Autoadmit
and Beyond: Defamatory and Threatening Speech Online
(assignment developed by Bobby
Murkowski)
[Warning from JTW: Some of the materials below contain highly
offensive language.]
Visit www.autoadmit.com,
and click on "Law," and look around. Autoadmit has been called a
stomping ground "for racism, sexism, threats, and bigotry."
Read the
following for some background on the Autoadmit case:
Read the
second amended complaint
filed by the two Jane Doe plaintiffs (Yale law
students) in the lawsuit. Specifically, read over some of the
statements made
by anonymous posters on the Autoadmit website about the plaintiffs.
Next, read
the federal district court's ruling
on an anonymous defendant's motion
to quash
the plaintiff's subpoena of an ISP to find the IP address of a
defendant.
Skim the complaint
in a countersuit filed by Anthony Ciolli, a former defendant
in the
Autoadmit suit, and an Autoadmit website administrator who lost his job
at a
top law firm after being named, and subsequently dropped from the Jane
Doe's
suit. Recall 47 U.S.C. Section 230 versus the DMCA rules of 17 U.S.C.
Section
512.
Next,
compare the jurisdiction issues for online libel between Goldhaber
v.
Kohlenberg (NJ Super 2007), and
Best Van Lines v. Walker, 490 F.3d 239 (2d Cir. 2007).
Finally,
read Planned Parenthood of the Columbia/Willamette, Inc. v. Am.
Coalition of
Life Activists, 290 F.3d 1058 (9th Cir. 2002), the leading case on
internet
threatening speech.