Kyle Quinn, a professor at the University of Arkansas, woke up on Saturday to discover his email inbox and social media accounts overflowing with vulgar messages, violent threats and accusations of racism, sent by people he had never met. Countless others contacted his employer, demanding that he be fired from his job. Kyle and his wife, fearing for their safety, were driven from their home and had to spend the weekend at a friend's house.
Kyle Quinn did nothing wrong, however. His only "crime" was that he happened to bear a slight resemblance to one of the white nationalists who attended Saturday's demonstration in Charlottesville, Virginia.
The case of Kyle Quinn demonstrates the potentially dangerous consequences of "doxing," or the releasing of a private citizen's personal information with the intent to do harm.
The misidentification of Quinn has been traced back to a Twitter account, @YesYoureRacist, which was created for the sole purpose of identifying members of white supremacy groups and exposing them to employers with the objective of getting them fired.
Leader of online vigilante mob outed as HuffPo writer
Members of the underground website 4chan, however, decided to turn the tables by doxing the Charlottesville doxer, who has now been identified as a Huffington Post contributor and liberal activist by the name of Logan Smith.
Smith owned up to being the leader of the online vigilante mob on Monday, telling Brooke Baldwin of CNN that he was the man behind the @YesYoureRacist Twitter handle. When asked by CNN if he had managed to "out" any of the alleged white supremacists, Smith confirmed that "several" had been identified.
Unfortunately, CNN failed to address the issue of misidentification and Smith failed to offer any apology to the innocent college professor who was 1,100 miles away from Charlottesville at the time of the rally.
Nonetheless, Quinn's experience illustrates the dangers of reckless vigilante justice - an experience that is sure to be repeated in the days and weeks ahead as the nation becomes further embroiled in anti-racism fervor stemming from the Charlottesville rally.
Logan Smith's employer silent on issue
The New York Times first reported on the misidentification of Kyle Quinn and the story was quickly picked up by several right-leaning news organizations such as Breitbart News, who attempted to extract a statement from Huffington Post regarding the reckless behavior of one of its contributors.
Huffington Post has declined to comment on the matter thus far, which seems to suggest that the man whose self-appointed mission was to get dangerous extremists fired from their jobs still gets to keep his own job.
