AutoAdmit, also known as Xoxohth, is a message board site for prospective and current college and graduate and law students. Its law school message board is its busiest section. AutoAdmit has frequently drawn the attention and criticism of the legal community for its lack of moderation and its popularity.
AutoAdmit was created in early 2004 by Jarret "rachmiel" Cohen and an MIT student under the moniker Boondocks, under the original name of Xoxohth. Its initial community was drawn from users dissatisfied with changes made to the Princeton Review message board in March 2004, such as IP tracking and stricter moderation of discussions.[1] AutoAdmit currently receives over 700,000 unique visitors a month (with an estimated 100,000 regular readers) and about 12,000 posts a day.[1]
Criticism
editSeveral law professors have criticized AutoAdmit for encouraging offensive trolling under the cover of anonymity. In one heated exchange, 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."[2] In response, Eugene Volokh of UCLA suggested that AutoAdmit may provide "a public service" by being a forum where the legal community can quickly respond to extreme or unpopular opinions.[3]
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 xoxohth and posted a fictitious Milbank internal memorandum announcing year-end bonus compensation amounts for the firm's attorneys. [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.[4] 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.[5] The pranksters soon confessed to the elaborate hoax, prompting legal blogger David Lat to criticize Xoxohth for its lack of reliability and for needlessly sparking a frenzy.[6]
AutoAdmit has also been featured in articles discussing the increasing overlap between online identity and "real life" identity. On March 1, 2007, ABC News profiled Yale Law School student Heide Iravani, who alleged that sexually explicit comments had been posted about her on AutoAdmit.[7] 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. [8]
Xoxohth is currently the subject of a series of blog posts entitled "Xoxohth, Civility, and Prestige" by Dave Hoffman of Temple University. Xoxohth has also been noted in mainstream publications such as the Boston Globe [3] and is a popular reference for articles in law school newspapers such as the Harvard Law Record, e.g. [4] and [5].
Notes
edit- ^ a b Hoffman, Dave (2006-11-01). "Xoxohth 1.1: The Past and Present". Concurring Opinions. Retrieved 2006-11-26.
{{cite web}}: Check date values in:|date=(help); External link in|publisher= - ^ Leiter, Brian (2005-03-11). "Penn Law Student, Anthony Ciolli, Admits to Running Prelaw Discussion Board Awash in Racist, Anti-Semitic, Sexist Abuse". Leiter Reports. Retrieved 2006-11-26.
{{cite web}}: Check date values in:|date=(help) - ^ Volokh, Eugene (2005-03-06). "More About Online Racism and Anti-Semitism". The Volokh Conspiracy. Retrieved 2006-11-26.
{{cite web}}: Check date values in:|date=(help) - ^ Koppel, Nathan (2006-11-29). "Jury's Still Out on Wall Street Law Bonuses". Wall Street Journal. pp. C1.
{{cite news}}: Check date values in:|date=(help) - ^ During the hoax, co-owner and 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.).[1]
- ^ Lat, David (2006-11-30). "Associate Bonus Watch: The Milbank Memo Is Fake". AboveTheLaw. Retrieved 2006-11-30.
{{cite web}}: Check date values in:|date=(help) - ^ Marikar, Sheila (2007-3-1). "After Years of Telling All, 20-Somethings Start to Clam Up". ABC News.
{{cite news}}: Check date values in:|date=(help) In the article, Iravani alleges, "[Posters on AutoAdmit] were saying really damaging things about me ... Men talking about what they'd like to do to me sexually ... Even stupid things how ugly my hair looks when it's curly. They scrutinized me on every level and it's been really damaging for my self-esteem." The original AutoAdmit thread on Iravani can be found here. - ^ Nakashima, Ellen (2007-3-7). "Harsh Words Die Hard on the Web". Washington Post. pp. A-1.
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External Links
edit- Official website
- The Xoxo Reader - blog of noteworthy threads