British billionaire's "I Am Not A Pornographer" letter raising questions already answered by the letter

Originally published at: British billionaire's "I Am Not A Pornographer" letter raising questions already answered by the letter | Boing Boing

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You forgot “Gentleman” in the headline.

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Isn’t that implicit in “billionaire”?

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It’s a variation on the old joke.

"You see that health lottery over there? I started that health lottery! But do they call me the health lottery founder? Noooo!

And you see Channel 5 over over there? I owned that TV channel! But do they call me the Channel 5 owner? Noooo!

And hey, look at those charities I give a small portion of my billions to in exchange for tax considerations. But do they call me a philanthropist? Noooo!

But you build one business empire on a bunch of porn magazines…"

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billionaire pornographers should probably keep the lowest possible profile. and having a tantrum over wikipedia of all things is not in line with the “keeping a low profile” strategy. just go home, shut up, and enjoy your money.

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billy the billionaire

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Private Eye’s Desmond stories go waaaay back including his charming behaviour towards staff and juniors

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Admitting that he has edited the entry himself is not the win that he thinks it is.

In any case, the word “pornographer” can be used when mentioning the lawsuit, even if the entry does not explicitly state that he is a “former pornographer”.

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Funny you say that. I know (or used to know, I guess) a guy who is a dotcom billionaire. Definitely one of those, “Unknown Billionaires”, one of the founders of GitHub, but one that nobody really knows his name.

From what I hear, he’s still a pretty regular dude who likes tuning cars and programming. I imagine he has better cars now than when I knew him. He had a taste for big V8 American cars from the 70’s back then.

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“Pornographer” really doesn’t cover it for someone who had an entire adult entertainment media empire instead of just a single production house or publication. How about “Porn Mogul” or “Smut King”?

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Dirty Desmond, Robert Maxwell, the Nazi-adjacent Rothermeres, Rupert Murdoch, the Barclay Brothers - the UK press really has attracted a repulsive collection of owners. And doesn’t it show?

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Pornocrat would be the word, but I can’t find anyone using it. Wank Baron is a bit more evocative.

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I don’t see how he can be called a philanthropist. He wasn’t giving his porn away free.

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Looks like part of the problem is how one defines “pornography.”

He seems to think “legitimate adult material” is something other than porn.

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Baron Von Wank has that continental flair.

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Richard “Dick” Desmond, Prince of Pornography, Baron of Boners, Duke of Dongs, Protector of Erections and Knight of the Naughty.

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Two thoughts:

(1) In English libel law “foul mouthed abuse” cannot be libellous. So, just substitute something suitably pithy and “foul mouthed” for ‘pornographer’.

(2) Someone pointed out that Dirty Desmond would be better served by keeping a low profile. He would; there’s a real risk of the Streisand Effect on steroids here. I knew some employees of Northern & Shell back at its pornographic peak and tales told to me about how Dirty Desmond ran that business would not be something he’d like to get a public airing. Make too much noise and some ugly tales from those days might surface, possibly as a direct consequence of lawyers looking for material in the face of libel threats. There are worse things for the public to associate with one’s name than the tag ‘pornographer’.

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If his argument is that “pornographer” is a legal term of art that refers to the distribution of legally obscene works, then there should be no problem with “porn mogul”, “smut king”, “producer and purveyor of porn”, etc. “Porn baron” appears to have a long history of use in the press referring to him. I’m not sure those terms are suitable for Wikipedia, though.

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That’s all right, so long as it still scans, you can legitimately check the “this is a minor edit” box in WIkipedia. We wouldn’t want to break the haikus when we substitute a word like that.

Or maybe that’s just the case on WikiPoetry.

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