The man whose personal information was "doxxed" by Daily Beast reporter Kevin Poulsen for allegedly creating and spreading the video that falsely portrayed Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi as drunk is now planning a lawsuit against the author and the publication.
“I'm looking at my options for possible legal action against anyone who was associated in publishing that inaccurate trash article about me, misquoting me and accusing me of being the creator of the Speaker Pelosi video that went viral,” Shawn Brooks said in a description of a "legal action fund" he set up on GoFundMe.
Brooks claims that he did not make or post the video to the Politics WatchDog Facebook page. But he has admitted he is one of the administrators of the page where the video originally appeared.
“More #FakeNews. They just make shit up about me. I don’t know
this guy talked to. This is a big ass lie,” Brooks said.
More #FakeNews. They just make shit up about me. I don’t know this guy talked to. This is a big ass lie. #FakeNews #VeryFakeNews pic.twitter.com/WnhnRkGBzh
— Shawn (@sportsgurufsr) June 2, 2019
Poulsen’s
piece was met with widespread criticism by other journalists
for "doxxing" a private citizen over a short video clip.
Can't believe (honestly) that journalists don't see why it's so repellent to unleash the resources of a major news outlet on an obscure, anonymous, powerless, quasi-unemployed citizen for the crime of trivially mocking the most powerful political leaders https://t.co/0VU7D1sul9
— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) June 2, 2019
I gotta say, it sets a really bad precedent when a private citizen, particularly someone who is working a blue collar job, has their identity publicly revealed simply because they made a video of a politician appearing to be drunk. His identity offers nothing to this story. https://t.co/yiXC1dkfIf
— Yashar Ali 🐘 (@yashar) June 2, 2019
A hit job on a completely private citizen from the Daily Beast over a joke video of Pelosi that happened to go viral
— Jon Levine (@LevineJonathan) June 2, 2019
https://t.co/e4g1FW9Zky
I'm seeing social media accounts claiming to be the person the Daily Beast outed, and he's strongly contesting the story. If the Daily Beast exposed him _and_ got the story wrong, _and_ Facebook helped expose their customer, then we're looking at next-level misconduct.
— David French (@DavidAFrench) June 2, 2019
A distorted video of Pelosi appeared last month, slowing down her
words to make it appear that she was drunk. The video
was shared by Trump's personal attorney Rudy Giuliani.
As of publication, Brooks' legal fund had raised over $1,000 of its $10,000 goal.