3 ms·

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,

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
  Especially when you consider that Hogan dropped the part of the suit that would have allowed Gawker to use their insurance to pay some of the liability claim. Odd, when you consider it shrunk dramatically the ability for Gawker to be able to pay the claim ($144M... Gawker only had $35M in revenue) - is the goal to be recompensed for damages, or to destroy Gawker? The latter seems much more likely, and chilling. Especially if you have a billionaire secret backer.

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
Especially when you consider that Hogan dropped the part of the suit that would have allowed Gawker to use their insurance to pay some of the liability claim. Odd, when you consider it shrunk dramatically the ability for Gawker to be able to pay the claim ($144M... Gawker only had $35M in revenue) - is the goal to be recompensed for damages, or to destroy Gawker? The latter seems much more likely, and chilling. Especially if you have a billionaire secret backer.