Doxing is never an appropriate solution to a conflict, regardless of the circumstances.
Doxing is a term commonly used in the digital landscape that refers to sharing personal information about an individual (typically an influencer or celebrity) without their consent. Doxing can come in many forms, including sharing an influencer’s personal phone number, email, photos or – in more extreme cases – home address or place of employment.
This kind of behaviour can be irreparably dangerous to any individual, especially when the offender has an audience of their own. When a creator doxes another person, they put that individual at risk of an attack by their fanbase.
This is a fear that Jack Douglass, better known by his YouTube handle jacksfilms, knows all too well after Alia “SSSniperWolf” Shelesh publicly posted a video of his home.
Douglass, whose channel has amassed nearly five million subscribers, has spent the last few months posting a series of videos criticising Shelesh, who has upwards of 34 million subscribers, for her obnoxious content theft. Shelesh’s YouTube portfolio primarily consists of her “reactions” to TikToks created by others – many of whom go uncredited and receive no personal recognition for their efforts – with Shelesh often simply giving a mindless summary of the clips without providing any commentary of value.
Douglass began his content crusade against Shelesh in an effort to “credit the creators,” having been a victim of content theft in the past. He launched a parody channel called “JJacksfilms” in which he ironically reacts to SSSniperWolf’s reactions, providing transformative commentary about Shelesh’s content-based missteps and crediting the original creators she stole from when possible. It’s a noble effort to stand in the way of Shelesh’s money-making machine, which earns her millions of dollars built upon the uncredited foundation of smaller creators’ work.
Unfortunately, SSSniperWolf did not respond well.
Shelesh initially responded with a series of posts on X (then Twitter) in which she mocked Douglass’ hairline, said he was “stuck in 2013” and disingenuously claimed that the attacks were a result of her being a woman.
Despite Shelesh’s childish remarks, Douglass persisted in his mission by continuing to criticise her through videos on JJJacksfilms and streams on Twitch. His content began to make an actual difference, with original creators beginning to reach out to Shelesh, forcing her to remove their segments from her reaction videos.
SSSniperwolf was backed into a corner, but what she did next was inexcusable.
On Oct. 13, one of Douglass’ streams was interrupted when Shelesh posted a video to Instagram of the outside of his house, taunting him to come out with the caption, “let’s talk like adults.”
“Alright, right in front of your house. Come out. Come out and talk to me,” Shelesh said in the video. “He has food outside, so he should be out any minute now to pick it up. It’s ice cream. I just want to talk.”
The video was posted to Shelesh’s 5.6 million Instagram followers with a full display of Douglass’ home. Douglass quickly ended his stream and did not leave his house, a decision that was likely wise given Shelesh’s sister publicly asking if “[Douglass doesn’t] know how to fight or something?”
Douglass has said that he and his wife no longer feel safe in their home. While some have called his fears unfounded, they make a lot more sense given her massive fanbase, who now have access to a photo of his personal residence.
Content theft aside, what Shelesh did was utterly inexcusable. Her actions are a disgusting violation of Douglass’ personal life and could have quickly led to a physical altercation between the creators or an attack by her fanbase. Attacking another creator online is one thing, but taking virtual drama into the real world puts people at risk and violates their right to privacy.
It’s worth mentioning that doxing is illegal in California, where the incident occurred. Shelesh didn’t just violate Douglass’ privacy, she broke the law.
Unfortunately, YouTube doesn’t plan on doing anything meaningful to support Douglass. After a week of silence on the situation, they’ve temporarily demonetized the SSSniperWolf channel, effectively putting a monetary band-aid over the situation to quell the online fires until people inevitably forget about Shelesh’s misconduct.
Yet things get even worse. YouTube has actively victim-blamed Douglass for his “behaviour” throughout the conflict, when all he’s done is rightfully criticize Shelesh and credit the creators she’s stolen from.
“Confirming SSSniperWolf has received a temporary monetization suspension per Creator Responsibility policies,” the official @TeamYouTube account posted on X. “Off-platform actions that put others’ personal safety at risk harm our community and the behaviour on both sides isn’t what we want on [YouTube]. Hoping everyone helps move this convo to a better place.”
YouTube’s real message couldn’t be more clear: if you make their company enough money, they’ll do everything they can to protect you from the consequences of your actions – and they’ll even throw your victim under the bus in the process.
The truth is that Shelesh’s channel is a cash cow for YouTube and advertisers through her high subscriber count and viewership. YouTube has proven that it doesn’t care about the well-being of its creators; it will simply defend the influencer they deem more financially beneficial.
In fact, YouTube is even willing to undermine their own rules to do so. Their harassment and cyberbullying policy clearly states that the platform does not permit “harmful behaviours, like threats or doxing,” adding that they will not tolerate “posting an individual’s non-public personally identifiable information, like a phone number, home address or email address, to direct abusive attention or traffic toward them.”
Of course, they seem to have forgotten to add that this doesn’t apply to those with massive YouTube channels.
YouTube’s response to this situation has set an incredibly dangerous precedent and shows large creators that their actions will not have meaningful consequences. Violating their terms of service is now fair game for massive creators if they’re willing to be demonetized for a short period of time.
Those with any sort of ethical code should understand, however, that doxing is never acceptable regardless of an individual’s status or fame. Bringing online drama into the real world is not responsible nor safe no matter how many subscribers you have.