So we've had an interesting event occur recently. In the last few days, user
@DrStupid posted a stunningly comprehensive and in-depth analysis of vtuber personality Amanogawa Shiina's internet presence. This was generally well-received by the community and few if any people had issues with it.
However, it was later highlighted to me that some other people had done similar things on the homeland, except they went a step further and attempted to directly access things like website profiles, Gmail accounts and other forms of personal identification associated with the personality they were investigating.
There has been much debate about this, all of which I appreciate. It has led me to refine my previous understandings of the subject and lay down some more well-defined rules about what is and what is not acceptable to post here.
It is
acceptable to post any
publicly available information that is
explicitly accessible without needing to resort to non-public or private sources.
For example, if a vtuber accidentally reveals their Discord username on screen during a stream,
that has become public information. It was shared on a public medium, to a live audience. Regardless of whether or not it was intentional, it is now public knowledge. Post-facto efforts to delete the information are irrelevant.
In the above scenario, it would be perfectly fine to join a public Discord server you knew the revealed account had posted on previously and catalog their messages, because, again, it is
public information.
However, if someone were to take that publicly available information and use it to try and derive more private information, the waters become muddier. In other words, if you used their Discord information to try and log into that account or any connected accounts, then extrapolate details about the user's phone number or email addresses from the security prompts,
that is illegal. You are deliberately attempting to breach their account security, and manipulating measures put in place to protect their identity in order to compromise said identity. You have moved beyond the realm of passively gathering data the vtuber publicly submitted (intentionally or not) and into the realm of actively trying to compromise their privacy.
Attempts have been made to defend this behavior, along the lines of 'it's their fault for not having better OpSec'. To that I simply reply; 'when was the last time you heard a rapist win a case by claiming his victim was totally asking for it?'