doxing

Is it illegal if someone post my husband's name, our daughter's name and where she works, and our home address on Facebook without permission? The person is angry with our son so posted this information on Facebook. I read somewhere that it is illegal an called doxing if they do it to threaten, harrass to shame someone or if it puts a person at risk. I consider it putting our family at risk when our address and names were posted because of negativity toward our son.

Your names and addresses are considered public information; while it's a rotten thing to do, it's not illegal.

The easiest way to deal with this is to contact Facebook. They have very strict rules in their terms of use and their desire to keep their website friendly. They may choose to take action against the account holder and they have been known to terminate Facebook accounts if they feel it is appropriate. The difficulty happens when someone puts the information on a website where the owner or person controlling the site isn't easily in reach, the site is not maintained or the site owner doesn't care to police their website. If you know who is doing this, you can technically file a civil complain for intent to cause emotional distress - but that's more like a law school example unless you have real damages to make such a case worthwhile. I'd contact Facebook as a first step. Good luck.

AngryinMI said:

Is it illegal if someone post my husband's name, our daughter's name and where she works, and our home address on Facebook without permission? The person is angry with our son so posted this information on Facebook. I read somewhere that it is illegal an called doxing if they do it to threaten, harrass to shame someone or if it puts a person at risk. I consider it putting our family at risk when our address and names were posted because of negativity toward our son.

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If it isn't on facebook where you can remove it yourself, agree to ask facebook to remove it - they generally always will.

True - and it's important to let Facebook know that it is an attempt to harass and in violation of their terms of use. If there is an ability to report the post (it's usually in the top right area of a piece of content) then use the reporting function to specify why you're reporting the item. You click the X and you should get a second text option which will allow you to click a link to report the content to Facebook. If I remember there is a short list of options, one of which will cover abuses and the other being spam.