4 ms·

Please do not equate publishing the sex tape of an unwitting victim with freedom of the press... or Gawker bloggers with journalists, for that matter. I don't

• Analemma_ 10y ago
  > but Gawker seems to very clearly be in the wrong here That's not really relevant to my point. Even if Gawker was completely wrong to do what they did, why did Thiel pick that case to donate to? Plenty of people file lawsuits just as valid as Hulk Hogan's every day. Or why didn't he file an amicus curiae? This is clearly an attempt to destroy press he has a grudge against, which is alarming even if the specific lawsuit he picked was a valid one and the defendants were "Gawker bloggers". Look at the bigger picture.
  • DKnoll 10y ago
    I am looking at the bigger picture, and what I see is that those who wield extraordinary power, whether it be financial, political or otherwise, rarely use it purely in defense of the 'greater good.' However, sometimes their pragmatism serves it by coincidence and I'm willing to celebrate when that happens.
  • MrMullen 10y ago
    The Hulk Hogan case must have hit a ratio of how much money would Thiel have put up vs probability of success and damage to Gawker. Having a sex tape made and leaked without permission is an easy win. And why would Thiel file an amicus curiae? He can pay for Hulk's lawyer and if the case is thrown out, Thiel does not get outed as Hulks sponsor. If he wins, he might get a portion of the money, which most likely will not happen, but most importantly he gets to crush an enemy.
  • MichaelBurge 10y ago
    It doesn't matter. You don't need logical certainty("If you violate the law, you will be punished"), just some statistical possibility("If you violate the law, there's a small chance you might be punished"). The small chance that someone somewhere might file a lawsuit against you could be enough to frighten future Gawkers, which protects even the small-time people who can't afford their own lawsuits. And if some Gawker executive says to himself, "Let's do a risk assessment on this person to see if he's likely to get outside support to fight back." Well, there's now the risk of leaving a paper trail demonstrating intent.
    • Buge 10y ago
      You're right that this lawsuit will have the positive effect of causing people to be less likely to publish sex tapes. But it will also have the negative effect of causing news companies to be constantly afraid of publish anything negative about a rich person, because that person might secretly fund lawsuits against them. Gawker is being sued for 2 other things besides this.
      • vintermann 10y ago
        But this is nothing new, and not even an especially blatant example of it, since Hogan had an excellent case, and Thiel had personal reasons to sympathize with him (as opposed to economic or other self-serving reasons). Remember the SCO saga? There are much, much worse examples of legal harassment via strawmen already, so this won't make the media any more afraid than they already have reason to be. Unless possibly in the area of publicizing sex videos without consent.
      • GrumpyYoungMan 10y ago
        They apparently crossed several legal boundaries in publishing what they did and were blatantly unrepentant about it. I hardly see requiring news companies to follow the law to be something to be unhappy about. That aside, the wealthy and powerful have always had more influence than ordinary people. Why are people surprised about that?
      • FireBeyond 10y ago
  • fudged71 10y ago
    Well apparently Thiel bankrolled several suits against Gawker, so...
  • vintermann 10y ago
    Well, according to Thiel himself, he supported this case and apparently some others because he felt that these were people who had been wronged by Gawker, and had insufficient resources to mount a proper case on their own. If this is true and you still think it's a problem then it's a problem when ACLU picks and chooses which cases to support, too. Of course, you can impugn his motives, and say he's just interested in seeing Gawker burn out of spite. Many have also impugned ACLU's motives. But I'm inclined to believe them both, because their explanations for why they support who they do make sense to me.
• deleted 10y ago
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• muglug 10y ago
  From a moral standpoint, I think they were wrong to do what they did. But, from a legal standpoint, many lawyers will tell you the ruling was a pretty terrible one. And when you look at the size of the judgement against Gawker ($140M) it's a bit of a stretch to say that justice was done.
  • ManlyBread 10y ago
    They have ignored a direct court order telling them to take down the article. You reap what you sow.
• tomc1985 10y ago
  I'm liking this argument that "gawker bloggers aren't journalists" so much that it seems to negate the contradiction of Thiel preaching press-freedom yet financing lawsuits against a press outlet. Of course, factoring out my biases, this is troubling. But who is foolish enough to think that this sort of thing doesn't happen in tech? Most of the big names got there through backstabbing
  • dragonwriter 10y ago
    Journalists aren't a special class. Freedom of the press either belongs to everyone, or its a tool of tyranny and elite oppression rather than freedom. You can argue that what Gawker has done is outside the scope of press freedom, but not that there is some group of individuals to whom press freedom is unavailable.