In 1809 this [1] happened in London:
> On 27 November, at five o'clock in the morning, a sweep arrived to sweep the chimneys of Mrs Tottenham's house. The maid who answered the door informed him that no sweep had been requested, and that his services were not required. A few moments later another sweep presented himself, then another, and another; twelve in all. After the last of the sweeps had been sent away, a fleet of carts carrying large deliveries of coal began to arrive, followed by a series of cakemakers delivering large wedding cakes, then doctors, lawyers, vicars and priests summoned to minister to someone in the house they had been told was dying. Fishmongers, shoemakers and over a dozen pianos were among the next to appear, along with "six stout men bearing an organ". Dignitaries, including the Governor of the Bank of England, the Duke of York, the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Lord Mayor of London, also arrived. The narrow streets soon became severely congested with tradesmen and onlookers. Deliveries and visits continued until the early evening, bringing a large part of London to a standstill.
The person behind that wrote thousands of letters to set that up.
Actually, this is a good example. There have been ~two high profile swatting incidents resulting in death. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swatting#Injuries_or_deaths_du...
Dying in a car crash is a lot higher probability for most of us, but the question is whether publishing one's address would raise the probability significantly.
I'm not sure it would. And it's hard to think of what else people can do, other than, as you say, subscribe you to a bunch of fetish mailing lists that I'd probably get a kick out of anyway.
1. https://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/no-charges-man-who-shot-police-c...
I mean, they cut the guy in the arm with a knife, on his own yard, haven't you read that? Surely you wouldn't expect anyone to have a friendly attitude after that.
Giving out their home address didn't work out well for Tony Stark in "Iron Man 3" or for this guy in New Jersey [1], but they both had done things to get some people really annoyed with them.
So at the very least make sure that you don't have anyone out there who is really annoyed with you and has only been prevented from forcefully expressing that annoyance because they do not know where you live.
[1] https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/a-man-who-went-on-a-racist...
Even still, would 4chan really dare mess with someone's kid? Generally they try to avoid going to prison, or vigilante retribution.
I guess you're right though. Thanks for pointing that out. I can think of a few ways 4chan could troll someone's child without risking themselves.
It all started when he posted his address online.
I live in a small town myself, relatively speaking (St. Louis isn't exactly a tech hub), so I was thinking that might guard me somewhat. But, my follower count keeps growing for some reason, and stuff like this has been more and more on my mind.
I appreciate it. If you have any links to further info, I'd be curious to read. Otherwise, no worries.
Generally is an important distinction though ;).
Living in fear of falling out of that "generally" is probably not fun.
I’ve been thinking of tweeting my home address, so this is a relevant concern. What do you even do when someone comes to your house, other than listen to them?
It could also be true that they did something a lot less friendly, like “bang on the windows and run away laughing.” That would be unsettling to experience, particularly at night.
This is a sad situation. Their Internet notoriety is the source of the problem, one way or another, and they felt like they couldn’t continue. I respect that; family is #1.