AutoAdmit

AutoAdmit
Type of site
 Internet forum
Available in English
Owner Jarret Cohen
Created by Jarret Cohen
Website http://www.autoadmit.com
Commercial No
Registration Required
Launched 2004-03-17
Current status Active

AutoAdmit, also known as Xoxohth, is a website for prospective and current law students and lawyers. Its largely unmoderated law school message board is now the only active section, though it previously featured pages for undergraduates, business students, and graduate school. The message board, which bills itself as "the most prestigious law school discussion board in the world", has drawn the attention and criticism of some in the legal community and the media for its lack of moderation of offensive and defamatory content.

History

AutoAdmit, originally named Xoxohth, was founded in early 2004 by Jarret "rachmiel" Cohen. It was programmed in PHP from scratch by Cohen and a Massachusetts Institute of Technology student under the moniker "Boondocks" in order to emulate the old Allaire Forums software the Princeton Review message boards used. AutoAdmit's first users were dissatisfied with changes made to the Princeton Review message board in March 2004, such as stricter moderation of discussions and the abandonment of the message board's popular tree format in favor of a vBulletin-type format.[1]

The website was the inspiration for a 2007 call for papers by the Yale Law Journal on the topic of anonymous internet speech.[2]

Criticism and controversy

Trolling

On March 11, 2005, Brian Leiter of the University of Texas at Austin accused AutoAdmit on his blog of being "a massive forum for bizarre racist, anti-semitic, and viciously sexist postings, mixed in with posts genuinely related to law school".[3] This provoked the AutoAdmit administrators to suggest that Leiter had "proactively searched" for lewd content on the website.

Anonymous speech and harassment

On March 1, 2007, ABC News profiled two Yale Law School students who alleged that harassing and defamatory comments had been posted about them on AutoAdmit.[4] On March 7, 2007, the Washington Post published a front-page article featuring AutoAdmit that reported similar allegations and raised questions regarding freedom of speech and anonymity.[5] On March 19, 2007, a Wall Street Journal editorial titled "Trash Talk" by Elizabeth Wurtzel criticized the AutoAdmit law message board as a forum of "mean-spirited" gossip.[6]

The publicity sparked debate as well as a new wave of harassment of the Yale Law School students, including an incident that led Anthony Ciolli, a third-year law student at the University of Pennsylvania and one of AutoAdmit's administrators, to resign.[7] The law firm Edwards Angell Palmer & Dodge revoked an offer of employment to Ciolli; Charles DeWitt, managing partner at the firm's Boston office, explained to Ciolli via private correspondence, "We expect any lawyer affiliated with our firm, when presented with the kind of language exhibited on the message board, to reject it and to disavow any affiliation with it. You, instead, facilitated the expression and publication of such language."[8]

Deans from Yale Law School and the University of Pennsylvania Law School condemned the misogynistic and defamatory postings on AutoAdmit.[9] Others have noted that this behavior is so unethical as to jeopardize one's prospects for bar admission and employment. Brad Wendel, a legal ethics professor at Cornell Law School, wrote, "If I were one of the students who made some of the worst of these comments, I'd be sweating bullets right now."[10][11]

Lawsuits

On June 12, 2007, the two Yale Law School students filed a lawsuit against Anthony Ciolli and a number of AutoAdmit's anonymous posters, claiming their "character, intelligence, appearance, and sexual lives have been thoroughly trashed by the defendants".[12] Filed in the District Court of Connecticut, the case, Doe v. Ciolli, 307CV00909 CFD, cited violation of privacy, defamation, infliction of undue emotional distress, and copyright infringement against Ciolli and several anonymous posters. The two plaintiffs were represented pro bono by the litigation boutique Keker & Van Nest LLP, David N. Rosen, a Yale Law School professor, and Mark Lemley, a professor at Stanford Law School who specializes in computer and internet law.[13] It was said at the time that while AutoAdmit's reported lack of IP logging might prevent the plaintiffs from learning the defendants' true identities, the case could prove significant within computer and internet law if it came to trial.[14] The plaintiffs subsequently dropped Ciolli's name from the list of defendants,[15] and successfully obtained Doe subpoenas of Internet service providers (ISPs) in hopes of identifying the anonymous defendants.[16] As of August 2008 the attorneys had discovered the names of some, but not all, of the offending posters.[17]

In March 2008, Anthony Ciolli filed his own suit against Heide Iravani, Brittan Heller, Ross Chanin, Reputation Defender, the law firm of Keker & Van Nest, as well as lawyer David N. Rosen and law professor Mark Lemley in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.[18] Among other claims, Ciolli alleged slander, libel, and abuse of process, due to extensions of service. In March 2009, the court dismissed Brittan Heller from the suit because Ciolli never served her. On November 23, 2009, the court ordered the matter dismissed with prejudice, "it having been reported that the issues between the parties in this matter have been settled".

Notes

  1. ↑ Hoffman, Dave (1 November 2006). "Xoxohth 1.1: The Past and Present". Concurring Opinions. Retrieved 26 November 2006. External link in |publisher= (help)
  2. ↑ Kerr, Orin (16 April 2007). "Legal Responses to Cyberbullying". The Volokh Conspiracy. Archived from the original on 23 May 2007. Retrieved 17 April 2007. External link in |publisher= (help)
  3. ↑ Leiter, Brian (11 March 2005). "Penn Law Student, Anthony Ciolli, Admits to Running Prelaw Discussion Board Awash in Racist, Anti-Semitic, Sexist Abuse". Leiter Reports. Retrieved 26 November 2006.
  4. ↑ Marikar, Sheila (1 March 2007). "After Years of Telling All, 20-Somethings Start to Clam Up". ABC News.
  5. ↑ Nakashima, Ellen (7 March 2007). "Harsh Words Die Hard on the Web". Washington Post. pp. A–1.
  6. ↑ Wurtzel, Elizabeth (19 March 2007). "Trash Talk". The Wall Street Journal (Editorial). Archived from the original on 23 March 2007.
  7. ↑ Hoffman, Dave (13 March 2007). "Penn Law Student "Resigns" From Xoxohth". Concurring Opinions. Retrieved 15 March 2007. External link in |publisher= (help)
  8. ↑ Efrati, Amir (3 May 2007). "Law Firm Rescinds Offer to Ex-AutoAdmit Executive". Wall Street Journal blogs: law. Archived from the original on 5 May 2007. Retrieved 14 January 2015.
  9. ↑ Koh, Harold Hongju (9 March 2007). "Dean of Yale Law School condemns 'despicable' sexist attacks on students". Ms. JD. Archived from the original on 22 March 2007.
  10. ↑ "A Chat Site for Law Students Draws Fire for Allowing Personal Attacks". Wired Campus. The Chronicle for Higher Education. 14 March 2007. Archived from the original on 29 April 2007.
  11. ↑ Wendel, Brad (12 March 2007). "'This may be a subject of concern ...'". Legal Ethics Forum (blog).
  12. ↑ Solove, Daniel (12 June 2007). "The AutoAdmit Lawsuit". Concurring Opinions.
  13. ↑ Efrati, Amir (12 June 2007). "Students File Suit Against Ex-AutoAdmit Director, Others". . Archived from the original on 14 June 2007. Retrieved 12 June 2007. External link in |publisher= (help)
  14. ↑ "Has AutoAdmit Been Pwn3d?". . 12 June 2007. Archived from the original on 14 June 2007. Retrieved 13 June 2007. External link in |publisher= (help)
  15. ↑ "Anthony Ciolli Dropped from Auto Admit Lawsuit". . 9 November 2007. External link in |publisher= (help)
  16. ↑ "AutoAdmit Case Moves Forward; Federal Judge Approves Request to Subpoena ISPs for Clues to Anonymous Posters' Identities". Yale Daily News. 31 January 2008. Archived from the original on 2008-02-03.
  17. ↑ Law, Michael (5 August 2008). "The AutoAdmit Scandal: The XOXOTH Secret Forum Identities". Law Vibe. Archived from the original on 16 August 2008.
  18. ↑ "Complaint in Ciolli v. Iravani et al." (PDF). 4 March 2008.

External links

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