[geofft]

I don't believe that's true - I think that the Googlers who leaked the memo went to some extent to not name the author publicly, and his name was first posted on Vox Popoli, in fact, by someone sympathetic to him. (Once the name was public, everyone started using it in public.)

Also there's a big difference between "dox" in the sense of "identify a name" and "dox" in the sense of "post lots of personal documents / records about," which is what Kiwi Farms does.

[huffpopo]

It's common to back channel that information, I have a hard time believing that there was any chance his name would not have come out.

He was also doxed in the regular sense by left wing trolls (which do exist). In one example he was stalked, harassed, and had his photo taken and released from a rather private event.

[geofft]

Yes, I agree, but there's still a humongous difference in scale - backchannels are not public posts, and "trolls" / harassers picking up on public information are different from "trolls" / harassers with direct connections to people with information on their targets.

"Both sides did it" isn't a defense (both sides can be wrong), and it's definitely not a defense if one side is doing it to a much larger and more organized scale than the other, and the other side is generally trying to do the right thing and happens to have some outside trolls who are being misguidedly sympathetic to the cause.