Austin Franco is a 19-year old Cornell student who is in the news this week after replying to a job offer, in writing, by stating that he is “not interested in working for a jew [sic].”

Franco sent that message through Handshake, a professional networking app that connects students with employers. He sent it to Gabe Einhorn, the 24-year old co-founder of VryfID, a digital ID verification platform. Einhorn, who is Jewish, posted a screenshot from this exchange to his 3K followers on X, with some dismayed but polite SMH-style boilerplate about bigotry.

Exactly one minute later, Einhorn edited the post, to redact Franco’s surname from the screenshot.

Palantir co-founder Joe Lonsdale (who has >290K followers on X) then managed to track down Franco’s LinkedIn profile, and posted a screenshot of it in the comments on Einhorn’s X post, with some commentary that was more fervent than Einhorn’s, about defending Jewish honor.

Franco then responded to Einhorn, admitting to sending the Handshake message, and volunteering additional commentary about his dislike of Jews. He further stated that he was being harassed and intimidated, and added some circuitous dribble to the effect that Einhorn and Lonsdale’s behavior had confirmed his dim view of the Tribe.

Ordinarily, my law practice focuses on standing up for clients who are being attacked by braying mobs on social media. But while Austin Franco is certainly being attacked by a braying mob on social media, I would never represent him, or anyone like him.

I happen to be a member of the Tribe. From time to time, my office is contacted by potential clients who are being dragged through the mud on social media by Jewish orgs and public figures calling them antisemites. I never take those cases, because I have a serious conflict of interest. As far as I can tell, antisemites are generally too stupid to comprehend that I’m doing them no disservice by declining to represent them.

How serious is my conflict of interest?

Well. Not six weeks ago a shooting-and-car-ramming threat (yes, two for one) was called in to the orthodox synagogue I attend with my pre-teen son. When I arrived for Saturday services that week, the parking lot was barricaded with sandbags and armed security was on site with a machine gun. The armed guards were nothing new. The machine gun was.

I have more stories like this one, some of them a lot juicier, but I won’t belabor the point.

Periodic antisemitic attacks are par for the course in western and, now, global civilization, and recently they are increasing both in frequency and in gruesomeness, including in America. People I know, acolytes of Tucker Carlson et al., have expressed doubt to me about the extent of this problem, and I simply keep my powder dry. Aside from not wanting to validate bullshit by arguing with it, the problem is bad enough that I risk disrupting friendships and business relationships by speaking out. I feel fine speaking very frankly about it to strangers online, but not across a dinner table or over coffee to someone I have a history with.

Everyone likes to join in with braying mobs on social media—to err is human. But to put it mildly, I believe that Austin Franco belongs to a far worse mob than Gabe Einhorn and Joe Lonsdale do. That’s part of the calculation I have to make before agreeing to represent almost any client.

I had an interesting morning on X today after quote-retweeting a post by Franco, who asked whether he has a civil claim of any kind and requested a referral to a lawyer:

This tweet elicited a torrent of antisemitic responses (yawn). The salient point of contention, from my detractors’ perspective, was whether it is accurate to say that Franco doxxed himself.

Some pointed to the edit history on Einhorn’s original tweet, and argued that Einhorn doxxed Franco by posting his surname. But Einhorn removed that information just one minute later, and at the time, he only had 3K followers.

Others argued that Lonsdale identified Franco before Franco responded under his own name. That is certainly true, but it doesn’t mean Franco didn’t dox himself. Joe Lonsdale essentially said, this looks like the guy; Franco then logged in and confirmed that he is the guy, and volunteered a bunch of additional antisemitic commentary. If that’s not self-doxxing, I don’t know what is.

But there’s a bigger problem with this entire argument, which is that doxxing, by and large, is not a legal term of art. In most states it has no statutory or common law definition whatsoever. To the extent that a handful of states do define it, the definitions tend to differ considerably. Indeed, this morning, I was only aware that Washington state has an anti-doxxing statute. As I later found out, California and Illinois have enacted more recent ones. I believe Mississippi has one as well.

In Washington, the statutory language (RCW 4.24.792) is exceedingly broad, and the legislature then further muddied the water by adding in a bunch of statutory defenses for journalists and reports to government agencies. California’s statute (CA Civ Code § 1708.89) is much cleaner and requires that the doxxing information be disseminated with intent to elicit stalking or criminal harassment. I think that makes more sense than Washington’s approach.

Washington defines doxxing as the publication of “personally identifying information,” while intending that the information be used to harm the subject, or while recklessly disregarding the likelihood that it will be. “Personally identifying information” is defined pretty much as anything that can be used to identify a person. Under longstanding First Amendment jurisprudence, that is probably overly broad and unduly vague.

The Washington statute also disallows, as a defense, the fact that the information published may have previously been published by the putative victim of the doxxing. This seems to raise constitutional issues galore by implicating the intent, and thereby the ideological content, of these publications. It may even run afoul of Washington’s own anti-SLAPP statute (RCW 4.105). I mean, if I publish a public profile on LinkedIn, and someone on X says “here’s his LinkedIn”—is that cognizable as a tort claim in spite of the First Amendment? I’m seeing red flags there.

It seems inevitable that Austin Franco will sue someone over this. I have my doubts about whether his claims will be any good, and I hope that VryfID and Lonsdale make any such litigation absolutely miserable for Franco and any attorney who chooses to take up his cause.

If you have a doxxing or defamation matter in Washington state, or New Mexico, visit my law practice at latenightlaw.com.

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