Moderators of Ireland’s biggest online forum, Boards.ie, have had their personal information leaked online, or doxxed, for removing hate speech from posts.

The practice of doxxing involves leaking identifying information such as full name, address, photos, phone numbers along with other personal information with malicious intent.

Many Boards.ie moderators who have been doxxed removed homophobic and anti-Islamic remarks posted by right-wing commenters.

Boreds.ie

The information of roughly a dozen moderators has been leaked on another online forum, reports The Journal.

A user on the doxxing forum created a mockup of the Boards.ie forum that was altered to read: “Boreds.ie – Now We’re Stalkin'”.

In the post beneath the mockup, one moderator’s name was revealed, along with the location he grew up and where he went to college.

The partially redacted post reads:

“Thick […] uses the same name on most of his internet profiles so was easy to find. He goes by the name […] also. Grew up in the sticks in Co. Galway. Studied Software Development at the remedial institution that is GMIT. […] His Google+ is under the same name. More info. Stay tuned. Pics coming soon.”

Basic Decency

A Boards.ie spokesperson said it was unacceptable to “publish personal information about moderators on other websites for the explicit purpose of encouraging or facilitating the trolling of these moderators.”

The 340 voluntary Boards.ie moderators have to monitor approximately thirty posts each per day, with the forum attracting more than 10,000 comments daily.

Following the accounts of doxxing, Boards.ie released a statement:

“This is both unfair and ultimately self-defeating.”

The majority of people want to be able to do so where certain basic standards of decency and good behaviour apply

“People want to be able to share their thoughts and opinions with other like-minded people, they want to be able to discuss and debate the things that interest them online.”

“However the majority of people want to be able to do so where certain basic standards of decency and good behaviour apply, where online bullying and clearly offensive, disturbing and inappropriate content is not tolerated.”

Do you think doxxing should be made illegal in Ireland? Let us know in the comments below.