New York CNN —
On online forums that have previously been linked to mass shootings, people are threatening violence and attempting to publicly identify the 12 New York jurors who on Thursday decided to convict former President Donald Trump.
The calls for retribution began immediately after the verdict was announced. Experts who track online extremism told CNN the volume of violent rhetoric in the last 24 hours is as high as it was after the FBI’s search of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago property in August 2022.
“Hope these jurors face some street justice,” one anonymous user on a pro-Trump forum wrote. Another suggestively asked, “Wouldn’t [it] be interesting if just one person from Trump’s legal team anonymously leaked the names of the jurors?”
Anonymity is supposed to add a layer of protection for jurors doing their civic duty. Once reserved only for cases involving violent criminal enterprises, the practice is becoming more common. The judge in the Trump New York trial issued an order in March agreeing with prosecutors that most information about the jurors would be sealed. Trump’s lawyers did not disagree, according to the order.
Overnight, however, anonymous internet users on sites that are known havens of hate and harassment began sharing names, home addresses and other personal information belonging to people they say might have been members of the jury, a practice known as doxxing.
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