Absolutely. Whether you agree with what Lucy did, it is the PUBLISHING of their identities that is the biggest issue here and what makes a large group of contributors to this thread hypocritical in the extreme.
We are all absolutely entitled to talk about our lives and our experiences, our opinions of people in our lives and how we feel through our encounters with them. We own those experiences as much as the other person so there’s no copyright. Lucy shouldn’t have published private text messages but recounting her dates on her blog is not illegal. It would not be illegal even if she were not anonymous and she named people. The hot water for her is breaching any work privacy or safe guarding policies relating to sexual harassment of colleagues.
The earlier posters in this thread, the ones who have doxxed Lucy, YC, Charlie and a dating dad hold up the argument that “anybody could work out who person x, y, z is” from Lucy’s various social platforms. But this would require taking steps to work it out e.g.
- going to Facebook, looking up the IRL name of a dating dad and hunting through his friend list until you find someone with a particular hair style
- using photoshop to change image levels to reveal Lucy’s name and address on a photo she doctored to hide that private information
- hitting up Google with various combinations of words that may link to Lucy’s professional life in the hopes of uncovering her work accounts.
The law regarding harassment here is concerned with what constitutes reasonable action. Sleuthing through another stranger’s Facebook, while clever, amounts to unreasonable action under UK harassment laws, the same with the photo editing. The question that has to be answered is “is that reasonable behaviour?” or “what would most normal people do?” And you can bet your very last dollar that both of those actions prompt negative answers to those questions. Even worse, the poster did both of those and then some... This is stalking.
And what sets this thread apart from what y’all are admonishing Lucy for is publishing their names, particularly the name of Y, who is an innocent bystander, thus removing all possibility of doubt. Lucy didn’t do that; you did that.
Lucy has almost certainly fallen foul of work policies but you have not only removed all doubt about YC’s identity, you have encouraged others to stalk his personal social media. I almost want him to find out about this thread so he can report you for harassment.
