Yesterday I dug into how the term ‘doxx’ has shifted meaning. This thread has a few observations and lessons. --->
So ‘doxx’ originated in the ‘90s as a term for revealing documents as a tool of revenge or harassment. At first, ‘to doxx’ meant an intentional act with intended malice. See link: wired.com/2014/03/doxing/ 1/
But that meaning softened, sometime around 5-7 years ago. ‘Doxxing’ now means any release of info that could facilitate others’ physical-world tracking of an internet persona (real name, address, etc). ‘Doxxing’ can now be reckless or negligent, not necessarily malicious. 2/
I suspect that has something to do with video game culture. In the last decade children began calling in ‘prank’ SWAT raids on gamers, simply for the lolz of watching on Twitch. That made even careless leaks of personal info dangerous, and ‘doxxing’ lost implication of malice. 3/
But the term retains a pernicious ambiguity, as shown this week when Scott Alexander claimed that the New York Times was "doxxing random bloggers for clicks". slatestarcodex.com People read that use of ‘doxx’ in divergent ways. 4/
Some read its contemporary, non-malicious sense: i.e. NYT recklessly exposing Alexander’s info, due to an inflexible sourcing policy. Callousness or indifference, not malice. Alexander himself seems to support that reading in an interview: freebeacon.com/media/well-kno… 5/
But others leaned hard on the older imputation of malice in ‘doxxing’. They claimed that the NYT was actively out to get Scott Alexander, that the identity-reveal was punishment for SA’s insufficiently woke opinions. (SA himself seems to reject this reading.) 6/
Worryingly, I found some SA partisans exploiting the ambiguity of the term. They used ‘doxx’ to implicate NYT’s evil intent, but, if pressed for evidence, retreated to the softer reckless/negligence meaning. This ambiguity facilitates lack of accountability for accusations. 7/
Interestingly, Alexander himself was doing something different. His blog post phrase "doxxing random bloggers for clicks" suggests NYT was neither malicious nor negligent, but instead exploitive, in the way tabloids invade privacy. Harm as known side-effect. 8/
But in the Beacon interview (linked above), he seems to say that it was a mistake, the result of a bureaucratic policy overriding a person with good intentions. Negligence after all. 9/ 
So: the ambiguity in ‘doxx’ leads to poor coordination of public discourse, with some people attributing vicious motives of malice or exploitation, others attributing mere negligence, and still others avoiding accountability by ambiguating between the two. 10/
Some SA partisans responded to this point by saying ‘who cares about intentions if the outcome is the same?’ Well, that’s a view you can have. But you’ll need to apply it consistently to e.g. the term ‘racist’. No more saying that SJWs are too quick to impute bad intentions! 11/
I’m not sure where that leaves us, other than needing to ask people to clarify which accusation they are making when they refer to ‘doxxing’. Perhaps exploring further will be of interest to folks who’ve written about concept creep/inflation: @SpencerJayCase @jessesingal @conor64
