Trump's guilty verdict triggers flood of threats and efforts to identify jurors online.
Immediately after the verdict, calls for revenge started to surface. On a pro-Trump forum, an anonymous user wrote, "I hope these jurors experience some street justice." Another user proposed, "Wouldn't it be intriguing if someone from Trump's legal team leaked the jurors' names anonymously?"
Anonymity is supposed to shield jurors while they perform their civic duties. In previous times, it was only used for cases involving violent criminal gangs. But recently, it's being used more often. In connection with the New York trial involving Trump, a judge in March agreed with prosecutors to keep most juror information confidential. Trump's lawyers didn't disagree.
Yet, in just one night, anonymous internet users on websites known for hate and harassment shared the personal data, including names, home addresses, and other private details, of people they believe to be jurors. This is called "doxxing."
Doxxing can have serious real-life consequences. An infamous tactic called "swatting" involves making fake reports of a crime to prompt a massive police response at someone's house.
In the past, people who had their personal information shared online in this way have been mistakenly identified and were completely unrelated to the matter at hand.
Ben Decker, the CEO of Memetica, a threat analysis company, spoke to CNN on Friday, saying, "Unfortunately, social media has generated a whole generation of amateur detectives who operate without journalistic standards and ethics. This has resulted in numerous cases of mistaken identities and unfair accusations."
Studies conducted by Advance Democracy, a non-profit organization that carries out public-interest research, identified violent rhetoric targeting other people involved in the case, such as the presiding judge, the district attorney, and journalists who reported on it.
Last summer, supposed names, photographs, and home addresses of grand jurors in Fulton County, Georgia, circulated on the far-right web after the grand jury voted to indict Trump.
Similarly, after the FBI raid on Mar-a-Lago in 2022, a Florida court removed information, including the office address of a federal magistrate judge from its website, after internet users started targeting the judge, erroneously claiming the judge had approved the search warrant.
Contributor: Zachary B. Wolf (CNN)
Additional Information
- How to Protect Safety Online
- The Dangers of Doxxing and How to Avoid It
- Potential Consequences of Doxxing
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