Harassment of women misidentified as Cornell's Jane Doe runs in the open on X and Substack

Picture a reviewer at X who opens a reported post naming a woman as Jane Doe, with her photos attached. There are two rules to check it against. The first bans sharing a person's private information without consent, or threatening to ^[9]. Under X's rules, a non-user's name and photo do not count as private information, even if someone can use them to dig up her phone number or home address ^[10]. The second rule says users "may not target others with abuse or harassment, or encourage other people to do so" ^[11].

The privacy rule does protect some identities. X has banned people for posting the alleged names of pseudonymous users ^[19]. A doxxing rule written around addresses and phone numbers assumes the harm arrives in a single post. Here the first posts carried a name and photos. The Verge reports the platform is now flooded with posts disparaging women believed to be Jane Doe ^[2]. X did not respond to The Verge's request for comment ^[12].

Tracey said he considered her identity fair game "since her lawsuit didn't hesitate to name & shame 7 of her peers as gang-rapists" ^[7]. Substack's rules for a post like his, and any comment from the company, are not in the record so far.

The Verge makes a broader argument too. It says harassment campaigns like this were once organized on sites such as Kiwi Farms and 4chan, and that this one is happening in the open on mainstream platforms ^[1]. The evidence for that is a single case. It shows organizing on X and Substack. It does not measure whether that activity has left the forums.

Jane Doe is the Cornell student suing seven fraternity members she accuses of gang rape ^[4]. Her attorneys, the judge, the seven men and their attorneys all know who she is ^[15]. "In New York, there's no automatic right to proceed anonymously," said Annie Seifullah, a founding partner at Incendii Law ^[16]. In civil cases the judge decides, and one of the factors weighed is whether naming the plaintiff puts her at risk of physical or mental injury ^[17]. "Obviously the anonymity is necessary. It's protecting her, to some extent, from even more harassment, even more targeting and retaliation," said Katie McKay, a senior associate at C.A. Goldberg ^[18]. Counting Jane Doe herself, at least four women are now receiving abuse ^[20]. "She's not doing well," her attorney Thomas Guiffra told CNN ^[5].

An operator can fit this case into a 2x2. One axis is whether the posted item falls under your private-information rule. The other is whether the person named has an account on your platform. As The Verge describes X's rules, a pseudonymous account holder sits in the protected corner ^[19]. A non-user whose name and photo get posted sits in the unprotected one ^[10]. Test any policy against that unprotected corner with a wrong guess in it: a woman who never signed up, named and pictured as someone she is not. I'd treat a name and photo, attached to an accusation against someone who has never joined, as private information. The cost is that the same rule will catch some legitimate reporting about people in the news. Reviewers would then have to judge, case by case, who counts as a public figure.