One man's libel/slander is another man's investigate journalism ("muckraking" in the US). In this particular case, Gawker wasn't guilty of either libel or slander because they didn't publish anything about Hogan that was false.
> it shouldn't take a billionaire to sue and win judgement against slanderous publishers
It's actually much harder to win a libel/slander suit as a public figure. See: http://www.firstamendmentcenter.org/libel-defamation
1. (US) One who investigates and exposes issues of corruption that often violate widely held values; e.g. one who exposes political corruption or the poor conditions in prisons.
2. (Britain) A sensationalist, scandal-mongering journalist, one who is not driven by any social principles.
As someone said, it was a pejorative term that was reclaimed, and that makes a lot of sense to me now.
I agree, but the reason Gawker lost is important. It was because they violated someone's privacy.
I strongly support violating the privacy of powerful, public figures in the future if it serves public interest. I agree that Gawker was stupid, greedy, and overreaching here, but I still worry that next time, the sex tape (or whatever it is) will be equally private but much more important to the public.
People are acting like their is no thought put into these type of court cases. This isn't a universal precedent that applies to every situation. It doesn't prevent any journalist from pursuing legitimate news stories and invading privacy along the way. It only prevents journalist from invading someone's privacy where the only story is the invasion itself.
A billionaire could fund cases against a media company entirely irrespective of the merit of those cases - the media company would still be forced to pay the legal fees associated with defending themselves, even if it's as simple as just getting it thrown out of court. Do it enough times and you've bankrupted the company.
For an example, Mother Jones was brought to the brink of bankruptcy for reporting an entirely true and legitimate story:
http://m.motherjones.com/media/2015/10/mother-jones-vandersl...
It looks like you haven't been paying close attention to the Gawker suite: Gawker also had insurance, but Bollea strategically dropped a charge that would have let Gawker claim against insurance (and at the same time reducing the total amount he would receive). This suite isn't about damages: it's about bankrupting Gawker for better or for worse. There's nothing that suggests a similar strategy can't be employed against Mother Jones.
Plus Gawker's case was specifically structured to avoid an insurance payout. A blueprint for others in the future.
That's obviously a big problem. I have never understood why America insists on a dogmatic principle that inherently and unavoidably gives a vast advantage to well-off parties over poor parties. You can get away with a lot of vexatious litigation before the courts (a) notice it and (b) actually act upon it.
...not to mention, Hogan's public persona and living he has earned has been by posing as a larger than life clownish character; I don't even see that he was harmed. Ask yourself, do you think less of Hogan now? (and not because it turns out that he has less impressive sounding real name)
I'd have more sympathy for a "normal" person.
I'm talking about the standards that courts use to measure "harm". Young starlets have so many sex tapes (their own and hacked) out there, and it doesn't seem to harm them much.
It's almost as if a porn star could make a better claim that they lost the commercial potential of something stolen!
Again, I'm not saying that I want to live in a world where it's ok to steal people's sex tapes and put them out there; but I am also noting that in today's world, it is much less of a "harm" or even an embarrassment to people than it was when the system of torts was established. Since torts are based on harm, we run into the issue of "how much harm did this cause?"
maybe it needs to be made illegal like "upskirts". (and I'm not advocating that, either. I'm saying, I'd like some clarity to exactly what people are outraged by)
Anyway maybe it made him relevant again ("there is no such thing as bad PR"), I had forgotten he existed. Need to wait for some time to go by before it's clear.
I'm not advocating a side or devil's advocating, i just prefer the "less outraged middle" over the "outraged extremes"
What if the CEO of a company intimidates an employee into having sex with him and secretly films it, and that gets released? That's also important journalism.
There are lots of other ways sex tapes could be newsworthy: a famous person makes racist comments in it (the Hogan tape!), a Hollywood director asks for sex in exchange for a role, etc. etc.
This seems to be Denton's major defense of the newsworthiness of the tape (although even he argues it half-heartedly).
I don't buy it. The racist comments on one part of the tape don't make the actual sex part newsworthy. They posted a heavily edited version of the tape, which meant they included the sex intentionally. Seems obvious the purpose of those segments was simple voyeurism, which is an invasion of privacy.
The "but he's a racist" defense strikes me as a cynical attempt to latch onto the current mainstream social-justice train, when really this has nothing to do with racism.
So let me make some points myself:
1. Publishing the cartoons themselves makes a variety of statements that can't be made by reporting on their existence without showing them.
2. Those statements have great value, independent of any questions of taste.
3. Everything slg says about the difference between publishing a report that a sex tape exists vs publishing the tape itself applies in full to the Mohammed cartoons.
The right to tasteless speech is important and worth defending, but I'm not trying to do that here. I want to counter the argument slg is making, which is that tasteless reporting should be prohibited when you could approximate the same report in better taste. The raw facts always have an inherent value beyond a reporter's interpretation of them.
Or let's use a different example like the Stanford rape case. No one is reporting the name of the victim of that case, but her name is a "raw fact" of the case. Would you support releasing her name and if not, how is that different that releasing the sex tape?
Against someone saying there should be legal liability for releasing it, definitely.
I would not be so quick to celebrate. This case has demonstrated that one or two very powerful, wealthy individuals (Peter Thiel et al) are able to destroy a successful business and ruin the livlihoods of dozens merely because they were embarassed.
(It's worth noting that what Gawker originally wrote about Thiel was also apparently true.)
The judge didn't allow the evidence be heard likely because there was no evidence (conjecture). It's the standard desperation you get from someone losing a case or appealing a loss.
Why? That seems like an important piece of evidence.
On an almost daily basis Bubba talked on air about he had cameras all over his house and taped everything. I find it very hard to believe that me--a random radio listener--knew that he taped everything in his house, but supposedly his best friend Hulk Hogan was oblivious.
http://www.politico.com/media/story/2016/03/jury-awards-hulk...
> I would not be so quick to celebrate. This case has demonstrated that one or two very powerful, wealthy individuals (Peter Thiel et al) are able to destroy a successful business and ruin the livlihoods of dozens merely because they were embarassed.
That's always been true anyway. On the bright side, this time it was all over the internet, so that's some kind of progress at least.
> (It's worth noting that what Gawker originally wrote about Thiel was also apparently true.)
In both cases the info Gawker published was really nobody's business but that of the people involved. They published it as shameful attempts to get page views and (possibly) just to be mean. So good riddance.
But the way they've been destroyed is terrifying for anyone who wants to live in a free and informed society. The ends don't justify the means.
Gawker ruined the livelihoods of its employees, not Hulk Hogan, not Thiel, with its scummy behavior.Hogan is the victim here, as much as Gawker's employees, they are victim of Gawker's policy which is profit at all cost. Well now Gawker is paying that cost.
Much as you might hate Gawker, and I definitely think their practices of outing people for no reason and publishing sex tapes are morally and ethically shitty, what this really shows is that if you piss a billionaire off, they can and likely will silence you. I'm not sure that's a good thing.
You seem to not understand what freedom of speech means. As someone who actually lives in a place where people use libel and slander laws to sue people left and right and get offended, consequence being censorships and a tightening of restrictions on speech, I'd kill to have the kind of freedom Gawker did.
Would Donald Trump have sued the journalist who published a piece estimating his true net worth if this was in place?
Just make it so money cannot buy better lawyers or legal advice, and the court system would be made far fairer to everyone.
Sounds like that could be gamed by lawyers to turn into a full-employment-for-lawyers act.
Also its a good lesson to other sites to police content to ensure no one says anything bad about billionaires.
Thank god for thiel protecting us from horrible things like censorship!
There's a brave new world of pro-billionaires media awaiting us. Just compare this lavish Vanity Fair piece (http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2013/09/photos-sean-parker-we...) on Sean Parker's wedding to the ugly reality behind it all, as published by Gawker: http://valleywag.gawker.com/the-full-damage-of-facebook-bill...
As opposed to the brave world of billion-dollar news corporations destroying millionaires.
For context, you really should have published Mr. Parker's defense: http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/06/sean-p...
http://www.recode.net/2016/6/10/11904892/memom-here-s-what-z...
Of course, whether those sites should be saved is another question. Some have some good content, but some are exactly the kind of low quality, often legally shaky muckraking that got Gawker sued into oblivion in the first place.
Or maybe to not publish sex tapes?
I can't understand why people are so upset about a third party paying legal expenses... what do you think the ACLU, EFF, and tons of other organizations and private citizens (either in individual or collective form) do? A jury (impartial to Thiel and unaware of his involvement) found Gawker and Nick Denton personally guilty. Denton himself is worth over $100 million (Gawker itself was valued according to reports to the court at $80 million, so he has plenty of assets outside Gawker), so this isn't a story of a big financier ganging up on a "little guy" that people are trying to make it out to be.
The only criticism I can give in this entire tale, is that it shouldn't take a billionaire to sue and win judgement against slanderous publishers. Such recourse should be made available to every common man, regardless of wealth.
But still, progress is only ever made, one step at a time. Good riddance to Gawker.