ECAJ state­ment call­ing for nation­wide anti-doxxing laws.

Since 1944, the Exec­u­tive Coun­cil of Aus­tralian Jew­ry has been the elect­ed nation­al rep­re­sen­ta­tive body of the Jew­ish com­mu­ni­ty, unit­ing and lead­ing near­ly two hun­dred diverse com­mu­ni­ty groups through­out our coun­try. In that time, we have endured dif­fi­cult times and over­come many chal­lenges, but nev­er have we seen a peri­od where so many in our com­mu­ni­ty are so fear­ful for their phys­i­cal secu­ri­ty and loss of liveli­hood.

In the last few days this has been caused by the pub­li­ca­tion of lists con­tain­ing the names, faces and oth­er per­son­al infor­ma­tion of hun­dreds of indi­vid­u­als, whose only com­mon trait is that they are Jew­ish. This has been done with coor­di­na­tion and with mal­ice, in many cas­es result­ing in harass­ment, death threats direct­ed to named indi­vid­u­als and their chil­dren, pro­fes­sion­al and finan­cial loss, van­dal­ism of premis­es, and exten­sive psy­cho­log­i­cal harm.

The indi­vid­u­als respon­si­ble for this are engaged in prac­tices syn­ony­mous with the Nazi era. We can­not, as a free and demo­c­ra­t­ic soci­ety, per­mit the com­pi­la­tion of racial black­lists and the ensu­ing exclu­sion, vil­i­fi­ca­tion and harass­ment to take place. The ECAJ is today call­ing for reform of the Crim­i­nal Code to make it unlaw­ful to post pri­vate or iden­ti­fy­ing infor­ma­tion about an indi­vid­ual or group with the intent that the infor­ma­tion be used to cause harm to the vic­tim. This abhor­rent prac­tice is com­mon­ly known as “doxxing” and has no place in our soci­ety.

We also call on social media plat­forms to per­ma­nent­ly deac­ti­vate the accounts of those found to have used their accounts for the pur­pos­es of doxxing. Social media is intend­ed to con­nect indi­vid­u­als and com­mu­ni­ties and allow the rapid exchange of infor­ma­tion. Where accounts are used to threat­en the lives and liveli­hoods of oth­ers, the plat­forms have a duty to act.

We urge any mem­bers of our com­mu­ni­ty who feel endan­gered by this doxxing attack to imme­di­ate­ly con­tact us so that we may direct you to the appro­pri­ate legal, men­tal health sup­port, or secu­ri­ty ser­vices.

We express our sin­cere appre­ci­a­tion to the mem­bers of par­lia­ment, Labor, Lib­er­al and Inde­pen­dent who have con­tact­ed us to offer their sup­port and con­vey their out­rage. We are pre­pared to work with you to ensure the pro­tec­tion of the vic­tims and to end the impuni­ty of the per­pe­tra­tors.