The federal workforce's growing digital anxiety
Federal workers are on edge after the Trump administration spent its first days dismantling long-held protections for career staffers. There’s another safeguard that government employees worry the Trump administration will kneecap before it even gets off the ground: protecting them from online harassment. Hostile online posts, podcasts, and videos, which can lead to real-life threats and intimidation, have been a rising concern for government employees over the last four years. Doxing—which the Justice Department defined in a Jan. 10 memo sent to department leaders as “the malicious act of publicly sharing personal information with the intent to intimidate, harass, or threaten”—has become more common in public-service jobs because of an accessible market for people’s information online, combined with divisive partisanship. The memo, sent out in the waning days of the Biden administration, implemented a new set of guidelines for DOJ employees affected by online threats. It came after a group of staffers pushed for more protections against online harassment. The vulnerability extends across the entire federal government, said Steve Lenkart, the executive director of the National Federation of Federal Employees Union.
The federal workforce's growing digital anxiety