Who is Jane Doe? Online vigilantes have attempted to reveal the Cornell University student who filed a lawsuit accusing seven fraternity members of gang rape, and in doing so have unleashed a wave of abuse against several other women.
Her attorneys say three women have been incorrectly identified and harassed — and the real Jane Doe is also receiving threats. “She’s not doing well,” her attorney Thomas Guiffra told CNN on Sunday.
“She’s under siege on social media, where people are trying to identify her.”
Unmasking Jane Doe
X and Substack aren’t stopping users from harassing women they believe are connected to the rape case — and the women who aren’t.
Unmasking Jane Doe
X and Substack aren’t stopping users from harassing women they believe are connected to the rape case — and the women who aren’t.
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The fact that several women are now facing a torrent of online abuse in connection to Jane Doe’s lawsuit isn’t surprising. Targeted harassment and intimidation campaigns were a hallmark of the backlash to #MeToo.
These targeted harassment campaigns were once organized on websites like Kiwi Farms and 4chan. But the effort to unmask Jane Doe — and to terrorize any woman they believe to be Jane Doe — is happening right in the open, on mainstream social media platforms that aren’t doing anything to stop it.
Jane Doe’s identity isn’t a total secret: It’s known to her attorneys, the judge presiding over the case, the seven men she’s accusing of rape, and their attorneys, too. In civil cases, a plaintiff’s anonymity is ultimately up to the judge, who weighs several factors, including whether identifying the plaintiff by name will put them at risk of physical or mental injury.
“In New York, there’s no automatic right to proceed anonymously,” said Annie Seifullah, a founding partner at the victims’ rights firm Incendii Law.