True. Though the damages owed the families who lost people would be quite high on their own. They deserve ongoing public shame for turning the journalists credo of afflicting the comfortable and comforting the afflicted on its head. Stenography isn’t journalism.
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I think it’s interesting that Trevor Timm, the author of this article calls it “his [Bollea’s] sex tape”. This implies he made and owned it. Hogan may be the worst person alive, but the fact remains that Clem and his wife videotaped him having sex without his consent. With technology eroding the ability to have privacy faster every day, do we really want to live in a world where spying on people having sex and publishing it is protected by the First Amendment? The Founding Fathers never foresaw drones or hacked video phones. I agree that the settlement is outrageous, and the use of money to fund a plaintiff and then block the defendant from funding other defendants is despicable. But that doesn’t mean I agree with no one having any legal right to privacy, even a racist asshat caricature like Bollea.
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I agree people need to remember what the NYT did so other investigative newspapers don’t play fast and loose with verification. And I agree they share some part. But war profiteers like Cheney are the ones who should be personally bankrupted by legal judgements. Not that I’m holding my breath.
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Contextually in Gawker’s case, yes. Absolutely. While Thiel is physically safe being outed, it remains an act of pure malice.
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Thanks to conservatives like you who truly know what “liberals” all act and think like.
Gawker wasn’t leftist from their actions. Just capitalist.
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I meant in Signorile and _OutWeek’_s cases, to point out the folly of the blanket statement “outing is hate speech.”
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My answers to these questions were mostly ‘yes, actually’. And for those that weren’t, well, false equivalancies, irrelevencies, and intelluctually-lazy slippery slopes abound.
Please, let’s not pretend that Gawker was ever really about journalism. They did some almost by accident, but nearly all those stories would have been reported by other outlets. Gawker’s business model was based on tabloid muck raking and embarrassing public figures for profit. The Washington Post it wasn’t.
I believe that even public figures have to right to determine which aspects of their life are private, if discloure of those aspects serves no public good. Purient voyeurism doesn’t fit that category. I disagree with the determinations that “Has-been 80s celebrity has a sex tape” is newsworthy. I find “Has-been 80s celebrity has a sex tape and I have the right to show it to millions of people without his permission” to be a repugnant philosophy. That’s not journalism. Outing homosexuals against their will isn’t journalism. It’s vile. A brand based on vileness doesn’t get a pass because one time it broke a story a few hours before the Toronto Star.
The problem here isn’t that a billionaire was able to hold Gawker accountable for its repeated brutal, pointless, and harmful violations of privacy. The real problem is that nobody that wasn’t a billionaire could have done, which is why they got away with it for so long.
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But not only was Gawker not the first to out Thiel, but Denton is also gay. It might be a dick move, but where’s the hate speech?
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It sounds like you haven’t looked into the details of what you’re referring to enough.
You keep saying “rape video” but I’ve only ever seen official news sources or original participants in that incident refer to it as “possible rape” and I hadn’t seen the woman from that video allege that it was rape. The only communication I saw from her to Gawker said that the video was stolen from her and posted without her permission. If you have a source that proves that it was rape, I’d be interested to see it, otherwise the definitive phrasing is just for inflammatory effect or you’re just not reading through the sources very thoroughly.
You’re also ignoring that the damage was due to Bollea’s actions, not Gawker’s. Bollea committed the acts and made the offensive statements on camera and his best friend is alleged to have intentionally leaked the footage from the system he had set up (meaning that Bubba is the person who filmed it), so the details become significantly important. It’s even more important that the jury not be allowed to determine newsworthiness because the 1st Amendment should never be predicated on opinion, only fact and law.
You’re also ignoring that Gawker declared bankruptcy and is getting out from under the debt (which will hopefully be overturned and the ruling reversed even), but Daulerio’s life is being ruined because they’re trying to pin it all on him now even though he will never have the resources to pay it off.
If it’s an either/or situation, I would agree with you. But why can’t we eliminate medical debt and frivolous life-destroying lawsuits?
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I would say that you haven’t thought any of this through whatsoever, and you misunderstand the moral and legal rules we live by as a society.
Seems like the hill you want to die on is that its OK to post a “possible rape” video, without any inquiry of even a second thought as to whether it is rape or not, when the possible victim is obviously intoxicated, and begs you not to post it, and is a private person with no newsworthy content besides humiliating her and ruining her life. Gawker did not care what the facts were, but in hindsight they agree it was wrong to post it . Your argument, which is absurd, is that the burden is on someone else to prove it was wrong to post it. It’s obviously wrong to post it. They probably should have called the police.
Gawker is responsible for what it actually did, which is posting a sex tape without the permission of the person featured. The publishing of the sex tape causes whatever damages it causes and that is determined by the courts and the jury. The fact they didn’t make Bollea do what he did not not relevant to their publishing something they are legally liable for publishing. Your observation s childish.
Daulerio’s life is ruined by a choice he made, yes, that’s how it should work. And Gawker’s lawyers were very happy to tell people that actions have consequences when they refused to take down stories which ruined the lives of those people. He’s now on the wrong side of that battle, but if he was fine using it against others he should be fine with others using it against him. You seem to to think that Gawker should get a pass from the rules that apply to everyone because you like them, which is not a reason at all. You also called this lawsuit “frivolous” … when it bankrupted the Company and shut down Gawker permanently. Good to know you won’t let reality or a court decision get in the way of your narrative. Tell Gawker’s employees how frivolous it is.
The reality is you should be angry at Gawker for being so reckless as to seal their own doom , but they died as they lived. It probably could not have ended any other way.
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I think you misunderstand that we don’t collectively live by the same moral rules in our society. We’re a society of laws, not morals. Everyone’s morality is different, so unless you’re suggesting the establishment of enforced moral standards as law, morality is irrelevant to the issue other than to simply express your moral opinion. Morally, I disagree with some of Gawker’s decisions, such as outing an already outed Thiel, publishing the sex tape in the bathroom, and publish the Bollea sex tape.
So you’re either intentionally ignoring what I’ve already written in this thread or you’re not reading it:
I’m just pointing out that you’re not citing a source for why it’s rape. It’s entirely possible that it might meet some legal definition of rape, but until that is more than just alleged by third parties, claiming it to already be so is reckless. When I saw claims that Gawker “released a rape video,” I specifically looked through the articles for the source of the claim that it was rape. What I found (and maybe there’s more proof somewhere, and if so, feel free to point it out from the thorough research you’ve done), I only saw some people saying it was possibly rape because she was intoxicated (which isn’t a black and white legal standard for rape) and the victim didn’t seem to have claimed that it was rape, rather that it was a mistake, and then I saw others take the phrasing “possibly rape” and just drop the “possibly” part. So do you have a citation for the fact that it is rape or are you just quoting people who have quoted others who have possibly misquoted others? Because the difference is significant. I still agree, rape or no, that the video shouldn’t be posted. But it speaks to your lack of thoroughness in research for the supposed facts you attempt to assert in your arguments.
But the act that got Bollea in trouble was not the release of the sex tape, but rather the acts that the sex tape revealed. You don’t get to claim the release of a video that accurately portrays your actions to be the devastating act. Releasing video of Rob Ford smoking crack wasn’t what hurt his career and reputation - it was the fact that Ford smoked crack (and then later denied it despite video evidence).
If the video was considered newsworthy (which, again, should to be decided by a jury - and it was determined to be newsworthy by two courts prior to the trial) and it turns out to cause damage, the damage was caused by the person who made it and released it. It’s like the Pentagon Papers. The third party that publishes the artifact cannot be held responsible for the release of the artifact. No, the sex tape isn’t as significant or serious as the Pentagon Papers were, but the principle is the same. If I don’t defend Gawker’s right to determine the newsworthiness of their publications, then I don’t get to complain when Trump sues a liberal newspaper whose reporting I value simply because he had enough money to ruin them with court costs. Using the courts to silence someone entirely rather than to punish an individual act in isolation is a first amendment violation.
You seem to be talking about some moral standard that you perceive rather than an actual law since you’re not citing one and you’re being very vague in your claim. Morality is irrelevant here. Legality is. And I’m saying the lawsuit shouldn’t have resulted as it did because the jury was allowed to determine newsworthiness, which isn’t constitutional in my opinion. You seem to be arguing on the basis of karma or something.
Also, I never said I liked Gawker. You seem to assume that because I’m defending them in this scenario that I like them. Don’t necessarily assume that bias. I like a free press that can’t be shut down by vengeful millionaires and if that means tolerating tabloid journalism from the likes of Gawker, so be it. But this case makes for an awful standard that allows anyone with a large enough budget to silence their enemies and violate their Constitutional rights. Your rights may be the next to be violated if you cheer this result.
The result of a lawsuit doesn’t affect whether it was frivolous to file it in the first place. It was frivolous because the basis was without merit. The result was wrong legally and the punishment was obscenely out of step with reality. Bollea wasn’t injured to the tune of $115 million by any stretch of the imagination and shutting down an entire organization for a legal, but karmically-dubious act is legally wrong.
You might think so, but it turns out the courts are a branch of the government. Thus, the first amendment puts limits on civil suits, even those between private parties. See, e.g., Hustler v. Fallwell. Hustler Magazine v. Falwell - Wikipedia
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This a a joke – you have decided this case has no legal merit, but sadly the courts do not agree with you, and your opinion is untrue as a matter of empirical fact. You don’t understand what a tort is, I guess – it’s not a question of legal or illegal, but merely who bears a loss. Also your logic is silly - you’re saying that if you get blackmailed, the problem is not the blackmail, but whatever the secret is you don’t want to get out. You have it backwards. Blackmail is illegal, having secrets as a private person is merely privacy. What Gawker did is not blackmail, but they are liable for the damages caused by their publishing something they don’t have the right to publish. If someone breaks into your house and steals a camera with a video of you cooking breakfast naked and then publishes it on the internet and you lose your job as a school teacher, you can and should sue the person for publishing a stolen video to bear the damages you suffered as a result of their tort. It makes no difference if that person gives it to Gawker and the publisher is Gawker. The publisher is liable for what they publish and the damage it causes if they do not have the right to publish it. Your laughable argument is “it’s my own fault for cooking breakfast naked.” No, it isn’t. You can cook breakfast naked or cheat on your wife, and if people take the risk of publishing things that don’t belong to them they bear the consequences of that . Get over it. A business entity does not have the right to make money from publishing your stolen naked cooking video.
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And you think courts and juries are composed of perfect individuals who never make mistakes? We’ll have to see what happens on appeal. Even some bad decisions are upheld, or are you suggesting that courts are always right and you’ve never disagreed with the outcome of a case or lawsuit?
Nope. I never said anything of blackmail being justified. Do you have proof that Gawker blackmailed Bollea? I’d be curious to see that. And blackmail and extortion is a criminal offense, not a tort. Do you know what the difference between a tort and a criminal offense is?
They likely had the permission of the person who made and released the tape, but that became a secretive point because Bubba settled with Bollea and likely had a term of the agreement be that he denies providing permission to publish the tape. If the allegation that Bollea, Mrs. Clem, and Bubba all knew that the tape was made, Bubba owned the copyright and no privacy was violated because Bollea’s knowledge of the taping was de facto consent for its existence, then it could be legally fine to publish it.
I agree on this point. Can you point out where Gawker broke into Bubba’s house and stole the tape?
It does if the tape was created with knowledge and permission and released with the permission of the owner of the tape. The fact that the tapes include Bubba and his wife discussing the tapes and Bubba suggesting they could make money off of selling them seems to indicate Bubba was responsible. But Thiel was targeting Gawker and Gawker had deeper pockets than Bubba. This was a money grab on Bollea’s part and vengeance on Thiel’s part.
What if they publish it and then the person who gave them permission changes their story later?
If I knew I was being taped by someone else and knew I didn’t own the tape and I got in trouble, not for the tape but for what I said and did on the tape, I would have myself to blame. Also, ewww. Grease pops on the stove top. At least wear an apron or something. Nobody wants grease-burned sensitive bits. But I’m also not a public figure who has publicly boasted about his prowess in naked breakfast cooking so my naked breakfast cooking isn’t newsworthy in Gawker’s opinion.
That said, I already said I disagree with the decision to post the video, but it’s a slippery slope to let a jury of legally untrained individuals determine newsworthiness. Personally, I don’t think any celebrity “news” is newsworthy, but I’m not about to suggest my opinion should be the basis for bankrupting thousands of news organizations and lead to the unemployment of millions of people who support the celebrity news industry just because I don’t care for it.
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So your ultimate beef is that you don’t believe in the our system of jurisprudence. That’s fine, but that’s the system we have, and it decided what it decided. Any system is likely to have a decision you disagree with sooner or later. Your post is a collection of conjecture and excuses that the trier of fact already decided upon. If only the facts were different we might have had a different outcome or if the facts were really different we might all be dinosaurs, but we can only live in this reality where Gawker is defunct because it was found liable for posting a stolen sex tape. I personally prefer a world where no one can make a living posting sex tapes without the permission of the people filmed, and my second choice would be the one where we are dinosaurs. Actually I am not sure which I prefer, but either would be fine .
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Bravo, sir, bravo. Seems more and more lately, people are willing to bend over for wealthy megalomaniacs and watch their “free democratic society” become something else entirely.
And not just out of ambivalence or complacency; they cheer it on.
Like I said:
The fact that Gawker was denied the ability to finish its appeal before the $50 million retainer was required that then forced the bankruptcy and created a worse scenario for Daulerio is particularly offensive. But that’s exactly what Thiel wanted and why the lawsuit went where it did. If the amount decided was smaller and much more reasonable, the retainer wouldn’t have been such an issue. As others have said, the amount awarded for wrongful death is significantly less than what Bollea was awarded. If that doesn’t offend your sensibilities, then you have no sense of proportion.
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Your issue now is that I am insufficiently outraged at the amount of damages. Do you know anything about jury trials? This is typical, and the risk you run when you go to a jury. You bring up wrongful death like it is a relevant metric because you like the emotional appeal of it, but it has nothing to do with this case. How much, in your opinion, should Gawker have paid the young woman whose video you insist was not rape they posted without her permission and over her objections? They paid her nothing, but they did laugh at her. Life isn’t fair for her, you, or me either, why is Gawker different ? It isn’t. They lost. Tough nuts. Move on.
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If wrongful death has no relevancy for the amount of the liability then other acts by Gawker have no relevancy to the Bollea case. If Gawker had caused Bollea’s death and was being sued for wrongful death, the cost would likely be lower if the pattern of wrongful death costs were considered. That’s highly significant. Feel free to argue how Bollea deserves $115 million in this scenario and how family members of wrongfully killed people deserve less. It’s not emotional, it’s rational. Ending someone’s life should cost more than embarrassing them publicly over things they did themselves.
I never insisted it was not rape. I only insisted you support your claims that it was. I invited you several times to show where it was definitively determined to be rape. I’m sorry I expected too much from you.
I can’t say how much Gawker should pay or if they should pay at all. I won’t pretend to know enough detail of that scenario to know if a law was broken and if they should be liable. Has the statute of limitations run out? That occurred 6 years ago. What are the thorough details that would come out in a trial that you know of that I don’t that would lead you to believe you know for a fact that they should be held liable? You seem to assume a lot as fact. I’ve at least made sure to insert the possiblies and likelies when writing what I perceive about these scenarios because none of us can possibly know enough to be absolutely certain about what the truth is.
Like I said before, I don’t agree with their decision to post that video. I agree with their decision to take it down. I don’t know enough to say how much if anything they should pay. Laughing at her in internal emails is scuzzy, but it’s better than laughing at her directly in their communications with her. It wasn’t revealed that the complaint person at Gawker said, “blah blah blah” in an email to Daulerio until this trial. The woman didn’t know that they had laughed at her. It’s still a dick move, but the severity is different. You ignoring that (or not caring enough to research enough to know it) doesn’t make your argument well supported.
So why can’t this be said to Bollea? You’re basically saying Bollea is special but Gawker isn’t. So life is fair to some people? Which is it?
You are insisting that the video which Gawker took down because it “might be rape” be definitively proven to be rape, which is far in excess of any applicable standard (it was irresponsible even by Gawker’s own standards and they admitted as much) and you won’t comment if they should pay her damages for posting it and casually ruining her life but you definitely know that Gawker should not pay Bollea what it owes him as determined by a court of law? You want to overturn our legal system because you are unhappy with one result. Bollea isn’t special - he just happens to be the winner in this case. They would have lost it sooner if that young woman had the legal resources equal to Gawker’s.
[Edited by Rob B. – easy on the insults there old sport]
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