Why Elon Musk’s FIFA World Cup appearance is not ‘doxxing’ – Times of India

Elon Musk recently banned Twitter accounts of various journalists for “doxxing real-time location information” and calling it “inappropriate.” However, two days after the incident, the company CEO posted that he was at the Lusail Stadium in Qatar watching the final between Argentina and France.
Soon after he posted his “location”, various users called him out saying he was wrong in banning journalists accounts when he himself is giving away his location. This sparked the debate among the critics and Musk sympathisers. While some said Musk “should suspend yourself for revealing your location”, other said that the CEO cannot “doxx himself.”

What is doxxing?
Doxxing is defined as publishing any piece of information about a particular individual on the internet with malicious intent. This essentially means that if someone is willingly posting their information in a public domain then it does not fall under the category of doxxing. Hence, Elon Musk sharing that he was in Qatar watching the World Cup match is not doxxing.

The ruckus around doxxing began with the suspension of @ElonJet account that essentially tracked that live location of Musk’s private jet using publicly available data.

Soon after, Elon Musk-owned Twitter suspended accounts of several journalists for “doxxing real-time location information.” An ‘unhappy’ CEO hit back at critics and defended his decision saying that “Showing real-time information about somebody’s location is inappropriate and I think everyone on this call would not like that to be done for them.”

“Everyone’s going to be treated the same. They’re not special just because you’re a journalist,” Musk said. Twitter’s new CEO also said that his son was stalked in Los Angeles.
“Last night, [a] car carrying lil X in LA was followed by [a] crazy stalker (thinking it was me), who later blocked [the] car from moving & climbed onto [the] hood. Legal action is being taken against Sweeney & organisations who supported harm to my family,” he tweeted.

Ban on journalists’ accounts revoked
Musk put out a poll asking Twitter users when should the ban on the journalists’ accounts be lifted. Following the results, the ban was later lifted.