Other victims of Kiwi Farms agree that trying to blanket the flames of doxxing and harassment with more speech simply isn’t working. As an example Reed offered up another entity that made headlines around the same time as Kiwi Farms: a Twitter account called Libs of TikTok, which regularly (and baselessly) characterized specific LGBTQ programs at schools, hospitals, and other locations as on-ramps into grooming and pedophilia. This, especially once the account’s posts gained traction within the right-wing news ecosystem, led to harassment and phoned-in threats at those locations, including bomb threats at Boston Children’s Hospital and Children’s National Hospital in Washington. On Twitter, however, Libs of TikTok persisted.
“I also think it’s important that tech companies be held accountable for actions committed on their platforms and for hate speech that thrives on their platforms,” said Reed. “The biggest example of this right now is Twitter itself with Elon Musk and how to treat accounts like Libs of TikTok that target LGBTQ people, hospitals, school administrators, etc., who receive violent bomb threats, death threats, and actual action…. We’ve seen some companies take a stand on this, but we’ve also seen some companies take a stand in the other direction—sites like Shopify have come out in favor of selling ‘groomer’ merchandise from Libs of TikTok, we’ve seen Elon Musk himself jump into Libs of TikTok’s comments and replies.”
With companies failing to consistently act in situations like these—despite real-world harm, in the cases of both Kiwi Farms and Libs of TikTok—it’s clear that the responsibility cannot lie solely in their hands. But despite calls for change, Reed has yet to come across evidence that regulatory bodies in the United States view it as a pressing concern.
“I’m worried that no action is going to be taken,” said Reed. “I’m worried that there aren’t going to be anti-doxxing measures proposed in legislatures. We haven’t seen much movement…. I haven’t seen much activism around it in terms of legislative lobbying or anything like that.”
