AutoAdmit

Infobox Website
name = AutoAdmit



caption =
url = http://www.autoadmit.com
commercial = No
type = Internet forum
language = English
registration = Required
owner = Jarret Cohen
author = Jarret Cohen
launch date = 2004-03-17
current status = Active
revenue =

AutoAdmit, also known as Xoxohth, is a network of websites for prospective and current college, graduate, law students, and lawyers best known for its largely unmoderated message board. Its law school message board is its busiest section. The message board, which bills itself as "the most prestigious admissions board in the world," has drawn the attention and criticism of some in the legal community and the media, most notably the "Wall Street Journal", and National Public Radio for its lack of moderation of offensive and defamatory content. It is described by one law professor as a "cesspool of infantile morons and sociopaths."fact|date=August 2008

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.cite web | last = Hoffman | first = Dave | title = Xoxohth 1.1: The Past and Present | publisher = [http://www.concurringopinions.com/ Concurring Opinions] | date = 1 November 2006 | url = http://www.concurringopinions.com/archives/2006/11/xoxohth_11_the_1.html | accessmonthday = 26 November |accessyear = 2006] .

AutoAdmit was the subject of a few blog posts entitled [http://www.concurringopinions.com/archives/2006/10/xoxohth_civilit_1.html "Xoxohth, Civility, and Prestige"] by Dave Hoffman of Temple University. AutoAdmit has also beennoted in mainstream publications such as the "Boston Globe" [http://www.xoxohth.com/thread.php?thread_id=342967&mc=47&forum_id=2#4866147] and is a popular reference for articles in law school newspapers suchas the "Harvard Law Record", e.g. [http://www.hlrecord.org/news/2006/01/19/Opinion/God-I.Am.So.Prestigious-1478743.shtml] , [http://www.hlrecord.org/news/2005/02/03/Opinion/Day-Of.Doom-851846.shtml] , and [http://media.www.hlrecord.org/media/storage/paper609/news/2007/04/05/News/Autoadmit.Lifts.Veil.Of.Anonymity-2826053.shtml] . The website is also the inspiration for a recent call for papers by the Yale Law Journal on the topic of anonymous internet speech.cite web | last = Kerr | first = Orin | title = Legal Responses to Cyberbullying | publisher = [http://www.volokh.com/ The Volokh Conspiracy] | date = 16 April 2007 | url = http://www.volokh.com/posts/1176705254.shtml | accessmonthday = 17 April |accessyear = 2007]

tructure

The AutoAdmit internet forum is the centerpiece of the website. It features two modes: "School-related" and "School-related + Off-topic." While the default mode is "School-related" and is intended to contain posts dealing strictly with school and job-related topics, it is the more active "Off-topic" mode which has been the main subject of controversy (though the school-related mode is generally as offensive). AutoAdmit, according to Professor Hoffman, receives over 700,000 unique visitors a month (with an estimated 100,000 regular readers) and about 12,000 posts a day. The site has received over 8,000,000 posts since March 2004.

Several other major law school websites, such as 4LawSchool and Law Student Paradise, are also owned by Jarret Cohen and maintain extremely close working relationships with AutoAdmit. Although these websites have sometimes been referred to as part of the "AutoAdmit Network," they do not bear the AutoAdmit name and are generally considered separate websites despite their common ownership.

AutoAdmit has spun off a small number of independent websites. Unlike the affiliated websites, these independent websites are not owned by Jarret Cohen and are not sanctioned or controlled by Cohen or AutoAdmit, even though they are maintained by AutoAdmit users and may exchange links with AutoAdmit or cross-post content. Noteworthy independent sites include The Xoxo Reader, a blog that highlights notable AutoAdmit threads "from the useful to the ridiculous," and First Movers, a group blog where former AutoAdmit Studies administrator Anthony Ciolli frequently discusses his law review articles and other scholarship.

Criticism and controversy

Trolling

Several law professors have criticized AutoAdmit for allowing offensive trolling under the cover of anonymity. On March 10, 2005, Eugene Volokh of UCLA published a letter on his blog, The Volokh Conspiracy, from a "lawprof" whose identity he did not disclose. The author of the letter noted racist and anti-semitic material on AutoAdmit and appealed to Volokh to bring public pressure on the site administrators to "'clean up' the content a bit." In defense of AutoAdmit, Volokh noted that the administrators had no legal obligation to remove the offensive content. [cite web | last = Volokh | first = Eugene | authorlink = Eugene Volokh | title = More About Online Racism and Anti-Semitism | publisher = The Volokh Conspiracy | date = 6 March 2005 | url = http://volokh.com/posts/1110478573.shtml | accessmonthday = 26 November |accessyear = 2006] Later that day, the site administrators wrote a letter to Volokh, which he also published in his blog, explaining their belief in "the freedom of expression and the marketplace of ideas," as well as the measures they took to insulate those who did not wish to be exposed to certain discussions from such content [http://volokh.com/posts/1110500300.shtml] .

The following day, Brian Leiter of the University of Texas at Austin accused AutoAdmit of being "a massive forum for bizarre racist, anti-semitic, and viciously sexist postings, mixed in with posts genuinely related to law school" on his blog. [ cite web | last = Leiter | first = Brian | authorlink = Brian Leiter | title = Penn Law Student, Anthony Ciolli, Admits to Running Prelaw Discussion Board Awash in Racist, Anti-Semitic, Sexist Abuse | publisher = Leiter Reports | date = 11 March 2005 | url = http://leiterreports.typepad.com/blog/2005/03/penn_law_studen.html | accessmonthday = 26 November|accessyear = 2006] This provoked the AutoAdmit administrators to publish a response [http://www.autoadmit.com/leiter.html] , suggesting that Leiter had "proactively searched" for lewd content on the website. Eugene Volokh later revealed that Brian Leiter was in fact the "lawprof" who had originally drawn attention to the content in question. [cite web | last = Volokh | first = Eugene | authorlink = Eugene Volokh | title = Clarification About an Earlier Message From Brian Leiter to Me | publisher = The Volokh Conspiracy | date = 24 June 2005 | url = http://volokh.com/posts/1119640408.shtml | accessmonthday = 15 April |accessyear = 2007]

.R. Sidarth impersonator

On August 25, 2006, two weeks after Republican U.S. Senator George Allen used the term "macaca" to describe S.R. Sidarth, a 20-year old Jim Webb campaign volunteer, conservative blogger Dan Riehl accused Sidarth of making racially insensitive and homophobic posts on the AutoAdmit message board, [http://www.riehlworldview.com/carnivorous_conservative/2006/08/allen_critic_sr.html] including posts where Sidarth allegedly admitted to having sex with a transvestite while high on methamphetamine. [http://www.riehlworldview.com/carnivorous_conservative/2006/08/update_on_sr_si.html] . Although several blog commenters informed Riehl that the S.R. Sidarth poster on AutoAdmit was an impersonator, and while Sidarth himself denied ever posting on AutoAdmit, Riehl refused to retract his story, arguing that Sidarth's denial "cannot be verified without an IP check, which I imagine would violate privacy restrictions." [http://www.riehlworldview.com/carnivorous_conservative/2006/08/allen_critic_sr.html]

On August 28, 2006, after the owner of the S.R. Sidarth moniker on AutoAdmit changed his moniker and explained to Riehl that he was not actually S.R. Sidarth, Riehl threatened AutoAdmit's administrators with a lawsuit and alluded to pursuing felony criminal charges against the site. [http://www.riehlworldview.com/carnivorous_conservative/2006/08/could_s_r_sidar.html] These threats were mocked by AutoAdmit users, [http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=480029&mc=114&forum_id=2] and inspired a parody thread where users documented testimony from the fictitious "Riehl v. Xoxohth" trial. [http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=480092&mc=58&forum_id=2] As of June 28, 2008, no actual civil lawsuit or criminal proceedings have been initiated.

Fake Milbank memo

On November 29, 2006, a group of paralegals at Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy LLP, a large New York law firm, posed as Milbank attorneys on AutoAdmit and posted a fictitious Milbank internal memorandum announcing year-end bonus compensation amounts for the firm's attorneys. [http://www.xoxohth.com/thread.php?thread_id=535893&mc=158&forum_id=2] The hoax was staged a few hours after a "Wall Street Journal" article reported on the mounting speculation over law firm bonus amounts for that year. [cite news | last = Koppel | first = Nathan | title = Jury's Still Out on Wall Street Law Bonuses | publisher = Wall Street Journal | pages = C1 | date = 29 November 2006] Because the fake internal memo announced bonuses that would have made total compensation only slightly higher than the past year, the post immediately evoked a sharp response from associates at other law firms who had expected a higher raise and feared their firms would match Milbank's announcement. [During the hoax, AutoAdmit Studies administrator Anthony Ciolli revealed, "It seems like virtually every firm in the Vault Top 50 is represented in the IP logs for this thread right now" (referring to the top 50 American law firms as ranked by Vault, Inc.). [http://www.xoxohth.com/thread.php?thread_id=535893&mc=164&forum_id=2#7096421] ] The pranksters soon confessed to the elaborate hoax, prompting legal blogger David Lat to give them "credit for decent execution" for sparking the frenzied discussion. [cite web | last = Lat | first = David | authorlink = David Lat| title = Associate Bonus Watch: The Milbank Memo Is Fake | publisher = AboveTheLaw | date = 30 November 2006 | url = http://www.abovethelaw.com/2006/11/associate_bonus_watch_the_milb.php | accessmonthday = 30 November |accessyear = 2006]

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, and one claimed it had cost her job offers. [cite news | last = Marikar | first = Sheila | title = After Years of Telling All, 20-Somethings Start to Clam Up | publisher = ABC News | date = 1 March 2007 | url = http://abcnews.go.com/US/Technology/story?id=2912364&page=1] 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. [cite news | last = Nakashima | first = Ellen | title = Harsh Words Die Hard on the Web | publisher = Washington Post | pages = A-1 | date = 7 March 2007 | url = http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/06/AR2007030602705.html] On 19 March 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. [http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110009805]

The sudden publicity sparked a flurry of debate as well as a new wave of harassment against 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. [cite web | last = Hoffman | first = Dave | title = Penn Law Student "Resigns" From Xoxohth | publisher = [http://www.concurringopinions.com/ Concurring Opinions] | date = 13 March 2007 | url = http://www.concurringopinions.com/archives/2007/03/penn_law_studen.html | accessmonthday = 15 March |accessyear = 2007] This incident also had severe professional repercussions for Ciolli, resulting in the revocation of his job offer at the law firm Edwards Angell Palmer & Dodge. [ cite web | last = Efrati | first = Amir | title = Law Firm Rescinds Offer to Ex-AutoAdmit Executive | publisher = [http://blogs.wsj.com/law/] | date = 3 May 2007 | url = http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2007/05/03/law-firm-rescinds-offer-to-ex-autoadmit-director/ | accessmonthday = 3 May | accessyear = 2007]

Deans from Yale Law School and the University of Pennsylvania Law School condemned the misogynistic and defamatory postings on AutoAdmit. [ [http://ms-jd.org/node/201 Dean of Yale Law School condemns 'despicable' sexist attacks on students | Ms. JD ] ] 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." [ [http://chronicle.com/wiredcampus/index.php?id=1933 Wired Campus: A Chat Site for Law Students Draws Fire for Allowing Personal Attacks - Chronicle.com ] ] [ [http://legalethicsforum.typepad.com/blog/2007/03/this_may_be_a_s.html Legal Ethics Forum: "This may be a subject of concern ..." ] ]

On April 12, 2007, "Harvard Law Record" published an op-ed column by Jarret Cohen entitled "Free Expression on the Internet" [http://media.www.hlrecord.org/media/storage/paper609/news/2007/04/12/Opinion/Free-Expression.On.The.Internet-2838281.shtml] . In the piece, Cohen described the growing availability of personal information on the Internet as "a social problem emerging that extends far beyond the scope of AutoAdmit" and proposed a solution involving the Google search engine. The column served as both an explanation of AutoAdmit's moderation decisions and a criticism of censorship as the solution to hurtful speech.

On June 12, 2007, the two Yale students who were allegedly harassed 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" [http://www.concurringopinions.com/archives/2007/06/the_autoadmit_l.html] . Filed in the District Court of Connecticut, the case, Doe v. Ciolli, 307CV00909 CFD, cites violation of privacy, defamation, infliction of undue emotional distress, and copyright infringement against Ciolli and several anonymous posters. The two plaintiffs are represented pro bono by the litigation boutique Keker & Van Nest, David Rosen, a Yale Law School professor, and Mark Lemley, a professor at Stanford Law School who specializes in computer and internet law. [cite web | last = Efrati | first = Amir | title = Students File Suit Against Ex-AutoAdmit Director, Others | publisher = [http://blogs.wsj.com/law/] | date = 12 June 2007 | url = http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2007/06/12/students-file-suit-against-autoadmit-director-others/ | accessmonthday = 12 June | accessyear = 2007] While AutoAdmit's reported lack of IP logging may prevent the plaintiffs from ever learning the defendants' true identities, the case could prove to be very significant within computer and internet law if it does make it to trial. [cite web | title = Has AutoAdmit Been Pwn3d? | publisher = [http://www.abovethelaw.com] | date = 12 June 2007 | url = http://www.abovethelaw.com/2007/06/has_autoadmit_been_pwn3d.php | accessmonthday = 13 June | accessyear = 2007] The plaintiffs subsequently dropped Ciolli's name from the list of defendants [cite web | title = Anthony Ciolli Dropped from Auto Admit Lawsuit | publisher = [http://randazza.wordpress.com] | date = 09 November 2007 | url = http://randazza.wordpress.com/2007/11/09/anthony-ciolli-dropped-from-auto-admit-lawsuit] , and successfully obtained a subpoena of Internet service providers in hopes of identifying the anonymous defendants. [cite web | title = AutoAdmit case moves forward; Federal judge approves request to subpoena ISPs for clues to anonymous posters’ identities | publisher = Yale Daily News | date = 31 January 2008 | url = http://www.yaledailynews.com/articles/view/23231] The attorneys have now discovered the names of some, but not all, of the offending posters. [cite web | title = The AutoAdmit Scandal: The XOXOTH Secret Forum Identities | publisher = [http://lawvibe.com/ Law Vibe] | url = http://lawvibe.com/the-autoadmit-scandal-xoxoth/]

Anthony Ciolli has 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 Rosen and law professor Mark Lemley. [http://www.yaledailynews.com/articles/view/23920 Yale Daily News Article] and [http://www.citmedialaw.org/sites/citmedialaw.org/files/2008-03-04-Ciolli%20Complaint.pdf Complaint in Ciolli v. Iravani et. al.]

U.C. Hastings evacuation

On April 18, 2007, two days after the Virginia Tech massacre, an individual under the moniker "Trustafarian", a first-year law student at UC Berkeley's Boalt Hall School of Law, posted the following message in an AutoAdmit thread titled [http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=616215&mc=43&forum_id=2 Just decided not to do a murder-suicide copycat at Hastings Law] :

Date: April 18th, 2007 1:35 PM

Author: Trustafarian

I went to bed all set for "Bloody Wednesday," but when I woke -- to sun, to flowers in bloom -- I just couldn't bring myself to suit up.

Maybe tomorrow; I hear rain's in the forecast."

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=616215&forum_id=2#7956138)

The posting was later edited by the poster to read "wgwag," (as it currently reads now) which stands for "White Girls With Asian Guys," in an attempt to make it appear as if the original posting were intended as a joke.

Hastings College of Law, acting on the advice of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, [http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/04/18/BAGT4PB3H66.DTL] cancelled classes and evacuated the building at 3:22PM. [http://memoirsofhastings.blogspot.com/2007/04/virginia-tech-copycat-threat-shutsdown.html]

At 10:14PM, Jarret Cohen, President of AutoAdmit, issued a statement providing further factual information:

This afternoon, the dean of the University of California, Hastings College of Law, acting on the advice of the FBI, cancelled classes and evacuated the building after becoming aware of a message posted on the AutoAdmit discussion board. An individual has come forward to claim responsibility for that message, and when the FBI special agent in charge of this matter contacted me I put him in touch with this person. My expectation is that this matter will, from this point on, be handled between the poster, the authorities, and the school. [http://www.autoadmit.com/uc-hastings-evacuation.html]

On April 25, 2007, UC Berkeley's School of Law recommended the poster be expelled for posting this threat. [http://memoirsofhastings.blogspot.com/2007/04/update-boalt-dean-recommends-exlusion.html]

Notes

External links

* [http://www.autoadmit.com Official website]
* [http://randazza.wordpress.com/2008/03/05/oh-noesdoes-pwned/ Ciolli Countersues]