Yeah, but your version of being “called into account” is someone filing a lawsuit, being forced to settle, Gawker writing a check, and nobody admitting they did anything wrong. I don’t know if you’ve been paying attention, but that sort of behavior gets toxic after a while.
I’m certainly not happy that it was Mr. Thiel who performed this act of charity-as-arbitrage, but the case against Gawker was made in a court of law, and was not appealed. The testimony of Daulerio and Denton was pretty damning, and IMHO, is why the awarded damages in the case were so high. The plaintiff lawyers were able to make the case that the Hogan tape was part of a string of behavior from Gawker, and that they didn’t take notions of privacy very seriously. I mean, why joke about little kid sex tapes in the middle of deposition?
