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[Gattsu25]

The slippery slope leads to dangerous places, I agree. But I find it very hard to dredge up even a modicum of sympathy for Gawker, after they thought that this was a worthwhile article to post

At what point will people realize that the problem folks have with this court decision wasn't that Gawker went under (they deserved it, no one is debating that) but that a playbook was created that can be used to shut down any news agency that millionaires/billionaires disagree with? This playbook was used against Mother Jones in the past and failed. All was relatively quiet for a few years. It was then used by Gawker and succeeded. And now lawsuits of this type are immediately more common than they were before the Gawker ruling.

 

[hodayathink]

Actually they did.

What they refused to take down was a 100% trxt article about it

Didn't they first proceed to link to the video hosted on another website?

 

[excelsiorlef]

Didn't they first proceed to link to the video hosted on another website?

Not what I heard but I could easily be wrong.

 

[The Llama]

Tbh it just reinforces how crappy Gawker's behavior was that we're in ~the age of Trump~ and no other media source has had a threat even remotely close to what Gawker (rightfully, IMO) endured.

 

[DontBeThatGuy]

I'll check it out.

 

[Gattsu25]

Tbh it just reinforces how crappy Gawker's behavior was that we're in ~the age of Trump~ and no other media source has had a threat even remotely close to what Gawker (rightfully, IMO) endured.

Mother Jones got hit with the exact same style of lawsuit and they almost went under defending themselves: http://www.motherjones.com/media/2015/10/mother-jones-vandersloot-melaleuca-lawsuit/

The simple fact of the matter is that if you get on the bad side of a really rich dude they can almost assuredly shut down your entire operation by locking away your finances in a hold and then forcing you to expend millions upon millions in a protracted and lengthy legal defense.

Unless you have a tremendous financial backing, they can use these lawsuits to silence any media they don't like.

 

[Sarcastic Poster]

Gawker getting the atomic leg drop was glorious. Snide bullying cunts.

(P.S. Fuck Hulk Hogan)

 

[tearsintherain]

The thing is, if you are a big enough media outlet and you take the lawsuit to court and you are IN THE RIGHT you will probably win, eventually. You may need to crowdfund your defense and stuff but you will eventually win, like the mother jones case or the probably John Oliver vs. Coal Guy case.

Gawkers case LOST IN COURT. This isn't a case of a billionaire dragging them through the legal system until they spent all their money and had nothing left and had to declare bankruptcy, this is literally the court telling them they fucked up big time, and then hitting them with massive penalties because Gawker basically told the judge "fuck off".

So yeah, this isn't a case of the little guy getting stomped on hard by people with infinite money. In MOST cases like this, its actually companies like Gawker that get away - they publish something that is total bullshit or invasion of privacy, and the victim can't do anything because they can't afford the years of lawsuits it will take. So its a bit crazy that Gawker staffers keep playing the victim card.

 

[Alex Stroud]

I'll watch it, anything that gives me a reason to laugh at AJ Daulerio's pathetic "woe is me" schtick.

 

[Ivan 3414]

This is the stupidest argument.

Humans aren’t not entitled to privacy just because they’re celebrities. Nobody was going around celebrating Jennifer Lawrence having photos leaked. She was seem as a victim and nobody would defend people publishing her photos for profit. But because it’s hulk hogan and he’s a joke and a man apparently posting him having sex is just as minor as comic satire?

I guess you weren't on GAF when that news broke

 

[The Faceless Master]

The biggest threat to any freedom, be it the right to bear arms or freedom of speech or freedom of the press, isn't the people who want it suppressed or taken away for their own ends, it's the people who abuse said freedom to hurt people, be it mass shootings, spewing hate speech, or violating peoples' privacy for clicks and giggles.

While the idea of a billionaire with a grudge financially destroying a media outlet is pretty fucked on principle, people generally care more about justice than things like principle and law and rights, so when it happened to Gawker people cheered because Gawker had done so much horrible shit (remember, the sex tape wasn't the only thing that came up in the trial) that they deserved to get financially destroyed. Similarly, if all of the outlets who posted hit pieces on the guy who was brutalized by United Airlines a few months back were sued into oblivion I think people would be cheering there too.

There's plenty of looming threats to the freedom of the press in the era of Trump, don't get me wrong- but Gawker is probably the worst possible outlet to pick as your cause's martyr. And honestly, I don't think there's going to be too much of a chilling effect from that verdict on anyone other than those who think that posting other peoples' sex tapes without their permission and giving a judge the finger when they order you to take it down is a good idea.

pretty sure the biggest threat is the people who want to take it away.

 

[MegaManTrigger]

The thing is, if you are a big enough media outlet and you take the lawsuit to court and you are IN THE RIGHT you will probably win, eventually. You may need to crowdfund your defense and stuff but you will eventually win, like the mother jones case or the probably John Oliver vs. Coal Guy case.

Gawkers case LOST IN COURT. This isn't a case of a billionaire dragging them through the legal system until they spent all their money and had nothing left and had to declare bankruptcy, this is literally the court telling them they fucked up big time, and then hitting them with massive penalties because Gawker basically told the judge "fuck off".

So yeah, this isn't a case of the little guy getting stomped on hard by people with infinite money. In MOST cases like this, its actually companies like Gawker that get away - they publish something that is total bullshit or invasion of privacy, and the victim can't do anything because they can't afford the years of lawsuits it will take. So its a bit crazy that Gawker staffers keep playing the victim card.

I was just going to say this. I don't understand people bunching in Mother Jones and Gawker when they had two completely different lawsuits. To say that both Mother Jones and Gawker's scenario is about the threat of rich old men being able to shut the press up is incredibly facile and misrepresents what both lawsuits were aiming for. And even then, like you said, Mother Jones is proof that judges won't always rule in favour of these men.

Another baffling thing is that I just don't understand how people can defend Gawker knowing their reprehensible practices and articles.

 

[LordRaptor]

The simple fact of the matter is that if you get on the bad side of a really rich dude they can almost assuredly shut down your entire operation by locking away your finances in a hold and then forcing you to expend millions upon millions in a protracted and lengthy legal defense.

My response to thatr emains the same as it was when it happened;

I'd be more inclined to side with the fears that billionaires with vendettas are capable of silencing legitimate media if what we have here wasn't a case where a billionaire with a vendetta wasn't able to silence legitimate media for over a decade.

He was only able to do it under circumstances where there was a pretty clear cut case of journalists wilfully ignoring an individuals right to privacy, and continued abuse of those rights even after a judge had compelled them.

It's really hard to present that as evidence of the system not working.

 

[Aurean_Mentat]

I side with LordRaptor here.

The tone I get from some of the discussion surrounding the whole Bollea vs Gawker case would be appropriate if Peter Thiel paid the judge off or otherwise used his money to alter the facts of the case themselves.

The only thing Peter Thiel did was bankroll Hogan, thereby ensuring that Hogan wouldn't run out of money before the case was over (an oft-used legal tactic). Gawker lost the case entirely on their own.

There are many aspects of the discussion surrounding this case that I'm not really comfortable with, although the biggest one seems to be that there are a group of people taking Gawker's side. Really?

 

[kiguel182]

Hulk Hogan being a racist doesn't justify posting a private video of him having sex.

 

[Blue Lou]

I've just watched this on Netflix.

The guy from Gawker reminded me of Quagmire. I couldn't stop thinking about it once I saw the resemblance.

Another guy reminded me of Matt Damon

The linking at the midway point between Thiel and the Las Vegas mogul and Donald Trump's desire to silence media didn't work for me. Maybe it would have been better as two separate documentaries, one covering Hulk Hogan's court case and another about rich people silencing dissent from media.

At times (especially the first half) it felt like a promo piece for Gawker.

 

[shawnbuddy]

At what point will people realize that the problem folks have with this court decision wasn't that Gawker went under (they deserved it, no one is debating that) but that a playbook was created that can be used to shut down any news agency that millionaires/billionaires disagree with? This playbook was used against Mother Jones in the past and failed. All was relatively quiet for a few years. It was then used by Gawker and succeeded. And now lawsuits of this type are immediately more common than they were before the Gawker ruling.

Gawker was sleaze and it went too far, but it was destroyed because Trump-linked technocrats didn't like what it had to say and that it stood up to them. I miss it and think it would be a nice, dirty thumb in the eye to those currently in power.

And I think I would debate it. I don't think the corrective for a story like the Hogan story is to destroy a media outlet, even if the motives were good and pure instead of techno-fascist.

 

[Amir0x]

I mean, Gawker is hardly the thing you look at for the free press, considering the slimy shit they did. Hogan was merely the bullet that killed a much hated site, if it was something that was actually relevant to the public, then yeah, sure, it'd be a worry then, but videos of people being sexually abused? Fuck no, fuck Gawker.

I wish it happened to Breitbart instead

 

[Cagey]

At what point will people realize that the problem folks have with this court decision wasn't that Gawker went under (they deserved it, no one is debating that) but that a playbook was created that can be used to shut down any news agency that millionaires/billionaires disagree with? This playbook was used against Mother Jones in the past and failed. All was relatively quiet for a few years. It was then used by Gawker and succeeded. And now lawsuits of this type are immediately more common than they were before the Gawker ruling.

A company worth several hundred million would have gotten away with its conduct against less wealthy targets with impunity until someone with similarly deep pockets funded litigation.

Gawker swam into a bigger fish.

 

[CDX]

The fact that large companies use their immense wealth, to basically force a party that feels they've been wronged into a settlement, rather than seeing a fair day in a court is so immensely wrong to me.

The fact that funding such a case would've potentially bankrupted multi-millionaire Hulk Hogan, and Hulk Hogan himself had to rely on a multi-billionaire to pay his legal fees, just further illustrates to me how messed up it is.


For nearly a DECADE, that billionaire was trying unsuccessfully to get his revenge against Gawker for outing him as gay, and could never manage to do it. If Gawker didn't handle the Hogan story the way they did, they'd probably still be around. That billionaire didn't force Gawker to act the way they did.

If Hogan was wealthier, he could've paid for the lawsuit himself, and the result against Gawker would have been the same with no billionaire involved.

Gawker’s internal emails show callous response to ‘rape’ victim



Gawker was garbage.

Yep. Gawker was trash.

Then imagine being too poor to seriously sue them over it, and Gawker knows it.

Thiel simply funded the lawsuit. It was Gawkers own actions, both before and during the trial, that lost them the case.

People should worry less about a billionaire with a grudge "shutting down" Gawker, and more on the fact that it took the resources of a billionaire to actually go up against them in court.

exactly my feelings.

 

[ryseing]

So I just finished watching this. I didn't know the entirety of the Adelson/Courier-Journal story, so I thought that was incredibly informative.

But trying to draw parallels from the Gawker case and the CJ case to our President seems like a stretch at best. The documentary ends with a rah rah yay journalism bit which didn't really seem necessary.

I dunno. I appreciated the info about the two cases I mentioned but the rest should have been a second documentary.

 

[Fuchsdh]

At what point will people realize that the problem folks have with this court decision wasn't that Gawker went under (they deserved it, no one is debating that) but that a playbook was created that can be used to shut down any news agency that millionaires/billionaires disagree with? This playbook was used against Mother Jones in the past and failed. All was relatively quiet for a few years. It was then used by Gawker and succeeded. And now lawsuits of this type are immediately more common than they were before the Gawker ruling.

...But are they? Perhaps the documentary provides evidence of this, but the Atlantic doesn't call anything out. Millionaires buying papers is an entirely different problem from millionaires trying to take down media via money.

And again, Gawker was totally in the wrong here. The Washington Post isn't ever going to be exposed to this kind of lawsuit because they would never have done something so stupid (and I'd like to believe they'd never have done something Rolling Stone caliber, either.) They certainly aren't perfect, but this doesn't seem to be an imminent threat to mainstream media. If gossip rags are the ones getting hit, that suggests it's not actually a dangerous slippery slope towards erosion of the free press.

 

[The Scollard]

Gawker was sleaze and it went too far, but it was destroyed because Trump-linked technocrats didn't like what it had to say and that it stood up to them. I miss it and think it would be a nice, dirty thumb in the eye to those currently in power.

And I think I would debate it. I don't think the corrective for a story like the Hogan story is to destroy a media outlet, even if the motives were good and pure instead of techno-fascist.

Seriously? I get not liking Thiel, but this was way more than a "Trump-linked technocrat not liking what they had to say". They outed Thiel without his permission and it wasn't like he was some anti-gay lawmaker whose outing would have served the public good. And it's not like they learned, considering they outed the CFO of Conde Nast just about two years ago. That guy wasn't even a public figure and they basically abetted blackmail by doing so.

Again, I can see not liking Thiel for other reasons, but he was totally in the right here. Unless they are lawmakers supporting LGBT legislation, outing people isn't a good thing and its the most horrible kind of "resistance" there is to Trump. Gawker is a sleazy rag that got shut down by someone richer who used legitimate tactics (and took around 10 years) to support a court case that the rag ended up loosing.

 

[Mumei]

At what point will people realize that the problem folks have with this court decision wasn't that Gawker went under (they deserved it, no one is debating that) but that a playbook was created that can be used to shut down any news agency that millionaires/billionaires disagree with? This playbook was used against Mother Jones in the past and failed. All was relatively quiet for a few years. It was then used by Gawker and succeeded. And now lawsuits of this type are immediately more common than they were before the Gawker ruling.

I've noticed that people who celebrate Gawker never seem to have anything to say about Mother Jones. In 2015, they wrote that their legal defense against VanderSloot had cost the magazine and their insurance company at least $2.5 million, and another $650,000 in out of pocket costs. That's not chump change for a magazine of that size, and it is money that they can't get back because Idaho (where VanderSloot lives) doesn't have an anti-SLAPP statute.

Even if you think that that Gawker deserved to lose this particular case (which is debatable; both a federal judge and a federal appeals court ruled prior to the jury's decision that what Gawker published in this case was newsworthy and protected by the First Amendment), this is a playbook where a billionaire can do damage even when they lose, simply by draining resources. The fact that it was done by Thiel and Harder should give people pause.

From that GQ article TarpitCarnivore (lovely name!) posted:

“The impact of the Gawker case is both substantial and dangerous,” says the venerable First Amendment lawyer Floyd Abrams. “Most important, I think, is the deeply troubling visage of a billionaire setting out to put a publication out of business and succeeding in doing so. Whether you're talking about The New York Times or The Washington Post or other of our most prestigious media entities, they have limited finances compared to those of the billionaire class.”

And it's not just journalistic institutions that would have a problem; it's editors and journalists:

9) Maybe you don’t have any sympathy for former Gawker editor AJ Daulerio, the author of the Hogan post, because of his tasteless and offensive joke that made headlines during the Hogan trial. But does that mean it’s perfectly fine for Thiel’s lawyers to bar Gawker from paying for the legal defense of Daulerio, and at the same time, freezing his personal bank account so that he has no money to hire his own lawyer? Should he be forced to defend himself in court without a lawyer?

10) Do you think it’s fair and just that more than a half dozen individual reporters are still being sued by Peter Thiel’s lawyer in those non-Hogan related cases, and that Thiel’s legal team is attempting to prevent Gawker paying for the legal defense of those individuals as well? Should individual reporters face serious threat of bankruptcy for posts their employer assigned, sanctioned, and published (and again, are protected by the First Amendment)?

 

[PHOENIXZERO]

Speaking of blackmail, wasn't the guy who leaked the Hogan video to Gawker the one stole/copied the video off Bubba the Love Sponge (ugh) and attempted to blackmail Hogan as well?

Hulk Hogan being a racist doesn't justify posting a private video of him having sex.

Hogan's racist comments from the video didn't come out until conveniently after the appeal for the other lawsuit was filed.




EDIT: Oh and, fuck AJ Daulerio and not just for the Hogan case but for what he did to that rape victim and others I can't remember over the years.

 

[ghostjoke]

Ugh. The pacing of this is terrible. 3/4 of an hour to get to Thiel, an hour to really get into the dangers and Trump. And those first 45 minutes are not helped by Denton and Daulerio coming across as cunts of the highest magnitude, try as the documentary might to make them sympathetic. I know their personalities shouldn't matter here, but the documentary should too and not waste so much time trying to make a poster-child out of Gawker. By the time it gets to the point, it's a mess with no sympathy left and several pointless side threads. Feels like they dropped Hogan's name from the title but forgot to do it content itself. The whole package is left feeling at odds with itself.

I guess cases like the Mother Jones story aren't sleazy to get attention on this level. There are even other minor stories inside this documentary that sound like a better springboard for this without the filth attached.

I fear that Trump and his ilk will (probably are) engaged in similar activities as Thiel in situations against people who aren't one count of privacy invading away from getting sued into oblivion, but I can't help feel this documentary is pointless at best, fuel for the war on actual journalism at worst.

The meagre amount of time devoted to Las Vegas Review-Journal / Adelson story is worthwhile and it ties the stuff together at the end and brings in everyone's favourite wannabe dictator, albeit, very rushed. Shame about the first half that hurts the overall package.

 

[SirRattleBalls]

The doc started of really well, loved how they detailed the case... but it turned into anti-trump propaganda.. which pissed me off a bit as I came to the doc to know about the gawker trial and how that PayPal CEO banked rolled the who thing and it's wider implications. It really falls flat right at the end and it's a real shame.

 

[Polari]

The way Gawker outed Thiel was disgusting, so I can't blame him for wanting revenge. Keen to check this out though.

 

[firehawk12]

So this was just a freedom of the press documentary that happened to use the Hogan case as an springboard.

 

[BunnyBear]

My impression after watching this? Wow, Nick Denton is a smug-faced fuck. That, despite the documentaries attempts to make him a sympathetic character.

It was an interesting insight into the case, and left me with plenty to think about. Adelson buying the Las Vegas paper was the most interesting bit however.

A flawed but decent watch.

 

[Bakercat]

"My free speech"

"You took a personal video of an adult having sex that the person didn't even knew existed, and put it up on your website for millions of people to see!"

"But my free speech..."

Seriously though, fuck off with this notion that since You have freedom of the press that you are able to pull such horrible shit like this to a person just for clicks. You deserve everything you got and more idiots. Never work yourself into a shoot brother.

 

[shawnbuddy]

Seriously? I get not liking Thiel, but this was way more than a "Trump-linked technocrat not liking what they had to say". They outed Thiel without his permission and it wasn't like he was some anti-gay lawmaker whose outing would have served the public good. And it's not like they learned, considering they outed the CFO of Conde Nast just about two years ago. That guy wasn't even a public figure and they basically abetted blackmail by doing so.

Again, I can see not liking Thiel for other reasons, but he was totally in the right here. Unless they are lawmakers supporting LGBT legislation, outing people isn't a good thing and its the most horrible kind of "resistance" there is to Trump. Gawker is a sleazy rag that got shut down by someone richer who used legitimate tactics (and took around 10 years) to support a court case that the rag ended up loosing.

Gawker "outing" Thiel was like if you "outed" Kevin Spacey or Bryan Singer. Just saying something that's widely known or accepted to everyone in his industry. It was in the context of an article criticizing the homophobia of the tech industry not admitting some of its most brilliant minds are gay. There's a reason why Thiel had to find a proxy for his war, his own grudge had little merit.

Now, the Condé Nast incident was unconscionable because that guy had been keeping it a secret, even Gawker admitted it and removed the story.

 

[Fercho]

Regardless on how you feel about Gawker. The idea of having billionaires pulling strings to attack the media is fucking terrifying especially in the Trump era and billionaires who are Trump supporters.

This is the point the documentary tries to make...some of the posts in this thread are...ugh. It's like reading "the_donald".

 

[Cat Party]

Regardless on how you feel about Gawker. The idea of having billionaires pulling strings to attack the media is fucking terrifying especially in the Trump era and billionaires who are Trump supporters.

This is the point the documentary tries to make...some of the posts in this thread are...ugh. It's like reading "the_donald".

It was the same way during the trial around here. People can't put aside their distaste for Gawker for even a second to acknowledge how terrible this case was and is.

 

[Madness]

Regardless on how you feel about Gawker. The idea of having billionaires pulling strings to attack the media is fucking terrifying especially in the Trump era and billionaires who are Trump supporters.

This is the point the documentary tries to make...some of the posts in this thread are...ugh. It's like reading "the_donald".

The fact it took a billionaire and a super rich celebrity and athlete to even make a dent against a media powerhouse shows how misplaced your thoughts are. Gawker was a piece of shit blog site, a lot of their journos and editors were trash, they outed the billionaire which is why he helped Hulk Hogan. Likening our indifference to Trump supporters is stupid and highlights your own irrational thoughts. Gawker lost and nothing of value was lost. Is it crazy that a billionaire has that kind of power or ability? Yes. But no different than athletes or celebrities or any other facet of life.

This was not a direct attack on freedom of expression or speech. Posting a sex tape of someone without their consent and justifying it because they may be famous is a more egregious behaviour in my book.

 

[neurosisxeno]

Not what I heard but I could easily be wrong.

They literally bragged about getting the injunction and ran another article titled something like; "Here's the Hulk Hogan sex tape he doesn't want you to see" which was up for a few weeks. I think it was only taken down when they assembled a legitimate legal team in preparation for the trial and it took their lawyer all of 1 second to realize that was a really stupid move on their part.

 

[crackhead_bob]

Mother Jones got hit with the exact same style of lawsuit and they almost went under defending themselves: http://www.motherjones.com/media/2015/10/mother-jones-vandersloot-melaleuca-lawsuit/

The simple fact of the matter is that if you get on the bad side of a really rich dude they can almost assuredly shut down your entire operation by locking away your finances in a hold and then forcing you to expend millions upon millions in a protracted and lengthy legal defense.

Unless you have a tremendous financial backing, they can use these lawsuits to silence any media they don't like.

This was all because Thiel was upset that he was outed? Wasn't it common knowledge that he was gay? Not that it matters, but that's a ridiculous reason to sue, and one that wouldn't survive scrutiny at face value. Which is why I think he financed Hogan's lawsuit against Gawker in the first place. But with Hogan, I think his main grievance was that he was caught using racial slurs on tape, rather than it being an invasion of privacy. In this day and age, a sex tape isn't going to do you harm. As far as causing a rift between him and WWE, I think Hogan's ubiquitous enough that he'd have survived this incident if it were only about the sex. It's what came after the sex that probably landed him in hot water. Nobody ever talks about that.

 

[Joni]

I would personally be more worried about the dangerous ramifications if this hadn't been such a clear and cut case and still require a billionaire to get it to succeed. That part worries me more, you have a media company that is so out of control yet nobody could stop it.

But with Hogan, I think his main grievance was that he was caught using racial slurs on tape, rather than it being an invasion of privacy.

Gawker kept that part hidden until the lawsuit. They found the sex part to be more relevant.

 

[Chumley]

After seeing this it's almost impossible to side with Thiel.

He wants to be a real life Andrew Ryan. He says racism isn't a problem, only people who find racism, he thinks women shouldn't be allowed to vote, and he wants to control the press.

The press has to be protected even when its gross like Gawker was.

The fact it took a billionaire and a super rich celebrity and athlete to even make a dent against a media powerhouse shows how misplaced your thoughts are. Gawker was a piece of shit blog site, a lot of their journos and editors were trash, they outed the billionaire which is why he helped Hulk Hogan. Likening our indifference to Trump supporters is stupid and highlights your own irrational thoughts. Gawker lost and nothing of value was lost. Is it crazy that a billionaire has that kind of power or ability? Yes. But no different than athletes or celebrities or any other facet of life.

This was not a direct attack on freedom of expression or speech. Posting a sex tape of someone without their consent and justifying it because they may be famous is a more egregious behaviour in my book.

You are fucking clueless and you should watch the film before spouting more inane ignorance.

 

[Transhuman]

At what point will people realize that the problem folks have with this court decision wasn't that Gawker went under (they deserved it, no one is debating that) but that a playbook was created that can be used to shut down any news agency that millionaires/billionaires disagree with?

Gawker?

After seeing this it's almost impossible to side with Thiel.

He wants to be a real life Andrew Ryan. He says racism isn't a problem, only people who find racism, he thinks women shouldn't be allowed to vote, and he wants to control the press.

The press has to be protected even when its gross like Gawker was.

Thiel is one asshole, Gawker was a company of assholes.

 

[Chumley]

Gawker?



Thiel is one asshole, Gawker was a company of assholes.

They were the press. If you support what Thiel did to them, you support it being done to the press wholesale if they ever do something you don't like. The only reason Thiel brought them down is because he didn't like them. He can decide to bring more down if he wants to.

If you support a free press you can't support a billionaire doing this. You just can't. If we don't stand up for the worst of them we don't stand up for any of them. The end goal for Thiel is press controlled by billionares lacking any freedom whatsoever. Gawker was just a trash rag. If you're willing to prop Thiel up to get rid of Gawker, you're an enemy of the free press. A lot of posters in this thread fall under that category.

The doc started of really well, loved how they detailed the case... but it turned into anti-trump propaganda.. which pissed me off a bit as I came to the doc to know about the gawker trial and how that PayPal CEO banked rolled the who thing and it's wider implications. It really falls flat right at the end and it's a real shame.

Propaganda? What part of what they were illustrating was a lie or misrepresentation? Did you not realize Thiel wants the press destroyed and that that's why he supported Trump?

 

[Transhuman]

If you support a free press you can't support a billionaire doing this. You just can't. If we don't stand up for the worst of them we don't stand up for any of them.

Try as I might I just can't bring myself to see Gawker as "the press".

 

[The Fatal Englishman]

Regardless on how you feel about Gawker. The idea of having billionaires pulling strings to attack the media is fucking terrifying especially in the Trump era and billionaires who are Trump supporters.

This is the point the documentary tries to make...some of the posts in this thread are...ugh. It's like reading "the_donald".

Possibly, but Gawker is possibly the worst example they could have picked. It was a media conglomerate with a history of publishing tabloid-tier garbage while somehow simultaneously claiming the moral highground. They were perfectly happy to tell the little guys/women to fuck off when they were asked to remove damaging content and yet cried foul when they crossed someone with deep pockets.

Plus, Daulerio's testimony during the Bollea vs Gawker case was embarrassing.

 

[Chumley]

Try as I might I just can't bring myself to see Gawker as "the press".

They are. Drawing distinctions between what is and isn't the press depending on how tasteful you personally find them is how people like Thiel walks the public towards the cliff.

 

[HariKari]

No sympathy for Gawker. Got what they deserved. Premise of the documentary is admirable but they really picked the worst possible angle.

 

[BunnyBear]

A more expansive investigation into the Adelson purchase of the Las Vegas paper, perhaps even making that the hook, may have worked better. Then they could have touched on the Gawker case and the Thiel angle, instead of making it the main focus. But making Gawker and Denton out to be sympathetic characters was a flawed premise.

 

[caliph95]

In a world where we can have Carlie Hebdo as protected free speech, I'm more than willing to extend that protection to a celebrity sex tape leaking news site.
.

Obviously i'm biased (you can tell from my username and no i don't justify what happened to him) and didn't care for what Charlie did but there is difference from satire i didn't care for especially when that as fair i know isn't illegal and a breach of privacy and the shit gawker pulled which was illegal and they deserve what happened to them

 

[jWILL253]

The problem with using Gawker is an example of the free press being silenced by thin-skinned rich people is that Gawker literally did this to themselves.

Even if you hate sites like Kotaku, Gawker had legit journalists working for them. But they were all undermined by the hubris of the executive brass at the company. They got told to take down the video, and Gawker told the judges to fuck off because "freedom of press & Hogan is racist" or whatever. Them being linked as a Trumpian attack on free press doesn't really work, since Gawker has never done any of the work that CNN, NYT, WSJ, MSNBC or WP has done. Gawker had numerous specialty journalist sites under its belt, but ran them like tabloids.

That said, there is a precedent being set here. Trump and his ilk are gonna take advantage of the public's sudden aversion to the press. But I think we should be less focused on the "who", and more on the "why". Why is the free press being attacked like this, what's the public benefit from it, and why does the public seem to support it?

I can at least get a handle on that last question. It's not that people suddenly hate the news, or believe that journalists are out to get them; it's more that people hate bad news on things they like, or bad news on things they don't understand. In a new world driven by social media echo chambers, right or wrong, people want their own biases confirmed... regardless if said biases are defended by reality or not. And since most of the press doesn't confirm their bullshit worldviews, they are seen as the enemy. Add Trump, a candidate that tapped into the resentment White Americans feel towards the media, intellectuals, social issues, women, & people of color, and you have a perfect storm. So, it doesn't really surprise me that the media is being attacked left and right, with Trump even implying violence being taken against news organizations he doesn't like.

But Gawker shouldn't be in the position of the victim here, when many other news organizations are way more deserving of that kind of defense.

 

[345triangle]

No sympathy for Gawker. Got what they deserved. Premise of the documentary is admirable but they really picked the worst possible angle.

that's the whole point.

They are. Drawing distinctions between what is and isn't the press depending on how tasteful you personally find them is how people like Thiel walks the public towards the cliff.

exactly this.

your personal feelings toward gawker are irrelevant. if what thiel did to them is permissible, it'll be permissible when it happens to anyone you actually do agree with in the future — and that's particularly relevant in a landscape where the goddamn president of the USA is calling out the most mainstream of mainstream media as conspiratorial fraudsters.

gawker is both the worst and the best possible example with which to make this point. i get it, they did gross things that even they would regret in hindsight. but that doesn't make tangentially related vendetta lawsuits funded by billionaires right either.

 

[Korgill]

that's the whole point.



exactly this.

your personal feelings toward gawker are irrelevant. if what thiel did to them is permissible, it'll be permissible when it happens to anyone you actually do agree with in the future — and that's particularly relevant in a landscape where the goddamn president of the USA is calling out the most mainstream of mainstream media as conspiratorial fraudsters.

gawker is both the worst and the best possible example with which to make this point. i get it, they did gross things that even they would regret in hindsight. but that doesn't make tangentially related vendetta lawsuits funded by billionaires right either.

I really don't understand what everyone thinks is so evil what Thiel did. Did he have a personal reason to hate them? Sure. But the fact is that Gawker lost in the court of law. If you think this is wrong, argue about the case or the law. Where the money came from or if Thiel pushed Hogan to go for more is irrelevant. The judge and the court agreed.

There is a balance on the free press that needs to remain or there will be times where truly libelous stories will be published with no recourse. I am no advocate for making it easier to sue like Thiel/Trump want, but I can't take this as an attack on free press. If Thiel has tried a bunch of times and lost, or if I thought that Hogan had no case then I would probably agree with you.