Social Media and Doxxing - Your Thoughts???

Nurses General Nursing

Published

So, I first had to look up "doxxing" which is to publicly identify or publish private information about (someone) especially as a form of punishment or revenge.

This recently came up when I read about Joshua Strickland, an RN in Louisianna who posted a selfie at the end of his first day on a new job in which he BLURRED out parts of his name tag. He vaguely mentioned a comment from a patient he had cared for that day without revealing any identifying information. He posted it to a FB group and it went viral as so many nurses could identify with his sentiment.

However, out of the thousands of supportive comments he received there was someone who felt a need to report it. So, they utilized technology to "unblur" his name tag and then reported it to his hospital.

He was fired and is currently unemployed.

So....what are your thoughts on this?

Is it okay to post selfies regarding work situations?

How about the person who reported it?

Do you know your facility policy?

Specializes in Community health.

People who engage in “doxxing” or otherwise wreaking havoc via social media, are the worst kind of malicious losers. They generally do this anonymously— spend hours in their mom’s basement and feel really proud of themselves when they successfully unblur an image. It’s pathetic, but unfortunately sometimes they “win,” as in this particular case. That nurse will go on to be fine though, he will just explain to potential employers what happened and everyone will move on.

5 Votes
Specializes in school nurse.
On 9/25/2019 at 9:32 AM, emmjayy said:

I went through a crazy long process getting rid of Facebook... first I downloaded a complete copy of my Facebook data for my own records. Then, I went through and used a script to delete every comment/like/interaction I'd ever made (this took two weeks, even using a script!!), contacted every person who'd tagged a photo of me and asked them to take the photo down, untagged myself if they refused to remove the photo, used the script to delete every status update, downloaded all my photos and then deleted all of them, changed the contact information I couldn't delete to fictitious email addresses/phone numbers, and basically turned the account into a completely empty "shell" account. I then changed the name on my account and let it sit for awhile before I used the permanent delete option (e.g., don't log back in for two weeks and your access to the account is gone forever). The purpose of letting it sit empty with a fictitious name was to hopefully give FB the opportunity to perform a routine back-up of my account and hopefully over-write their saved copy of my full account with the empty shell account. I truly mistrust Facebook's use of my data and wanted to give myself as much of a chance to cut free of it as possible.

This may seem sort of crazy (I can acknowledge that ? ) but during that process I learned just how much Facebook intrudes on your life. It is devilishly difficult to extricate yourself from the site, they purposefully make it tough for you to mass-delete things or truly control the privacy of your information. They save information on you that you really have no idea they were saving until you go looking to find out about it. I'm sure it's only gotten worse over the past couple of years, as well!

Holy crap! I never did go over to the "dark side" and open up a FB account, now I've never been more glad!!

2 Votes
Specializes in NICU.

Doxing is horrible.Also the selfie and the rat tattle are both unprofessional and wrong,just do not do it ,....period.

2 Votes
Specializes in Nephrology, Cardiology, ER, ICU.
On 9/22/2019 at 12:36 PM, juan de la cruz said:

Well, I turned 50 this year and I recall a time before the age of online forums and social media platforms when co-workers, friends, and neighbors could openly discuss political issues, talk about their faith or non-beliefs yet not escalate into a big argument and name calling. The face to face nature of those interactions enable people to be civil and respectful of each other. Sure, there were activists and passionate individuals even back then and things did get heated sometimes but it doesn't go to the same extent now where people are way too politically polarized and angry that someone dare disagree with their views.

There is an addictive nature to the false validation of getting "likes", accumulating "friends", going "viral" and being an internet sensation with a cute video. Josh's statement on his viral video aren't any different than the "talking shop" we typically hear in break rooms and when we're out with our nurse friends. But social media is a bigger animal than that. It is more important now to recognize the scary repercussions of all these technology and the toll they can take on our personal relationships, mental health, and livelihood.

I partake of these platforms myself but I do find a need to unplug and just return to the good old fashioned ways before we had all these technology at our fingertips. That's just my opinion.

Totally agree with you. When we have some degree of anonymity, we lose the filter that we might otherwise possess in real life

Specializes in Critical Care and ED.

I can't believe no one has mentioned this yet, but the reason he got fired was because he used a swear/curse word and had his hospital badge visible. He said that the patient told him to "go f&%$ himself" and I'm assuming that his use of this word, and the fact that he identified the facility, is what got him fired. I completely disagree with the person that reported him, but one made known the hospital had no choice. If he had used a different terminology maybe they might have just given him a warning.

1 Votes
On 9/21/2019 at 6:10 PM, JadedCPN said:

I wouldn’t assume I had any privacy in any part of a facility I worked in except for the bathroom.

We don’t even have this because there is no exhaust fan to blunt the noises (and smells) off the break room ?

2 Votes
On 9/22/2019 at 5:36 AM, Kooky Korky said:

Snigger? Why snigger at them? Why not help them?

Because if you reveal you know what EMR they use, you prolly work there. And have left a breadcrumb to figure out who you are in real life.

1 Votes
Specializes in Specializes in L/D, newborn, GYN, LTC, Dialysis.

I think where FB, SnapChat, Twitter and others come, it's best never to have in one's profile where he or she works and never mention work, in any way, or have pictures of such in your threads/posts. Anyone can use any reason to fire us and this has to be one of the easiest ways. Asking others not to engage in doxxing is pointless. The ones who do this are never going to change. They love the trouble they create, the damage they cause others.

On 9/27/2019 at 7:00 PM, traumaRUs said:

Totally agree with you. When we have some degree of anonymity, we lose the filter that we might otherwise possess in real life

? not sure what you mean. I think to say, when we have lost anonymity, we lose the filter that may protect us otherswise?

2 hours ago, SmilingBluEyes said:

? not sure what you mean. I think to say, when we have lost anonymity, we lose the filter that may protect us otherswise?

I think she means he felt anonymous on the internet and spoke in an unfiltered way ...quite different than what he would have done face to face with his boss.

Specializes in LTC & Rehab Supervision.

A stance I haven't really seen in this topic; why is it okay for the patient to have said what they said to the nurse? Surely there wouldn't have been an issue if the nurse said something along the lines of "Wow, my new nurse is amazing!", chances are the facility wouldn't have minded if that was the case. It would be getting good publicity out of the facility, even!

But because the patient said something rude and negative, and the nurse said something negative/joking about it, he got in trouble.

But I beg the question, why does the patient never face disciplinary action? Why does everything fall onto Josh? And this is including if the patient was "with it" or not.

9 hours ago, JabuJabule said:

A stance I haven't really seen in this topic; why is it okay for the patient to have said what they said to the nurse? Surely there wouldn't have been an issue if the nurse said something along the lines of "Wow, my new nurse is amazing!", chances are the facility wouldn't have minded if that was the case. It would be getting good publicity out of the facility, even!

But because the patient said something rude and negative, and the nurse said something negative/joking about it, he got in trouble.

But I beg the question, why does the patient never face disciplinary action? Why does everything fall onto Josh? And this is including if the patient was "with it" or not.

Josh said it was his first day working on a psychiatric floor. This was a psych patient who told him this who was likely in a very vulnerable state of mind.

“Why does everything fall onto Josh,” it didn’t have too. He was the one who posted a picture on a Facebook group of 268,000 followers. I’m not even a member of the group and I still saw that picture. I can’t imagine how many people in total saw it.

The good news is that Josh has a new job.

4 Votes
Specializes in LTC & Rehab Supervision.

I still fail to see why the patient cannot be held accountable for their negative actions.

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