CMV: Creating and/or sharing the post asking users to identify tiki-torch people at the Unite The Right rally is wrong.

CMV: Creating and/or sharing the post asking users to identify tiki-torch people at the Unite The Right rally is wrong.

a) Calling for the identification of people inherently and inevitably leads to a witch hunt that results in both unfair and illegal treatment of the identified individuals, but also collateral damage to incorrectly identified individuals. I believe this is wrong and the moral equivalent of Trump requesting the names of everyone in the DEA and DOE that support climate change.

b) I'm obviously anti-Trump and anti-KKK/anti-Nazi, but I'm also fundamentally anti-doxxing and I'm struggling with my principles.

I'm less willing to bend on the issues of whether it's morally justifiable for amateur internet detectives to attempt identification themselves. That's a moral line I wouldn't cross, because I believe it invariably leads to witch hunts. However, simple act of sharing a photo that says "Have you seen me? Are you my employer? I willingly attended a rally with White Supremacists" is, imo, morally debatable. I guess the question is whether or not the act is far enough removed from inciting a witch hunt that the participants bear no responsibility for misidentification or a vigilante response. I would argue that the [person who posts on social media] still bears responsibility, but I'm open to this view changing.

EDIT: Two points of clarification.

1. I agree that the racists who participated in the Unite The Right rally in Charlottesville don't enjoy "reasonable expectations of privacy." They were out in public and they choose to making a public statement by showing up. My issue is with the act of sharing their likeness on social media, which I believe encourages illegal retribution and misidentification of innocents.

2. Misidentification has already happened.

Edit 2: Clarified that who I mean by the "participant" aren't the people harassing individuals, but the people who facilitate this harassment by forwarding/posting the image on social media.