Doxed

Mexico City, February 23, 2022 – Mexican president Andrés Manuel López Obrador must refrain from publicizing the personal information of journalists and respect privacy laws in the most dangerous country for journalists in the Western Hemisphere, the Committee to Protect Journalists said Friday. On Thursday, López Obrador responded to a request for comment during his daily press…

Mexico City, February 1, 2024— The personal information of at least 324 journalists who had registered with the office of the Mexican presidency to cover President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s live weekday morning broadcasts was posted on a website, according to several news reports, prompting a call by the Committee to Protect Journalists for an…

In separate incidents in November and December 2023, two politicians in Botswana posted to social media the personal phone numbers of journalists Kabo Ramasia and Kealoboga Dihutso after the reporters sought to interview them. The unwanted publication of personal information online—known as doxxing—is an increasingly common form of digital harassment of the press. On November…

Ask any female journalist about harassment or safety while on assignment and they’ll likely have a story to tell.

Stef Schrader was on vacation in Germany last year when spam messages started to flood her inbox. Seeing random emails from Macy’s—and job alerts for the position of “Chief Idiot”—she realized someone had signed her work email up to dozens of email lists.

Journalists are frequently at risk of being harassed online in an attempt by hostile actors to intimidate or force them into silence. The harassment, most commonly directed at female journalists, often includes threats of violence against the journalist and their family and friends.

Journalists have long faced threats in reprisal for their work, and in the internet era, attackers can leverage information published on social media and professional websites to hack, abuse, shame, or defame their target.

Long before one of their photographers was harassed on election night in Brazil, the editors at Fortaleza newspaper O Povo were meeting with their readers and staff to discuss the increasingly polarized environment and how to deal with it.

Michael Edison Hayden was one of the first foreign journalists on the ground after the Nepalese earthquake in 2015– the “ground was still shaking” when he arrived, he said. He’s reported from the disputed territory between India and Pakistan in Kashmir, and gone door-to-door in Phoenix, searching for a mass killer. But, Hayden said, reporting…