When Alex was 15 and playing Call of Duty online, he got into a heated argument with another gamer.
"That led to them getting my IP address, then my actual address, and giving that to the rest of the lobby," Alex, now 17, says.
For three or four weeks afterwards, Alex kept getting pizzas and Uber Eats delivered to his house — sometimes up to 50 times a day.
"It was just constant," he says.
"I didn't have the money to pay for it. It was sort of rinsing my bank account because a couple of drivers wouldn't leave unless I paid them."
Sometimes, the knock on the door would be a driver delivering a packet of sauce.
"It was awful.I think I was just in a constant state of being very alert that there were probably people coming to me or waiting for me."
Alex had fallen victim to doxxing — when strangers reveal identifying information about someone online, such as their name, home address, workplace, phone number, and financial details — and use that information with malicious intent.
Alex says his parents were distraught.
"[The doxxers] were telling people to leave deliveries if we weren't home," he says.
"We'd come home, there'd be just stuff all over our front yard because drivers would be leaving stuff … ourbins weren't big enough to get rid of everything.
"I imagine the trolls thought it was funny."
The Australian Institute of Criminology has found around one in 20 Australians have been doxxed and that young people are more likely to be affected by it.
It's not a new phenomenon, but it's becoming common in the gaming world.
Alex says he and his family considered reporting the harassment to police, but it eased off after several weeks.
"We told the people that we were going to call the police on them and then from there, they kind of decided that it probably wasn't worth it to continue harassing me and sending stuff."
But, still, he's worried it could happen again.
"I would assume those people do still have my address, and I can't imagine them doing it again after a few years, but there's definitely a small state of fear still about it," he says.
Is doxxing illegal?
Jennifer Beckett, a University of Melbourne specialist inonline hostility, says some people do it to get a laugh and to make their victims feel bad about themselves.
Dr Beckett says privacy laws "aren't strong around the digital thing", but that's being worked on.
The federal government recently pledged to criminalise doxxing after the details of a WhatsApp group involving hundreds of Jewish Australians were published online bypro-Palestinianadvocates.
The legislation aims to outlaw the practice of publishing personal details with malicious intent.
Persephone, aged 13, was on a server testing out a game in development when one of the people friended her through the game.
She says this "complete stranger" accessed her Snap Map on Snapchat, found out where shelived, and then tried to blackmail her.
"He messaged my friend saying, 'Hey, make her do this, or I'm gonna send her location out.'
"He sent my location out to the group anyway."
Persephone says she got in touch with a group leader on Snapchat and reported the person for revealing her personal information.
"He ended up getting banned from the group never to come back, and then we got my location taken down," she says.
Persephone was in year 7 when it happened.
"I thought, oh dang, that's pretty scary for someone as young as me to have to go through that," she says.
She didn't want to talk to her mum about it because she says her mum is strict about mobile phone use.
Dr Beckettadvises people to look after themselves if they find they've been doxxed.
"It's really important that you find a place where you can feel safe, and also recognise that this can have effects on your mental health," she says.
"It's a really good idea to go and seek some mental health support as well during all of this because it's a really, really difficult process to go through."
Alex says being doxxed is stressful because it can affect your whole family.
"I would say [the doxxers] definitely succeeded. You know, if I hadn't been arguing with them in the first place, my family wouldn't be dealing with this, I wouldn't be dealing with this. I definitely felt bad about it and felt like they won over me," he says.
But he stresses it's important not to blame yourself if it happens.
"Just talk to your families. Talk to friends about what's going on. Make sure that your emotions are clear, and don't blame yourself for it. You know, it wasn't on you. It's another person doing very bad things."
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Who is likely to be targeted?
Simon Copland is a researcher at the School of Sociology at the Australian National University and says doxxing has been used in the gaming world to target minority groups.
"About 10 years ago, there was a political campaign called GamerGate … and that revolved around people, men primarily, who were upset by the growing influence of women in the gaming industry," Dr Copland says.
"That resulted in the doxxing of some women, women who ended up having to go into hiding, having to move house because their address got released online, those sorts of things.
"There was no other intention but to encourage people to go and harass that person."
Dr Copland saysgaming is an area where toxic debates can often happen.
"You've said something that the other person doesn't like, I'm really pissed off at this person," he says.
"Then the person releases their email address or their home address or their phone number and puts it up online."
"I had my snap map specifically turned on for one or two friends because I trusted them," Persephone says.
"And I guess the algorithm was like, OK, it's a new friend, you must obviously, trust them. And then I think it gave my location to that specific friend."
After it happened, Persephone removed everyone she didn't know from her Snapchat group.
Her advice for anyone experiencing doxxing is to "not let it get to you".
And tell your parents what's going on.
"Even if you think you'll be in trouble. It's better to be in trouble than to have someone possibly harm you in real life," she says.
Persephone says the experience was traumatic.
"I was absolutely terrified for my life. I was like, OK, what's gonna happen? Am I going to be OK? And yeah, thankfully, I am OK and here to tell the tale," she says.
Her advice is not to trust anyone online with your personal information.
"You don't know who they are behind the screen, you have no proof that that photo they took and sent to you is actually them," she says.
Persephone fears being too trusting is common among her peers.
"I'm not calling out anyone, but people my age tend to be more trusting of people."
How to avoid being doxxed
Dr Copland advises young people to becareful about what personal information they share online.
"It's not the best idea to put your phone number or your email address or your address up on your profiles and things like that," he says.
"If you're a young person, if something does happen, tell your parents or your guardians or your teacher, someone you trust, as soon as you possibly can. And then it is worth reporting it to the police."
Dr Copland says you can also report these things on social media platformsthemselves.
"So if it's happening on Twitter, report it to Twitter, it's happening on Facebook, report it to Facebook, TikTok, Instagram. They all have a function where you can click on a button on a piece of content and say, report this," he says.
"You might not always get a good response, but it's always worthwhile documenting this stuff.
"People are putting pressure on these companies to do better at responding to this stuff and taking down harmful content."
Alex changed his accounts after what happened with personal information easy to find "with just the click of a button".
"I now use VPN servers or other ways of hiding IP addresses to stop people from hacking into it and finding it," he says.
But he says there were no consequences for the doxxers.
"They never got banned, they never got their accounts taken down, which means that I can only assume that they're still able to do this now."
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