Content warning: This story contains strong language, threats of sexual violence, and death threats.
Posters of some of those kidnapped by Hamas in Israel are displayed on a pole in Manhattan.
Spencer Platt/Getty Images
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Spencer Platt/Getty Images
Posters of some of those kidnapped by Hamas in Israel are displayed on a pole in Manhattan.
Spencer Platt/Getty Images
Doxxing – the practice of posting a person’s private information for revenge or punishment – has been around since the early days of the internet. It has been used against journalists, members of law enforcement and women speaking out about sexual abuse.
Since last fall, doxxing campaigns have been used to “name and shame” those expressing opinions about the war between Israel and Hamas.
The names of Harvard students who signed a statement by the student group Harvard Undergraduate Palestine Solidarity Committee were posted on bulletin boards near the university’s campus. A scientific journal fired its editor-in-chief for retweeting a satirical article. A Florida school district has placed a teacher on leave for sending an email regarding recognition of the Palestinian community. NYU Langone Health fired doctor for pro-Israel social media posts.
While most doxxing campaigns last only a few days, their effects can be felt for months.
On November 2, Olivia Lynch was walking home from dinner in Brooklyn, New York, when she saw a poster she had seen several times since Hamas’ attack on Israel on October 7.
“My first reaction was a pang of sadness,” Lynch said. “Wow, look at this cute kid. Look at these pretty people being used as pawns in a war. It’s horrible.”
Olivia Lynch, 27, received thousands of messages after being doxxed online.
Olivia Lynch
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Olivia Lynch
Olivia Lynch, 27, received thousands of messages after being doxxed online.
Olivia Lynch
The poster is designed to look like a standard missing persons poster, but with the addition of the word “kidnapped” in bright red at the top and one of the faces of the 240 hostages taken by Hamas. The posters are available for free online in more than 30 languages, and anyone can print and distribute them. The posters’ creators, Israeli artists Nitzan Mintz, Dede Bandaid and Tal Huber, told NPR in a statement that the posters were intended to raise awareness of the plight of innocent civilians held captive.
Some people, including the artists themselves, believe that removing these posters is an anti-Semitic act, and videos of people tearing down these posters have gone viral.
Lynch doesn’t think removing the posters is anti-Semitic.
“These posters don’t exist in a vacuum,” Lynch said. “I think they serve to amplify the message that we were seeing, that Israel has completely justified what it is doing in Gaza.”
So on November 2, Lynch tore up a poster she had seen on her way home.
“What came to mind at that moment was that this poster justifies the destruction of Gaza because of these hostages,” Lynch said.
Someone filmed Lynch doing this, and that morning a video of her tearing up the poster was on the Internet. Instagram pages like @JewsHateDatabase posted the video with the caption: “Help us find out who she is – a Jew hater spotted in Williamsburg Brooklyn.”
NPR sent several requests for comment to the page’s creators but did not receive a response.
Lynch has received hundreds of emails filled with death threats, threats of sexual violence and promises to have her fired from her job teaching at an after-school nature program called Wild Ferns with fewer than five people on staff.
One email reviewed by NPR said: “I hope you are lynched like your last name suggests.” Another person wrote to her: “I hope you get raped by Nazi Hamas and burn in hell.” Another read: “I will make sure every employer knows who you are.” »
Olivia Lynch
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Olivia Lynch
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Olivia Lynch
Lynch’s employer was not spared from the messages. The small business received thousands of emails, one-star Google reviews and Instagram comments demanding Lynch be fired.
Lynch was at work when her phone started lighting up with texts from concerned friends less than 24 hours after video of her removing the poster went viral.
“I immediately thought I had to try to do damage control,” Lynch said.
The results
A few days after tearing down the poster, Lynch received a call from her boss: she had been fired.
She filed for unemployment benefits a few weeks later, arguing that she had the right to express her political views outside the workplace.
“I considered it perhaps a small act of civil disobedience,” Lynch said. “It was non-violent. I was deleting an inflammatory propaganda article.”
The New York State Department of Labor denied her request, stating that she “was held to higher standards in child care” and “knew or should have” known that her actions would jeopardize his job.
Lynch filed an appeal of the state’s decision, which is currently pending.
Enrique Armijo, a law professor at Elon University, said Lynch might not have many legal grounds because the First Amendment only applies in cases where the government restricts free speech , and not a private company or employer.
“We don’t really talk about the First Amendment when it comes to individuals posting flyers, ripping them up or saying things about other people on social media,” Armijo said.
Armijo clearly understands why a small business would make the decision to fire an employee who is the subject of a doxxing campaign.
“Employers have to manage their affairs,” Armijo said. “They can’t handle the deluge of comments from strangers saying someone should be fired.”
Wild Ferns denied giving an interview for this story, but sent NPR a statement in which the company said it had been struggling financially for some time. And after this incident, “the financial and emotional toll was so immense” that they decided to “suspend the program indefinitely,” according to the press release.
How do incidents like this affect the culture of free speech?
Aaron Terr, director of public advocacy at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), a nonprofit that works to protect free speech, said that even if none of these actions — tearing up a poster, doxxing someone, or firing someone for misconduct – are illegal, they harm the culture of free speech in the United States
“If Americans feel like there are tripwires everywhere and they don’t know exactly what they can and can’t say, you end up with a scenario where millions of Americans are withdrawing from the national political conversation,” Terr said.
Terr believes social media has exacerbated this problem because it’s now easier for people to send messages harassing companies to fire someone for something they saw online.
“This facilitated massive, rapid stacks in a way that was not possible before,” Terr said.
However, Terr said it was difficult to fully defend Lynch’s actions. While he thinks that firing someone for actions that occurred outside of work is incredibly damaging to the culture of free speech, he considers tearing up a poster a sort of heckler’s veto, which is- that is, when a speaker’s message is silenced by a dissident party.
“You don’t just express your own view on something,” Terr said. “You are also interfering with the ability of others to express their views on the same issue.”
Lynch says she understands her action can be interpreted in different ways, but she doesn’t think she should have been fired or received death threats because of what she did. She said she saw the messages as an attempt to scare him into speaking out.
“But I will never be afraid,” Lynch said. “I have felt angry at times, maybe a little sad, but I have never been afraid because I am part of something that is much bigger than me.”
The audio version of this story was edited by Ashley Westerman. The digital version was edited by Treye Green.
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