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If you’re my age, you remember the days of the internet’s infancy. You remember being amazed and shocked by the many amazing things you could do and see. The internet was a wonder, a magical place with few limitations and you had the power to connect with friends old and new instantly. The world-wide-web of today is somewhat more complicated than it was 20 years ago. There are dark alleys and terrible trolls lurking in every corner.
Joshua Strickland RN
Nurses in every clinical environment use social media and post bits and pieces of their lives on the web for the world to see. Sounds harmless, but sometimes, these posts come back to bite us in the ass. Sometimes these posts go viral and there are people in the world, presumably with little else to do, ready to pounce and forever alter the lives of those sharing online.
Doxxing is the act of searching for and publishing private or identifying information about (a particular individual) on the Internet, typically with malicious intent. Obviously, it is important to understand that reporting something that is ACTUALLY (keyword here, guys) harmful to others or puts them at risk isn’t the same as doxxing. Doxxing sets out to harm, not to protect. If you see something on the internet that truly harms others, report it to the authorities. They can do the research and determine what course of action to take.
You may have seen my piece on YouTube regarding nurse Joshua Strickland. Joshua had only posted a video about his first day on the job. He had blurred out the identifying information, he thought. He casually mentioned that a patient had told him to “F*ck off and die.” He didn’t reveal any personal information about that patient, but he lost his job because someone saw a tiny logo on his badge and tracked it back to his brand new employer.
Another nurse, named Rita, posted a photo of herself and President Trump on her personal Facebook account. She was being honored by the President for saving the lives of people injured by a gunman in a mass shooting. There was nothing political about her post A Twitter user called “Time to Impeach 45!” edited the photo to include the face of Hitler and posted it, along with the phone numbers of the charge nurse and various other hospital personnel encouraging other users to contact them and demand that she be terminated. She also received death threats. Rita later deleted her Facebook and had to be escorted in and out of her hospital of employment.
Doxxing has become a kind of sport to the trolls of the internet. They are like the tattletales in grade school classrooms, silently watching and waiting for an opportunity to raise their hand and report you to the teacher. You might be posting a cute little video of yourself on Facebook and forget that you’ve got your nametag on. Perhaps you said something snarky about a patient, not naming names, not breaking HIPAA, but you said it. Your fellow nursing friends appreciate your humor, your attempt to make light of the situation you are in and they share this video, and, eventually, it ends up in the hand of one of those tattletales. Then your life spins out of control.
Nurses and casual readers, I implore you to protect yourself.
Before you post anything on the internet, even if you think it is innocent, make sure that you have limited the amount of personal information you are releasing.
Make sure you have blurred out anything that might lead someone to your identity.
Use a VPN (Virtual Private Network) to hide your IP address so the trolls can’t track you through your digital footprint.
Ask Google and other search engines to remove links to content that you don’t want traced back to you.
Post under a pseudonym.
Change your passwords regularly.
Never post where you work on your social media pages
The most important thing about creative self-expression is that it helps us relieve stress. Even if we must be especially cautious, it is beneficial to our sanity to be able to laugh and unload the stresses of our day. Keep laughing friends. Don’t let the trolls win.
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