ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that doxing enacts a rhetorical function of persuasion when a person attempts to wield power over another through the exploitation of personally identifying information through analyzing three real-life examples. The examples are: doxing and subsequent harassment of anti-gamergate activists Brianna Wu and Anita Sarkeesian; outing of Jeremy Becker, a critic of the anonymizing Internet browser Tor; and smear campaign against Taren Fivek, a communist humanitarian worker who dared to report on celebrity activists. The chapter proposes decolonial approaches that help us understand doxing as a Western cultural practice. The practice of doxing has evolved over the last couple of decades in various ways depending on persons involved and the particular situation of the moment, sometimes concerning an individual, a group of individuals, or a corporate or government entity. Identifying doxa and doxing as Western cultural practices does not do enough; rather, a scholarly obligation of rhetoric is to assess the meaning made in this identification.
