It tracked down the random, Trump-supporting man who allegedly posted the offending clip, hounded him until he talked, then published his name and other details about his life in a shocking instance of harassment masquerading as journalism.
The man whose identity was revealed by The Daily Beast is an unemployed African American fork-lift operator who, according to the site, lives in the Bronx and runs a couple of very minor Facebook pages.
Widely criticized for its decision to name the man - or in online parlance, "Dox" him - The Daily Beast defended its story as a way to show "That disinformation isn't the purview of Russia alone." But who ever believed this?
Even if it's relevant that someone in New York rather than St. Petersburg produced the video, that didn't require naming the man - let alone citing an Instagram post of his using an abusive term to refer to a woman who allegedly kicked him on the subway, detailing his employment history, talking to his ex-girlfriend or delving into his guilty plea to a domestic violence charge and an outstanding warrant for his arrest on a probation violation; the man, again, disputes many of these details.
The balance, which any responsible publication should have considered, between the public benefit of naming the man and the personal harm that might be done by naming him isn't even close.
Outlets like The Daily Beast don't make a routine practice of hunting down trolls who are producing the vast sea of anti-Trump material online, because they don't consider spoofing or maligning Trump to be a threat to democracy - or at all undesirable.
Incredibly enough, according to The Daily Beast, someone at Facebook provided details about the man's posting history that were used to confirm the story.
https://nypost.com/2019/06/03/so-now-its-ok-to-destroy-lives-in-the-name-of-fighting-trump/
The man whose identity was revealed by The Daily Beast is an unemployed African American fork-lift operator who, according to the site, lives in the Bronx and runs a couple of very minor Facebook pages.
Widely criticized for its decision to name the man - or in online parlance, "Dox" him - The Daily Beast defended its story as a way to show "That disinformation isn't the purview of Russia alone." But who ever believed this?
Even if it's relevant that someone in New York rather than St. Petersburg produced the video, that didn't require naming the man - let alone citing an Instagram post of his using an abusive term to refer to a woman who allegedly kicked him on the subway, detailing his employment history, talking to his ex-girlfriend or delving into his guilty plea to a domestic violence charge and an outstanding warrant for his arrest on a probation violation; the man, again, disputes many of these details.
The balance, which any responsible publication should have considered, between the public benefit of naming the man and the personal harm that might be done by naming him isn't even close.
Outlets like The Daily Beast don't make a routine practice of hunting down trolls who are producing the vast sea of anti-Trump material online, because they don't consider spoofing or maligning Trump to be a threat to democracy - or at all undesirable.
Incredibly enough, according to The Daily Beast, someone at Facebook provided details about the man's posting history that were used to confirm the story.
https://nypost.com/2019/06/03/so-now-its-ok-to-destroy-lives-in-the-name-of-fighting-trump/
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