Avoid Being Dooced

Being “dooced” is slang for getting fired because of something you wrote on a blog or website. Although blogging is a great activity, it's not great when it threatens your livelihood. You can avoid being fired by masking your real identity when you blog and taking steps to hide your IP address when you publish. You should research your state law and find out what topics are afforded extra protection. However, don't expect the First Amendment to protect you. Unless you work for the government, the First Amendment will not protect you from getting fired.

Steps

Blogging Anonymously

1. Use fake names in the blog. You should never use your real name in the blog. Also don't use abbreviations of your name. If your name is Jennifer Bishop, don't call yourself “Jen B.” or “Jenny B.” Someone could still guess it is you.
   • Also change the names of other people in your workplace. Give them names unlike their real ones.
   • A good technique might be to call your boss “The Boss” and the guy in the next cubicle “Hot Guy.”
2. Change important details. Depending on the details you give, people could easily deduce where you work. From there, it is a short step to finding out who is blogging. Accordingly, you should change key details about your job. Consider the following:
   • Change your location. If you're really located in Chicago, set the blog in Florida or California. If your blog needs to be set in the Midwest, then choose a different city. Alternately, you could say something generic like you work in “a large Midwestern city.”
   • Change peoples' genders. If your boss is male, make him female in your blog. If your secretary is female, make her male.
   • Change the industry you work in. If you work at a newspaper, you could pretend to work at a TV station. However, if you really need to state you work at a newspaper, then change other details. For example, you can say you work at a small daily paper when you really work at a larger paper.
3. Delay writing about a real-life incident. To shield your identity, you should wait a week or two after an incident before writing about it. This lag time can protect you, because the people affected won't be able to connect your blog to the incident based on the date.
4. Avoid posting pictures. People can also use pictures to figure out someone's location. The file's Exif data contains information about when a picture was taken and what took it. It is also easy to use the Google picture search to find out if a picture appears elsewhere online. Accordingly, don't post pictures about your office or photos of any real person who works in the office.
   • If you want illustrations, then choose stock photography. In your caption, you can make clear that you are using a stock photo.
   • You might also want to use hand-drawn illustrations.
5. Blog only when at home. You should expect your boss to track which websites you visit during the day. Accordingly, you shouldn't blog at work. You probably shouldn't even read the blog at work. Instead, wait until you get home.
   • You can check the blog using a personal smart phone. However, make sure you don't accidentally look at the blog on your employer's phone.

Publishing Anonymously

1. Register your domain name anonymously. Your domain name is the URL that people will type in to find your website. A lawyer might have something like lawlife.com or a waitress might have a domain like alwaysserving.com. When you register your domain, choose to register anonymously. You will have to pay more to get an anonymous domain name. However, it is well worth the price.
   • You can register through a privacy provider. This company's contact information is then listed in the WHOIS registry that is available to the public.
   • They don't provide total protection. If a court orders the privacy company to turn over your information, then the company will comply.
2. Mask your IP address when you blog. If you expect your boss to find out about the blog, go the extra mile and edit the blog by masking your IP address. For example, you can work through a web-based proxy or a virtual private network.
   • Your IP address is a chain of numbers that is unique. This number chain is logged at each location that you visit.
   • When you work through a proxy, it looks as if the proxy is connecting to the website.
3. Keep Google from indexing your blog. Once Google indexes a page, it will be discoverable later on using Search—even after you attempt to shut down your blog. For this reason, you should make your blog so that it won't be indexed by Google.
   • You can use the HTML metatag: <META NAME=“robots” CONTENT=“noindex,nofollow”/>.
   • Paste this metatag in the <head> section of the HTML for the page you want to de-index.
4. Protect your blog with a password. You might write a blog for only a select audience, such as friends, family, and former colleagues. If so, you should consider protecting the blog with a password. You can give it out to those who you grant permission to read it.
   • Realize that a trusted colleague could still share the blog material with people outside. For example, they could print off your blog postings and share them with your boss. Accordingly, you shouldn't rely entirely on passwords to protect you.
   • Ideally, you should resist the temptation to share the blog with people you know in the first place.

Choosing Your Topics Wisely

1. Research your state laws. Many states have laws protecting workers who discuss politics or other topics outside of work. You should research your state's laws to find out what is protected and what isn't. Look online or contact a lawyer to discuss your state's laws.
   • Some state laws are very expansive. For example, California law protects employees from demotion or termination for their legal off-duty activities.
   • You can find a lawyer by visiting your local or state bar association. If you are low income, you can find nearby legal aid at the www.lsc.gov website.
2. Talk about unionizing in your blog. Many states afford strong protections to people who write about union drives in their workplaces. Accordingly, this is usually a safe topic to discuss on the website.
   • However, you should still be careful not to blog about unionizing during your work hours. Instead, keep the activity for after hours.
   • Some state labor laws will also protect any speech about the conditions of the workplace if more than one person is discussing this issue.
3. Think twice before discussing politics. Some states, such as California, have laws protecting employees from retaliation based on their political speech. In these states, you can sue if a boss fires you for blogging about politics. Nevertheless, you should think carefully before you do.
   • It is fairly easy for a boss to find a pre-text for firing you. For example, they could claim your work is substandard. Can you really prove otherwise?
   • You also could alienate people at work based on your political beliefs. As a result, your work performance might suffer and you'll feel less job satisfaction.
4. Notify authorities before blowing the whistle. Many laws protect employees who “blow the whistle” on their employer's illegal conduct. However, these laws protect you when you report the violation to an appropriate government authority—not when you post on your blog. Make sure to report violations before blogging about them.
   • Contact an attorney if you don't know who to report violations to. You can find a lawyer by contacting your local or state bar association. Ask for a referral. At the consultation, you can discuss the violation and what your next steps should be.
5. Avoid discussing confidential information. Your company's confidential information has a lot of value. Accordingly, you should never discuss this information on the blog, even when masking your identity. Confidential government information is also legally protected from disclosure.
   • Depending on your job, you may violate your ethical obligations by discussing client confidences. For example, a lawyer should never discuss details about a client's case in a blog.
   • If the case became public (e.g., by going to trial), then a lawyer can talk about the public information. Otherwise, tread very carefully.

Tips

• If you do get fired, contact an employment lawyer. Schedule a consultation and discuss the circumstances. You may have a valid lawsuit against your employer.

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References

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