Most websites now or formerly show everyone's email address by trying to request a new password. That is not a crime, that is just taking advantage of what should not even be there to begin with. And that does not even include those who forget to hide their email address when they sign up to anywhere.
Calling Kiwi Farms a website full of criminals is stupid because it makes them sound like a website full of badass leet haxxers persecuted by trannies and liberals, just like they imagine themselves as. That is the main image Kiwi Farms wants to project to everyone (when they are not trying to portray themselves as the last bastion of free speech), though in reality Kiwi Farms is a website full of hypocritical boomers where some people know one simple trick that only exists because people are stupid, people coding social media and government websites do not give a fuck, and American corporations can legally sell all sorts of private data.
Your understanding confuses valid observations about poor website design with incorrect legal conclusions and misses the point on intent and harm of the follow up actions.
The possibility of information leaks by exploiting a flawed system (like, as you say, a password reset flow that leaks confirmation of an email or username for example) does not make deliberately exploiting it automatically lawful. Poor website design is not blanket permission to use a system for purposes far outside its intended function, especially when the goal is to obtain private information for doxing or harassment.
Laws like the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA) are sometimes brought up in this context because they deal with intentional access to a protected computer (including its systems) without authorization or exceeding authorized access to obtain information. It is not a stretch to argue that submitting someone else's username that does not belong to you into a "forgot password" or similar account recovery flow to elicit information that does not belong to you is not passive observation of public data. It is an active probe of systems in ways that go beyond ordinary user intent, which may be characterized as unauthorized access depending on how “authorization” is interpreted in context. It is using a feature intended for account holders to extract or confirm non-public account associations (like an email address), not merely observing information that is already openly presented.
It is, again, not a stretch to argue that repeatedly using password reset or account lookup functions to probe for information about individuals who are not you is not passive observation of public data. It is active interaction with a system in a way that exceeds normal user purpose, and depending on implementation and surrounding conduct, it may be characterized as unauthorized access to information that was not intended to be obtained in that manner. At minimum, it is not equivalent to simply viewing public information; it is a form of querying designed to extract or confirm non-public account associations.
Poor website design or lazy coding does not create a "legal loophole" that makes it okay just because it wasn't some deep or sophisticated hack. Courts have not treated every interaction with a public-facing system as automatically unauthorized access, but neither have they established that “the door was unlocked” is a universal defense against liability. Courts distinguish between merely accessing publicly available information and using systems in ways that circumvent technical restrictions, intended access pathways, or privacy expectations. Flawed password reset flows can enable email or username enumeration, but deliberately exploiting them as part of identifying and targeting individuals, especially when combined with breach data, is not equivalent to harmless curiosity or legitimate security research.
When that intent is to, and on Kiwi Farms it almost always is, cross reference information never intended to be publicly disclosed with data from breaches that was itself obtained unlawfully, compile a dossier of those combined details, and then publicly post it to shame, harass, "socially blacklist", defame or otherwise cause harm to them, as again is effectively always the case on Kiwi Farms, this entire understanding you've built for yourself falls to pieces under lawful scrutiny.
This isn't "just boomers using a bad feature." It's using computer systems in ways never intended for the purpose of identifying and targeting individuals by aggregating information they have no legitimate basis to obtain in that combined form.
Data breaches themselves involve unlawful acquisition and distribution of private information. Using that material to further invade peoples privacy does not become acceptable in any form just because "corporations sell data anyway". Two wrongs don't make it legal, and the chain of conduct (probing, breach-derived data use, and publication for harassment) can strengthen exposure to civil liability and, in some circumstances, criminal liability depending on jurisdiction and specifics of conduct.
Yes, simply reposting truly public information can be protected speech in many cases like with Taylor Swift's private jet. But when you obtain non-public and specifically personal information through unlawful or privacy-invasive means and publish it with intent to harass, cause fear, or incite others to act against the person, it can violate anti-stalking/harassment/doxing statutes depending on jurisdiction and facts, and may also support civil claims for invasion of privacy, defamation if false claims are added, or intentional infliction of emotional distress.
Just because this issue has not been tried in court very strongly yet does not mean the pieces are not all there. A lack of definitive precedent does not mean something is legal. "It's just a website", "It's just boomer tricks" does not override that. The framing feels clever, but when scaled to systematic targeting and real world consequences including job loss, relocation, threats, swatting, false accusations or worse it stops being an expose of bad opsec and becomes predation.
Criticizing poor data handling is one thing, but then actively de-anonymizing private individuals for sport by weaponizing unlawfully or invasively obtained personal information against them is another. This isn't about 'persecution', it's about accountability for actions that invade privacy and cause irreparable harm to people because Kiwi Farms fancies themselves arbiters of morality, law be damned unless it does them favors.
I reiterate, just because the law is too encumbered in bureaucracy to do anything about it in recent memory does not mean that they have a free pass. The lack of a court order does not clear them. They are pretty and pathetic script kiddie grade criminals.
Full stop.
AI TLDR for people who cannot read through my evening autism:
Poor website design (like leaky password resets) doesn't make it legal or harmless to deliberately use someone else's username to probe for their private email, then cross-reference breach data and publish it to dox, harass, blacklist, or defame them.It's not "passive observation of public info" — it's active misuse of systems for a purpose they were never intended for. Intent and the full chain of conduct (probing + stolen breach data + targeted publication for harm) matter, and this crosses into potential CFAA, anti-harassment, and privacy violation territory."The system shouldn't allow it" is not a legal defense. Using unlawfully obtained or invasively acquired private info to enable systematic predation isn't "one simple trick" or free speech — it's accountability-dodging vigilantism, regardless of how rarely it's prosecuted.