Law Student Web Forum: Free Speech Gone too Far?

The Xoxo Reader writes "Today's Washington Post carries a front-page article on the internet message board AutoAdmit (a.k.a. Xoxohth), which proclaims itself the "most prestigious law school discussion board in the world." The message board has recently come under fire for emphasizing a free speech policy that allows its users to discuss, criticize, and attack other law students and lawyers by name. Is this an example of free speech and anonymity gone too far, or is internet trolling just a necessary side effect of a policy that otherwise promotes insightful discussion of the legal community?"

Comments

Yeah

[polar red]

Sitting behind a computer, typing, you don't hold back as much as when you talk to a persons face ... (I've seen a study about that, but i can't find it anymore) so yes, we'll have to accept trolling, it's inevitable.

This isn't an issue of free speech...

[jdcool88]

While Internet forums do fall under the region of "free speech", some of the things mentioned in the article are definitely illegal activities.

In scores of messages, the users disparage individuals by name or other personally identifying information. Some of the messages included false claims about sexual activity and diseases.

The chats sometimes include photos taken from women's Facebook pages, and in the Yale student's case, one person threatened to sexually violate her. Another participant claimed to be the student, making it appear that she was taking part in the iscussion.

Let's see, defamation, sexual harassment, threats, identity theft - how much do you need? It's one thing to troll, but a completely different thing to personally attack someone.

Re:When Free Speech goes to far

[baptiste]

It's not just libel and slander - it's stalking. These guys go after any woman asking that her picture be taken down from these contests like a pack of rabid dogs. They were following these girls into the gym and at class taking cellphone pictures of them, etc.

Check out http://www.feministe.us/blog/archives/2007/03/07/w apo-calls-out-law-school-pervs/

Problem is, guess how much traction any of these women would get going to the police trying to get them to go after these guys.