A streamer I follow who's pretty private about their personal info posted something on twitter that I realized could possibly be used to partially doxx them. Not enough to find their name or anything, but they don't even talk about what country they live in and this was a lot more specific than that. So I did a quick search to see if it actually does turn up info, then DM on discord (I was already a member of their server) and said "Just wanted to let you know that if <personal info is true> then your tweet partially doxxes you."

Naturally this weirded them out and made them really uncomfortable. They said they'd been posting similar info for 2 years and no one else had actually gone and searched it up. Now they have to deal with knowing that someone has that info and just hope I don't have bad intentions (I don't, of course, but why should they believe me?)

What the fuck made me think this was a good idea, or that I was helping? I definitely need to do some self-reflection.

EDIT: Between this and talking to someone irl I may be less dumb than I thought.

  • blight [he/him]
    ·
    2 years ago

    Sure it may be awkward but I think you did the right thing by giving a heads up in a DM. Now they are aware of it and may go back and delete that stuff if they want. Think about it the other way, if you wished them harm, why bother telling them online first? What would have been wrong was if you drew more public attention to that info

    • NewAcctWhoDis [any]
      ·
      2 years ago

      I wish I hadn't actually searched it and had just warned them. They were polite but made it very clear that me finding their info was crossing a line.