User:Indigojin/Sandbox
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Working Article:
Doe v. Ciolli
[edit]
Information from AutoAdmit:
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. 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. 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.
The sudden publicity sparked a flurry of debate as well as a new wave of harassment and threats 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. 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."
Deans from Yale Law School and the University of Pennsylvania Law School condemned the misogynistic and defamatory postings on AutoAdmit. 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."
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"[14]. 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. 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. The plaintiffs subsequently dropped Ciolli's name from the list of defendants, and successfully obtained Doe subpoenas of Internet service providers in hopes of identifying the anonymous defendants. The attorneys have now discovered the names of some, but not all, of the offending posters.
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 Rosen and law professor Mark Lemley. Yale Daily News Article and Complaint in Ciolli v. Iravani et al. Amongst other claims, Ciolli alleges 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.
Information from Order Denying AK47's Motion to Dismiss: [1]
On February 1, 2008, the plaintiffs, Jane Doe I and Jane Doe II (the “Does”) issued a subpoena duces tecum to SBC Internet Services, Inc., now known as AT&T Internet Services (“AT&T”), the internet service provider, for information relating to the identity of the person assigned to the Internet Protocol (“IP”) address from which an individual using the pseudonym “AK47” posted comments on a website.
Background from case document
This action was brought by Doe I and Doe II, both female students at Yale Law School, against unknown individuals using thirty-nine different pseudonymous names to post on a law school admissions website named AutoAdmit.com (“AutoAdmit”). The plaintiffs allege that they were the targets of defamatory, threatening, and harassing statements posted on AutoAdmit from 2005 to 2007. AutoAdmit is an internet discussion board on which participants post and review comments and information about undergraduate colleges, graduate schools, and law schools. It draws between 800,000 and one million visitors per month. Anyone who can access the internet can access AutoAdmit and view the messages posted on its discussion boards. Individuals who register with AutoAdmit, which can be done under real or assumed names, may post new messages and respond to the messages of other registered users. When a participant posts a new message, any further comments or responses to that message are collected as a “thread.” Messages and threads containing certain words or subject matter can be found by searching for those words using an internet search engine.
The first message about Doe II that appeared on AutoAdmit was posted on January 31,2007, by an anonymous poster. The message linked to a photograph of Doe II and encouraged others to “Rate this HUGE breasted cheerful big tit girl from YLS.” After this message was posted, dozens of additional messages about Doe II appeared in the thread. These messages contained comments on Doe II’s breasts and the posters’ desire to engage in sexual relations with her. Certain of the posters appeared to be Doe II’s classmates at Yale Law School because of personal information they revealed. The posts regarding Doe II continued throughout the winter and spring of 2007, and included statements, for example, that she fantasized about being raped by her father, that she enjoyed having sex while family members watched, that she encouraged others to punch her in the stomach while seven months pregnant, that she had a sexually transmitted disease, that she had abused heroin, and that a poster “hope[s] she gets raped and dies.” On March 9, 2007, a poster sent an email directly to Doe II and at least one member of the Yale Law School faculty describing the alleged criminal history of Doe II’s father. This message was also posted on AutoAdmit.
By March, nearly two hundred threads had been posted about Doe II on AutoAdmit. It is in this context that an anonymous poster under the moniker “AK47," known on AutoAdmit for posting threatening and derogatory comments about minority groups, posted a message falsely stating “Alex Atkind, Stephen Reynolds, [Doe II], and me: GAY LOVERS.” The posting of comments regarding Doe II continued into April and May of 2007, including one message which the poster claimed had also been sent to Doe II’s future employer which recounted some of the claims made about Doe II on AutoAdmit.
On June 8, 2007, Doe II, along with Doe I, filed the complaint in the instant action, alleging libel, invasion of privacy, negligent and intentional infliction of emotional distress, and copyright violations. Doe II’s complaint described the harm and results she experienced because of the comments about her on AutoAdmit, including treatment for severe emotional distress, interference with her educational progress, reputational harm, and pecuniary harm. The news of the filing of the Does’ complaint quickly became a subject of discussion on AutoAdmit. AK47, for example, wrote a post concerning his opinion on the merits of the plaintiffs’ case, and wondered whether posters were “allowed to use [Doe II’s] name in thread’s anymore.” Subsequently, on June 17, 2007, AK47 posted the statement “Women named Jill and Doe II should be raped.” On June 24, 2007, AK47 started a thread entitled “Inflicting emotional distress on cheerful girls named [Doe II].”
On February 1, 2008, the plaintiffs issued a subpoena duces tecum to AT&T for information relating to the identity of the person assigned to the IP address from which an individual using the pseudonym “AK47” posted comments on AutoAdmit about Doe II. This subpoena was issued in accordance with this Court’s order of January 29, 2008, which granted the Does’ motion to engage in limited, expedited discovery to uncover the identities of the defendants in this case. On February 7, 2008, AT&T sent a letter to the person whose internet account corresponded with the IP address at issue, John Doe 21 (“Doe 21"), notifying Doe 21 that it had received a subpoena ordering it to produce certain information relating to Doe 21's internet account. The letter stated that Doe 21 could file a motion to quash or for a protective order before the date of production, which was February 25, 2008, and that AT&T must receive a copy of such a motion prior to that date. Doe 21 filed the instant motion to quash on February 25, 2008, and on February 26, 2008, A&T complied with the subpoena. On March 12, 2008, Doe 21 filed his motion to proceed anonymously. Because Doe 21 does not have counsel and his true identity is yet unknown to the Court, the Court appointed pro bono counsel to represent the interests of Doe 21 at oral argument on the instant motions, which took place on May 5, 2008.