossi - managing director of The Stewart J. Rahr Foundation. Rahr heavily invested in oil. Today Larry was forced by his boss to close his Twitter account. #Transparency $TSLA $TSLAQ

And I really liked that Spiegel outed himself as a liar:

 

[ZachShahan]

Well it is true that the Twitter account has been deleted. But we don't know if the reason stated is true or not. (But seems reasonable.)

For those that don't click Twitter links:

Thanks for sharing. Is there any more substance to this claim that can be shared? Feel free to DM me if you have it but don't want to share publicly.

 

[Wnuk]

Yes, I questioned the reason the account was closed too, not that it was closed.

 

[EVMeister]

Now Montana Skeptic is off Twitter, he's probably speaking into his dictaphone and playing back his own voice to amuse and calm himself. Sleeping pills have got nothing on that man's voice.