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Running for office, speaking up at public meetings or sharing political views online can come with personal risks. A new study suggests that politically motivated doxing, the publication of personal information intended to intimidate or harass someone because of their political views, may be discouraging some Americans from participating in public life.

Jason Thatcher

Researchers found that people exposed to a simulated doxing attack were less willing to run for office, engage in public debate or take on community leadership roles. The effect was especially pronounced among people whose views were less firmly held.

“Our findings suggest that when people get doxed, those in the middle are often the first to stop talking,” said��Jason Thatcher, professor of information systems at the��Leeds School of Business and co-author of the study. “People in the middle tend to disengage because they don’t want to be attacked.”

The research notes that politically motivated doxing is increasingly being used to intimidate opponents and discourage civic engagement. A 2024 survey by the Anti-Defamation League found that 22% of Americans experienced severe online harassment in the previous year.

The fear factor

The study, published in March 2026 in��, looked at how politically motivated doxing can affect civic participation.��

Thatcher said politically motivated doxing often starts online but can have consequences beyond the internet. According to the study, participants associated it with threats to their safety, employment, reputation and ability to participate in public life.

The researchers, who also included Annika Stäcker and Julia Hett of the University of Münster in Germany, designed an online experiment involving 300 U.S. participants. They chose to focus on local school board elections, where political disagreements have increasingly spilled into personal attacks and harassment.

Participants were asked to imagine being nominated to serve on their local school board. Researchers showed them a personalized doxing scenario built around their actual views on abortion. The simulated attack included personal details participants had voluntarily shared and was designed to closely resemble real-world doxing campaigns. Participants then described how the experience made them feel and answered questions about whether they would continue engaging in public life, including running for office or discussing political issues online.

Thatcher said making the survey more personal helped the researchers uncover reactions that might not have appeared in a more abstract format.��

“What's unique about this study is the authenticity,” Thatcher said. The researchers tailored each scenario using details from participants' lives, including their hometown and political views, so the experience felt personal and immediate.

Participants tended to react to politically motivated doxing in one of two ways: fear or anger. Fear was the more common response, particularly among participants who viewed the incident as severe. Those who felt afraid were less likely to say they would continue running for school board or engaging in political discussions online. Anger, on the other hand, sometimes motivated people to stay involved in civic life.

The most surprising finding was who was most likely to disengage.

The researchers expected participants with the strongest convictions to react most intensely. Instead, people with less firmly held views experienced stronger emotional reactions and were more likely to say they would withdraw from civic engagement after the doxing scenario.

The result was what the researchers describe as a selective silencing effect. The findings suggest that if people with less firmly held views are more likely to disengage, public debate may increasingly be shaped by those with the strongest convictions.

Thatcher said the finding points to a broader concern about who participates in public life.

“This is so anti-American, because what we've been known for for 250 years is we have a right, we have a left and we have a middle, and the middle has driven the discourse in this country,” he said. “When people drive the middle out of the conversation, that's a problem for society.”

Why people pull back

Participants described the simulated doxing experience as a loss of control over their personal information, a forced exposure to hostile audiences and a threat that could not easily be undone. Many worried about their own safety or the safety of family members. Others described feeling isolated from their communities, as if their views were no longer welcome or protected.

One study participant said the incident made them feel as if “there is no hope for society when other people cannot respect others' views and when voicing your opinion, you feel unsafe doing so.”��

The findings offer some ideas for how policymakers and online platforms might respond. The researchers suggest that stronger protections, clearer ways to address doxing incidents and resources such as counseling, legal support and online safety education could help people stay involved in public life. They also suggest that platforms do more to catch and remove doxing content before it spreads.

The researchers also noted that the study captured people’s immediate reactions to a simulated doxing incident, not how they might behave over time. They said future research should also look at other political and social settings where doxing occurs.

Thatcher said the larger lesson extends far beyond any single target.

“As scary as the individual harm is, the scariest part of this whole study, to me, is that implication for participation in society,” he said.