Unfortunately for those in the public eye, they are often considered fair game by the masses.
Celebrities especially are not expected to feel, think or hurt as much as an average human and as a result are liable to receive torrents of abuse and scrutiny. Their personal data is also under threat and even a home address might be exposed to the wider public.
No one should condone the culture of doxxing which has become prominent in the digital era. But it’s a reality for public facing figures and this includes executives of popular startups: people will check you out if they want to know whether you’re the real deal.
Doxxing is defined as a low-level tactic used by malicious actors online to acquire and expose the personal information of public figures. And you can find a surprising amount on Google search results, which is why you can elect to scrub the information by contacting their web support.
This opens up the possibility to curate the Google results on your public persona. Remove the personal or embarrassing, leave behind the LinkedIn page and of course populate the search results with thought leadership.
When someone uses a search engine to find out more about a public figure, only the committed trolls will trawl through the pages looking for some ammo to defame their character. Most will simply look at the first page and this is where media articles with the executive’s name on it are highly effective.
In an age where almost all of us have social media profiles, it’s important to know when to share. Your LinkedIn and Twitter profiles can be powerful tools for building a public image.
Your Facebook will however be something you want to avoid appearing in search engine results. Data scrapers can build out a network of all your contacts and procure information about those in your inner circle, while it’s incredibly easy to find details about a family and leverage that to gather even more personal data.
There is little value anyway, in creating a public Facebook or Instagram account in the crypto space. The bread and butter will be Twitter and, for professional relationships, LinkedIn.
Google yourself today and see what comes up, and follow the New York Time guide to doxxing yourself for a crash course in establishing what information about you is public.
