Name: Canberra family inundated with death threats after being doxxed online in case of mistaken identity - ABC News
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Canberra family inundated with death threats after being doxxed online in case of mistaken identity - ABC News

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Canberra family inundated with death threats after being doxxed online in case of mistaken identityShareWhen Lucy* went to bed on a Saturday night earlier this month, she was a regular teenager getting ready for the school week in one of Australia's safest cities.When she woke up, the 15-year-old Canberran had been inundated with death threats and no longer felt safe leaving her home.Warning: This story contains content that may be&nbsp;distressing to some people.As the threats of harm and sexual violence poured in, alongside graphic images of dead bodies, Lucy's mother Sharon*&nbsp;could not understand why strangers were suddenly threatening to "slit my&nbsp;daughter's throat"."I noticed a couple of odd messages on my own account at first," Sharon&nbsp;said."Then Lucy came out and her lip was trembling, and she showed me her phone and there were hundreds of abusive messages."Our family has barely slept since that moment."Lucy had been mistaken for another person in&nbsp;a racist social media video posted on a local Canberra community Facebook page the night before.Within hours, Lucy's personal details were swirling online in Asia, Europe and the United States .Then the calls began.Sharon said the family was inundated with threats of physical violence:"I want to see you bleed.""I hope you and your family gets raped, tortured and die a slow death.""Fresh meat like you should be careful out there&nbsp;... people like me are hungry.""They tell us they know where we live, they say they're coming to kill us," Sharon&nbsp;said."I've got messages, as has&nbsp;her father, her grandmother – they are just non-stop and mostly from people in America."This is an innocent girl that has been targeted all because of a social media post that has nothing to do with her and it's causing immense trauma to our family."When the messages intensified, Sharon was hospitalised with an irregular heartbeat and stress-induced migraines."It has been relentless," she said."They call my daughter a racist whore, they say they're coming to slit her throat."The horrible things they say are really affecting her, it's terrible."Sharon said Lucy no longer left the house alone and had to be&nbsp;escorted&nbsp;by teachers to and from the car at school."She suffers from anxiety as it is, so it's heartbreaking to watch a teenager who is quite timid to go through all this," Sharon said."She's trying to explain to people it's not her, but they don't care."They just hook on and run with it and you are powerless to stop it."Lucy said she feared&nbsp;other&nbsp;teens would&nbsp;not be able to weather similar onslaughts."At first I thought about killing myself because that was what they were telling me to do," Lucy said."That was when I went and showed Mum because I knew I couldn't handle it alone."I want to speak out to stop this happening to other people who may not be able to cope."One of the people&nbsp;who shared Lucy's details&nbsp;online was Cesar, from north-western&nbsp;United States.Cesar requested the ABC only use his first name in order to protect his identity.&nbsp;Cesar saw the video on TikTok and shared it alongside Lucy's name and details of her social media accounts, but not her home address."I truly think that [a teenager] is at the age of knowing right from wrong," he said."Having people make a call to their local school and have their parent's&nbsp;job be called is a great way to ensure [racist behaviour]&nbsp;will not happen again;&nbsp;to ensure young teenagers know that their actions will have consequences and it is not going to just affect them but also their family."The 26-year-old said he believed social media doubled as an accountability measure for unacceptable behaviour, but conceded there were limits."Nobody should ever have their home address on social media, that can be dangerous," he said."I'm just doing my job by sharing [the post]&nbsp;on my social media platforms to have people aware that these actions are not acceptable."When the ABC later asked Cesar&nbsp;if he knew some of the details he shared online were incorrect he did not reply.Cesar then contacted the ABC after reading the article:"I had no idea that the name was wrong, and it was actually a different girl, not the girl from the original video," he said."I apologize and feel terrible. I will never ever share anybody [sic] information again.&nbsp;I learned my lesson."I thought I was doing justice by sharing her story on my social media platform, but instead [I] ruined another family."Simon Copland from the Australian National University studies the online tactics of&nbsp;ideological extremists and said most doxxers saw&nbsp;their actions as a form of justice."In this situation, involving racial remarks, they may see the justice system as being unlikely to get heavily engaged," Mr Copland said."People see there is a need for some sort of justice so they engage in this sort of behaviour and may feel like they are doing the right thing."He said individual doxxers like Cesar were often unable to see the magnitude of the campaign being waged against an individual."They will likely be talking to other people who are also doxxing, but it is often a smaller community, so they will see their participation, but not the millions who are also joining in," he said."You then have a situation where it's hard to see the broad scale of what they've done."&nbsp;The PhD student said doxxing could&nbsp;cause "extraordinary damage" and had been made easier by the emergence of social media platforms like Reddit and TikTok."There are numerous stories of people who have committed suicide and have had major mental health issues because of [doxxing]," he said."Victims often have to move because their address is released, they need to change their details and then lose access to most of their communication systems."Everyone can imagine being attacked online, but imagine that magnified to millions of people constantly attacking you from around the world."It has been 12&nbsp;days since the first threats landed in Lucy's inbox and only now has the torrent of abuse slowed to a trickle.At one point, the messages were so vicious, Sharon&nbsp;contacted ACT police and investigators at the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in a desperate bid for reprieve.ACT Policing said it was speaking with the families that had been targeted&nbsp;and urged the community for calm."We would ask that people think about their public comments and do not consider taking matters into their own hands," a police spokesperson said."Threats to kill or injure another person are serious offences, punishable by terms of imprisonment of up to 10 years."The sharing of personal information publicly (including online and via social media sites) may be a breach of state and commonwealth privacy legislation."However, due to the global reach&nbsp;of social media,&nbsp;doxxing and similar attacks have been notoriously difficult to prosecute.Police said victims of doxxing should keep a record of the threats they received and report it to officers and social media companies.&nbsp;"It can be hard, but try not to respond or retaliate. If possible switch off your phone for a while and seek help," the police spokesperson said.Authorities have managed to remove many of the online videos containing Lucy's details, but Sharon said she feared the ordeal would&nbsp;have long-term affects on her family."I'm always going to be concerned about Lucy being on the internet —&nbsp;who she's talking to and who they are," she said."I'm worried about her self-confidence because this experience has stripped her of that."I think it has affected her more than she lets on, she just doesn't want to upset me and she is worried about my health more than her own."Sharon said&nbsp;she would&nbsp;never view society the same way.&nbsp;"I am dumbfounded at how society has changed; how vicious people can be and how it is so easy to attack people from anywhere in the world," she said."We are losing kids to suicide everyday and parents will&nbsp;continue lose children if this continues."I'm looking over my shoulder everyday now. I'm scared of how vulnerable our&nbsp;kids are, and in an instant this could be you too."*Names have&nbsp;been changed.25 Mar 202125 Mar 2021Thu 25 Mar 2021 at 7:36pm, 26 Mar 202126 Mar 2021Fri 26 Mar 2021 at 1:56amMore on:

Canberra family inundated with death threats after being doxxed online in case of mistaken identityShareWhen Lucy* went to bed on a Saturday night earlier this month, she was a regular teenager getting ready for the school week in one of Australia's safest cities.When she woke up, the 15-year-old Canberran had been inundated with death threats and no longer felt safe leaving her home.Warning: This story contains content that may be&nbsp;distressing to some people.As the threats of harm and sexual violence poured in, alongside graphic images of dead bodies, Lucy's mother Sharon*&nbsp;could...

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Canberra family inundated with death threats after being doxxed online in case of mistaken identity - ABC News

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