Isn’t Thiel also the lunatic who wants to build his off-shore libertarian utopia?
Yeah and he is probably angry at Gawker for releasing some of the early designs to the public.
-Todd
Few people would agree more, but I don’t see where “journalism” enters into this case. Gawker broadcast a surreptitiously recorded sex tape, and refused to take it down. Imagine if it had been a female celebrity. This wasn’t journalism or anything related to journalism, it was just revenge porn.
Gawker is not journalism.
First Amendment protections must be broad to be of any use. It’s a pretty short step from sex tapes of public figures to government D-Notice systems.
Don’t ask me to weep for Gawker. Don’t ask anyone to.
Imagine if it had been a politician running on a family values platform? A politician that had bragged about this in their past, but now say it never happened. The sex tape would be news there, caught in a lie, with proof.
Don’t ask me to weep for tech billionaires. Don’t ask anyone to.
Is it ok for anyone to invade anyone’s privacy then? Is publishing of anything about anyone protected speech?
Of course not, but the Hogan case, at least as Gawker defense put it, it wasn’t a private act, as he publicly discussed that it happened on the Howard Stern show. Making proof if it happening news. But we have had this argument in this thread many times. I think that if you are willing to brag about extramarital sexual exploits on live radio, a gossip rag like Gawker publishing a sex tape of proving it shouldn’t be surprising, as they are just playing the same game you are.
As someone put it on Twitter yesterday, this is some serious Gavin Belson shit.
Now Gawker is being sued for reporting the text of what he said, which is the actual damaging part, the part that got the wrestling folks to cut ties etc.
I think that the story about Peter Thiel from 2007 being secretly gay is a lot more indefensible. Though they basically say it is a rumor or an open secret that he is gay, but that didn’t seem very newsworthy.
Peter Thiel being behind this changes the dynamic a bit now, as he is a very big right-wing politics supporter. Gawker has always been a place full of articles calling out the Koch brothers, and other wealthy awful rich people on their B.S. Peter Thiel is one of those people. I guess if you can’t sue them yourself, you can hit them in the pocketbook by exploiting a sex tape for money through a lawsuit.
I’m not a fan of Thiel or Hogan, but if Gawker goes away due to this, I won’t shed a tear.
I just hope it is possible for all parties to lose.
This is incorrect. Pop open the front page of Gawker right now, and you will see reporters covering stories.
It’s not great journalism. It’s more lowest-common-denominator clickbait. But you can’t dismiss it so casually. Whether the Hogan stuff counts as journalism is a much tougher case. It probably wasn’t. But does one fuckup mean an anonymous billionaire can use the courts to kill off the entity? That seems dangerous.
For Gawker it isn’t one fuckup though, it’s a pattern of tabloid journalism and arguable invasion of privacy.
Tabloid journalism. Still journalism.
On the climactic day of the final trial proceeding, the courtroom containing the lot of them falls into the earth as the largest sinkhole in recorded history opens beneath them, like the yawning maw of Hell itself, come to claim its infernal repast.
I don’t think anyone cares if you shed a tear or not, but definitely don’t bother when Mr. Deep Pockets goes after and shuts down an organization you do admire once Hogan v Gawker opens the door for open season on journalists.
Maybe they’ll all be in the courthouse and it will suddenly collapse.