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.
I’ve been in a position similar to the streamer. They were certainly creeped out by the situation they’re in, but I’d guess they don’t blame you for that situation. I was very grateful to the person who tipped me off. Can’t say I was very kind to them, nor was I mean. Just… short. Out of panic.
This is exactly how they acted, which is reassuring.