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[Chumley]

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.

Do you understand how the rich take advantage of the law and of courts? Biases by judges? The film goes into all that but the fact is that the rich can wield and twist the courts if they're smart, and that's what Thiel did through several avenues.

It's dozens of little things that add up.

 

[TSM]

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.

The issue in this case wasn't the legal fees from a frivolous lawsuit sinking them. It was the fact that they were not only guilty, but unrepentantly so. They were sunk by the fact that they not only violated Hogan's rights, but they openly flouted a court order to continue to do so. This was a case where Gawker was comically guilty and rightfully lost the case. To hold this up as an example of the type of press that needs protecting is to devalue the entire premise of the documentary.

 

[KarneeKarnay]

Gawker are a victim of their own design. It was a hated website that crossed the line too many times and in this case, crossed the legal line by miles.As a Brit the equivalent was the Phone Hacking scandal that the British Newspapers were involved it.

The real issue is cost vs gain. We see it time and time again. What they report doesn't have to be true. It doesn't even have to a rumor in a lot of cases. What they need is something that gets views and clicks.

Gawker ignored Hogan and then the Law, because they thought they could gain more by doing so than they would lose. The end of Gawker wasn't the end of the First Amendment. It was a warning to others about going too far.

In my opinion this is just symbolic at best. Gawker was the perfect catalyst for this. The other new media and papers are too big to be hurt and it would take someone with a lot of power to bring one of them down. Hogan may have been the image but he still needed a lot of support from others to bring down Gawker a trash news site.

 

[wesleyshark]

I just can't bring myself to consider Gawker as real journalism. They were a tabloid blog at best.

They eventually pissed off someone who was able to do something about it, and they lost. It was an inevitable outcome. If not Thiel, it would have have been someone else later down the road.

 

[patapuf]

Do you understand how the rich take advantage of the law and of courts? Biases by judges? The film goes into all that but the fact is that the rich can wield and twist the courts if they're smart, and that's what Thiel did through several avenues.

It's dozens of little things that add up.

I agree that this is worrying but corporations do this too, all the time. Including the Gawker.

This is a rich person taking advantage of his wealth to win in court vs a corporation taking advantage of their wealth to win in court (which they would have against Hogan alone, and not because they were in the right). Something like Gawker shouldn't be able to just settle/mute people they wronged as part of their business model.

Both things are equally abhorent to me as a private citizen.

Money being a big factor in the court system is a problem. But it goes beyond rich people. It includes Corporations, and it includes ridicoulous fines being possible in the first place.

 

[SirRattleBalls]

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?

It's still some level of propaganda. I came to hear about the gawker trial and see Nick Denton get his just desserts which he rightfully did. And Thiel beef with Gawker is rightfully justified, heck I would have done the same.

Half the people on neogaf want Fox and Dailymail destroyed , I no i fucking do. I'm just not a billionaire so I can only make empty threats, but if I was i would.

 

[g11]

This wasn't fucking Woodward and Bernstein v. Nixon here.

Gawker chose the wrong fucking hill to die on, end of story. Just because Bollea and Thiel are human garbage doesn't automatically absolve Gawker of all wrong doing, and boy howdy, they did some wrong over the years, including that sex tape.

 

[Sheroking]

Ring me when somebody other than Gawker is targeted in this way.

Peter Thiel is a giant sack of shit, but Gawker earned every second of the beating.

 

[chugen]

gawker outed Thiel while he was in a business trip in Saudi Arabia, that's fucked up. fuck them.

 

[TarpitCarnivore]

Ring me when somebody other than Gawker is targeted in this way.

Peter Thiel is a giant sack of shit, but Gawker earned every second of the beating.

Motherjones: http://www.motherjones.com/media/2015/10/mother-jones-vandersloot-melaleuca-lawsuit/

Techdirt: https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20170111/11440836465/techdirts-first-amendment-fight-life.shtml

FYI: the lawyer involved in the Techdirt lawsuit is the same rep for Hogan. He's gone on the record saying he hates libel laws and thinks they need to go away or be re-written (http://www.gq.com/story/charles-harder-gawker-lawyer)

That's why Harder argues that the “actual malice” standard in libel suits should be done away with. Established by the Supreme Court's The New York Times v. Sullivan decision in 1964, the standard holds that in order for a public figure to successfully sue for libel, he must prove that the false information published about him was printed with reckless disregard for the truth. “There are a lot of celebrities and public figures who don't bring lawsuits because the standard is so high,” he says, “and you have to kind of get into somebody's head as to what they were disregarding and what they were regarding.”

 

[jchap]

Nah fuck Gawker and slippery slope arguments

 

[nynt9]

Gawker really dug their own grave here. Many have already remarked on how, but I didn't see (might have missed it) in this thread that they also said during trial that they would post a sex tape involving someone as young as 4 years old.

Free press is important, Thiel's actions were dangerous, but gawker were so in the wrong that this is a really bad hill to die on.

 

[Nephtis]

Really, don't be pissed at the rich people for having the means to take down a site

Be mad at the tabloid that gave them the reasons and weapons for it. Everyone should be pissed at Gawker, not Hogan or his financial backers. They fucked it up for everyone else.

 

[Tylercrat]

The whole thing was a conspiracy set up by Hogan. He wanted the sex tape to get out there. He knew about the other racist sex tape that was going to leak at some point so he made another sex tape as cover. He probably leaked it himself so that he could sue Gawker for 100 million dollars.

Hogan knew his career was over because his racist remarks were going to leak. This whole thing was planned in the same way the Kim Kardasian sex tape was 'leaked'.

I get it you guys don't like Gawker. I know they are a crappy tabloid. But do you want all the tabloids controlled by Trump allies like the National Enquirer. Gawker wasn't any different than the National Enquirer or any old fashioned tabloids. The other tabloids outed Caitlyn Jenner and they don't deserve to be shut down because of that. Tabloids are always shitty. So don't read them.

If Gawker was around today, there would be more journalists figuring what the hell happened with Trump's collusion with Russia. Gawker was the FIRST news organization to report about the Russian hacking last year with Guccifer 2.0.

Well at least the racist Hulk Hogan and the alt-right Peter Thiel are sitting happy. That is the important thing I guess.

 

[Joni]

I get it you guys don't like Gawker. I know they are a crappy tabloid. But do you want all the tabloids controlled by Trump allies like the National Enquirer. Gawker wasn't any different than the National Enquirer or any old fashioned tabloids. The other tabloids outed Caitlyn Jenner and they don't deserve to be shut down because of that. Tabloids are always shitty. So don't read them.

No, we probably the world would be a better place without stuff like FOX, the Daily Mail, the Sun and a whole lot of media that have stopped pretending to be journalism. We can skip reading them, but they are also influencing other people. They are the reason Brexit happened, Trump got elected, ...

 

[Fercho]

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.

Your mental Gymnastics into this case do nothing for me, The trend is that the media is under attack every day , and regardless if Gawker was a POS or not, the precedent of a billionaire acting as a puppet master in what is or not reported by any kind of media has been set.

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.

Maybe, but the documentary does not focus on Gawker only.

What are your thoughts on the situation with Las Vegas-Review Journal?, It's not the same than with Gawker Vs Hulk Hogan, but 100% more insidious, do you think that their example and their struggle to find out (and report) who was the person who bought the newspaper is also one of the worst examples they could have picked?

 

[SecretMoblin]

Motherjones: http://www.motherjones.com/media/2015/10/mother-jones-vandersloot-melaleuca-lawsuit/

Techdirt: https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20170111/11440836465/techdirts-first-amendment-fight-life.shtml

FYI: the lawyer involved in the Techdirt lawsuit is the same rep for Hogan. He's gone on the record saying he hates libel laws and thinks they need to go away or be re-written (http://www.gq.com/story/charles-harder-gawker-lawyer)

The Mother Jones case happened prior to the Gawker one, The Foundation for National Progress/Mother Jones won that case, and Mother Jones is still in business. The Techdirt case is obvious bullshit and will have a similar outcome.

Rich people have extraordinary leverage in the American court system and can bankrupt opponents through strategic legal action. This is something we need to change, but it is something that has existed for centuries prior to Bollea v. Gawker and is wholly unrelated to the sky-is-falling, "death of the 1st Amendment" nonsense.

The difference in this case was that Gawker did something wrong. Even if you're willing to accept that Gawker qualifies as "press" under the 1st Amendment - something I agree with! - this case is hardly a harbinger of terrible future consequences for press freedom. Work to change the inequities in our legal system rather than using a tabloid that pushed its luck and lost as the standard bearer.

If it really was the first domino in a campaign to silence the media, the wealthy are certainly free to silence the many thousands of media outlets which criticize them daily. It hasn't happened because in the real world, it's actually really really difficult to use frivolous lawsuits to destroy the press!

 

[Tylercrat]

No, we probably the world would be a better place without stuff like FOX, the Daily Mail, the Sun and a whole lot of media that have stopped pretending to be journalism. We can skip reading them, but they are also influencing other people. They are the reason Brexit happened, Trump got elected, ...

FOX News should not be shut down though. Of course they are evil. Being evil isn't illegal though.

 

[Bolivar687]

The free press, as our founders conceived of it and we idealized it, no longer exists and it's never coming back. We need an entire overhaul of our slander, libel, and privacy laws, in addition to the way judges frame these issues.

 

[LordRaptor]

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.

No, what ultimately harms the freedom of the press is the press who abuse those freedoms because they can; run unsourced rumours as facts. Focus on prurience and not policy. Abet people breaking the law.

Actual journalists who follow the shit that is basically ethics day 1 of any reputable journalism course get pulled down by bloggers posting stories about whos fucking who and how fat a celeb has got on the beach.

 

[ginger ninja]

Is it true? Then I don't care.

Is it false? Then he can sue them.

This is America and people here care about other people's sex lives for whatever reason. IIRC, they got flack for it ethics wise but it was by no means illegal.

But they did get sued, not for this but some other illegal stuff they did. They got sued to hell and back and went bankrupt as a result. The Constitution that protected their right to (moronic) free speech, the same constitution also led the judges to rule what they did was illegal. So they can either accept the consequences or whine.

Or they can also sue them

Like whatever happened to sportsmanship. Gawker used dirty yet mostly legal tactics to defame hogan and thiel. Thiel and Hogan used dirty and legal tactics to put them out of business. The best side won. The losers are still complaining.

 

[DonShula]

This wasn't fucking Woodward and Bernstein v. Nixon here.

Gawker chose the wrong fucking hill to die on, end of story. Just because Bollea and Thiel are human garbage doesn't automatically absolve Gawker of all wrong doing, and boy howdy, they did some wrong over the years, including that sex tape.

Nailed it.

Everyone involved in the story can be trash. We don't have to pick a side to root for. Gawker bit off more than they could chew and suddenly wanted us all to believe they were crusading the entire time.

 

[SecretMoblin]

The free press, as our founders conceived of it and we idealized it, no longer exists and it's never coming back. We need an entire overhaul of our slander, libel, and privacy laws, in addition to the way judges frame these issues.

The idea of the "press" as the founders envisioned it was far narrower and more restrictive than it has become in 2017.

The trend over time, including with a conservative SCOTUS, has been to expand press freedoms, narrow the libel and slander windows, and limit the ability for the government and individuals to disrupt press activities. It was Rehnquist who penned the unanimous decision in favor of Hustler Magazine over Jerry Falwell, after all. I support an even more expansive reading of (most) of the BoR but the current state of civil liberties, including speech and press freedom, is tremendously more robust than it was in the 1700s.

 

[Chumley]

No, what ultimately harms the freedom of the press is the press who abuse those freedoms because they can; run unsourced rumours as facts. Focus on prurience and not policy. Abet people breaking the law.

Actual journalists who follow the shit that is basically ethics day 1 of any reputable journalism course get pulled down by bloggers posting stories about whos fucking who and how fat a celeb has got on the beach.

And who gets to decide what those freedoms are, or how the law defines all of this in the first place? Do you realize that Trump and Thiel are trying to change that? Is that the world you want to live in?

 

[Dark Ninja]

freelance wrestling experts

.

Their biggest mistake was trying to get a win over Hogan.

 

[nynt9]

Nailed it.

Everyone involved in the story can be trash. We don't have to pick a side to root for. Gawker bit off more than they could chew and suddenly wanted us all to believe they were crusading the entire time.

Yep. Supporting free press and being concerned with people like Thiel throwing their weight against it doesn't mean we need to support Gawker either. Gawker were trash here, and in many other occasions.

That it took someone as powerful as Thiel to make Gawker pay for their shitty practices is just as terrifying as someone as powerful as Thiel messing with free media.

There are no winners here. Everyone loses. And we don't have to prop up one side to defend the other.

 

[345triangle]

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.

it's because thiel had no connection to the case whatsoever and waited for years for something to come up that would put gawker in the least sympathetic light before a jury when given huge financial backing for a legal argument. no court would have found in thiel's favour had he sued gawker over the thing that actually pissed him off.

we could debate the legal merits of the hogan case, sure, and it's not for nothing that thiel picked a case where gawker basically fucked up and then doubled down on their fuckuppery. i think they probably have a pretty good chance of succeeding to some degree with an appeal, though — the fine imposed was absolutely absurd, exceeding compensation awarded to rape victims many times over. but in the likely case that it gets reduced, what does it matter? thiel already killed the site.

No, what ultimately harms the freedom of the press is the press who abuse those freedoms because they can; run unsourced rumours as facts. Focus on prurience and not policy. Abet people breaking the law.

Actual journalists who follow the shit that is basically ethics day 1 of any reputable journalism course get pulled down by bloggers posting stories about whos fucking who and how fat a celeb has got on the beach.

and yet you'll notice most of those "actual journalists" still take gawker's side in this dispute. you don't have to like the site to find the whole affair concerning.

 

[Surface of Me]

If you think Gawker going down because they directly violated a court order and acted like shit heads in thr court is some sort of attack on freedom of the press you lack a lot of critical thinking skills.

 

[MegaManTrigger]

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.

This is the biggest slippery slope fallacy I've ever seen stated by you and other people ITT. To truly believe that this will happen to other news companies, you'd have to believe that the legal system is unable to discern between what happened with Gawker and other publications. Considering that Mother Jones won their lawsuit, I'll be inclined to disagree on this note. Moreover, you'd have to believe that the legal system is so clueless that it doesn't know what defamation/slander/libel/any crime (again since this was a core issue in Mother Jones when it was accused of defamation, I also disagree on that note).

I just don't understand the whole "if x billionaire did this, other billionaires will too!" argument, especially when Gawker is the one who willingly posted sensitive material and willingly defied judge orders. Not all legal situations with publications are created equally.

 

[Linsies]

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.

Thiel and the author of the article agreed that he was already openly gay, but Thiel stated that Gawker articles about others, including his friends, had "ruined people's lives for no reason," and said, "It's less about revenge and more about specific deterrence."

https://mobile.nytimes.com/2016/05/...llionaire-reveals-secret-war-with-gawker.html

 

[shawnbuddy]

Thiel and the author of the article agreed that he was already openly gay, but Thiel stated that Gawker articles about others, including his friends, had "ruined people's lives for no reason," and said, "It's less about revenge and more about specific deterrence."

https://mobile.nytimes.com/2016/05/...llionaire-reveals-secret-war-with-gawker.html

Let's take Trump's favorite technocrat at his word, then? The real bottom line is Valleywag and Gawker covered Silicon Valley in a way Thiel didn't like and it frustrated him that he couldn't control, so instead he spent a decade trying to destroy it. Then succeeded. That's not admirable, that's scary. I get that some people didn't like Gawker for a lot of reasons, but we shouldn't celebrate Thiel's success here because your reasons are not his reasons. Thiel's reasons are basically Trump's, he doesn't like media he can't control and media that doesn't kiss his ass. That's why they were a good fit.

 

[Mesousa]

Let's Trump's favorite technocrat at his word, then? The real bottom line is Valleywag and Gawker covered Silicon Valley in a way Thiel didn't like and it frustrated him that he couldn't control, so instead he spent a decade trying to destroy it. Then succeeded. That's not admirable, that's scary. I get that some people didn't like Gawker for a lot of reasons, but we shouldn't celebrate Thiel's success here because your reasons are not his reasons. Thiel's reasons are basically Trump's, he doesn't like media he can't control and media that doesn't kiss his ass. That's why they were a good fit.

Yep.

Its a sad day when we let them destroy our free press. From the day Phocion(Alexander Hamilton) published the fact that Thomas Jefferson was raping his slaves in the Gazette there has been an understanding that the press is the one place to hold leadership not only accountable, but to let the truth be known to the world.

 

[Chumley]

Let's Trump's favorite technocrat at his word, then? The real bottom line is Valleywag and Gawker covered Silicon Valley in a way Thiel didn't like and it frustrated him that he couldn't control, so instead he spent a decade trying to destroy it. Then succeeded. That's not admirable, that's scary. I get that some people didn't like Gawker for a lot of reasons, but we shouldn't celebrate Thiel's success here because your reasons are not his reasons. Thiel's reasons are basically Trump's, he doesn't like media he can't control and media that doesn't kiss his ass. That's why they were a good fit.

It doesn't even surprise me that much because this forum worships at the altar of rich men and corporations. Fucking shameful.

 

[rackham]

Good riddance gawker. Hope they take your cash too. Parasites.

 

[SecretMoblin]

It doesn't even surprise me that much because this forum worships at the altar of rich men and corporations. Fucking shameful.

the corporation run by a rich man lost this case... so I guess reading this thread, you may be right lol

 

[Chumley]

the corporation run by a rich man lost this case

Awesome intellectual dishonesty there. Compared to Thiel they may as well have been a groveling start up. What's your next line of defense to try and justify siding with a technocrat?

 

[345triangle]

This is the biggest slippery slope fallacy I've ever seen stated by you and other people ITT. To truly believe that this will happen to other news companies, you'd have to believe that the legal system is unable to discern between what happened with Gawker and other publications. Considering that Mother Jones won their lawsuit, I'll be inclined to disagree on this note. Moreover, you'd have to believe that the legal system is so clueless that it doesn't know what defamation/slander/libel/any crime (again since this was a core issue in Mother Jones when it was accused of defamation, I also disagree on that note).

I just don't understand the whole "if x billionaire did this, other billionaires will too!" argument, especially when Gawker is the one who willingly posted sensitive material and willingly defied judge orders. Not all legal situations with publications are created equally.

i mean, i already believe that the legal system incorrectly landed gawker with such a stratospherically excessive fine that the company was forced to sell itself and shutter the flagship website before any possible appeal, so.

let's see how the techdirt case goes.

 

[Dead Man]

It doesn't even surprise me that much because this forum worships at the altar of rich men and corporations. Fucking shameful.

Fucking what? This thread is getting hysterical.

 

[HammerOfThor]

I don't totally understand this documentary. It's like half about the Hogan case half about freedom of press in general, but like they ran out of material halfway through or just changed their minds when Trump got elected. Or I just expected it to all be about Hogan that's why I got thrown off.

And I'll never defend what Gawker did, and I don't see how posting a sex tape and being held responsible is in the same realm of the crap Trump is doing.

 

[Cat Party]

Let's Trump's favorite technocrat at his word, then? The real bottom line is Valleywag and Gawker covered Silicon Valley in a way Thiel didn't like and it frustrated him that he couldn't control, so instead he spent a decade trying to destroy it. Then succeeded. That's not admirable, that's scary. I get that some people didn't like Gawker for a lot of reasons, but we shouldn't celebrate Thiel's success here because your reasons are not his reasons. Thiel's reasons are basically Trump's, he doesn't like media he can't control and media that doesn't kiss his ass. That's why they were a good fit.

Exactly.

 

[PanicFreak]

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.

Hogan's legal team dropped the charge that would have allowed the insurance to cover the loss and left the charges that paid out less but made Gawker and the reporter personally liable. I side with Gawker. What happened to them was wrong and against the values of the United States.

 

[kitsunelaine]

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.

The law is not and should not be the arbiter of your moral values. We do not have morals because we have laws.We have laws because we have morals.

So many people think that "the law" is the be-all end-all of moral argumentation. Fuck that. You're taking the easy way out, the way that avoids having to think beyond legalities and lets those who abuse said law to get away with it.

 

[Dead Man]

Hogan's legal team dropped the charge that would have allowed the insurance to cover the loss and left the charges that paid out less but made Gawker and the reporter personally liable. I side with Gawker. What happened to them was wrong and against the values of the United States.

What happened to Hogan (blech) was wrong and against the values of the US.

 

[Tylercrat]

Let's Trump's favorite technocrat at his word, then? The real bottom line is Valleywag and Gawker covered Silicon Valley in a way Thiel didn't like and it frustrated him that he couldn't control, so instead he spent a decade trying to destroy it. Then succeeded. That's not admirable, that's scary. I get that some people didn't like Gawker for a lot of reasons, but we shouldn't celebrate Thiel's success here because your reasons are not his reasons. Thiel's reasons are basically Trump's, he doesn't like media he can't control and media that doesn't kiss his ass. That's why they were a good fit.

Exactly. The whole 'outing a gay man' thing is a smokescreen. Gawker did not out him. Thiel didn't like the critical coverage of silicon valley. He and Trump despise critical media.

Someday CNN is going to be put on trial for Fake News. If people think this is a slippery slope fallacy, just know that today we are closer to an authoritarian state than we have at any time our lifetimes. We have a president that could walk down 5th avenue and shoot someone and his supporters would not care. We are moving into a new era. If you say- It Can't Happen Here, well people used to say the same thing about Donald Trump being elected president.

 

[Chumley]

Exactly. The whole 'outing a gay man' thing is a smokescreen. Thiel didn't like the critical coverage of silicon valley. He and Trump despise critical media.

Someday CNN is going to be put on trial for Fake News. If people think this is a slippery slope fallacy, just know that today we are closer to an authoritarian state than we have at any time our lifetimes. We have a president that could walk down 5th avenue and shoot someone and his supporters would not care. We are moving into a new era. If you say- It Can't Happen Here, well people used to say the same thing about Donald Trump being elected president.

Yeah. Anyone calling this a fallacy is being ignorant of history. It can and is happening here.

 

[bozeman]

eh at holding up Gawker as some 1st Amendment heroes carrying the banner of the free press. Call me when/if that coal guy is successful in his lawsuit against John Oliver. Then I'll start worrying about our freedom of speech.

 

[Joni]

Exactly. The whole 'outing a gay man' thing is a smokescreen. Gawker did not out him. Thiel didn't like the critical coverage of silicon valley. He and Trump despise critical media.

Someday CNN is going to be put on trial for Fake News. If people think this is a slippery slope fallacy, just know that today we are closer to an authoritarian state than we have at any time our lifetimes. We have a president that could walk down 5th avenue and shoot someone and his supporters would not care. We are moving into a new era. If you say- It Can't Happen Here, well people used to say the same thing about Donald Trump being elected president.

And this case won't have any bearing on it all. Whatever Trump does or succeeds at, this specific case doesn't give him any ammo to use in a court of law. Unless of course CNN posts as sex video of him and then laughs in the judge's face about it. The precedence you see has very little to do with this case, but more with the madman elected.

 

[MegaManTrigger]

Exactly. The whole 'outing a gay man' thing is a smokescreen. Gawker did not out him. Thiel didn't like the critical coverage of silicon valley. He and Trump despise critical media.

Someday CNN is going to be put on trial for Fake News. If people think this is a slippery slope fallacy, just know that today we are closer to an authoritarian state than we have at any time our lifetimes. We have a president that could walk down 5th avenue and shoot someone and his supporters would not care. We are moving into a new era. If you say- It Can't Happen Here, well people used to say the same thing about Donald Trump being elected president.

Wait what...? Gawker didn't out him? Then how come there's a news article from them that specifically mentions Thiel's orientation and speculation on how it works in his business of venture capitalism. For someone critical of fake news, I'm surprised you would go as far as to say Gawker didn't out Thiel without at least explaining how they didn't out, especially when there's a link that anyone can find via google: http://gawker.com/335894/peter-thiel-is-totally-gay-people . Also, the link to Trump is weak and disingenuous, if we're going to equate people who hate "critical media" to Trump, then we're only painting with extremely broad strokes and disregarding context (especially in regards to who they're fighting against, which is just as important as the subject matter). Even the documentary does a miserable job developing the connective tissue.

Also, that's not why I called it a slippery slope fallacy. I called it that because there seems to be this hyper-"1984" levels of paranoia ITT that billionaires can just do whatever they want vs. publications as if the Justice System itself isn't even a factor. As Mother Jones has shown, just because a rich guy thinks someone said bad things about him, doesn't make it a de facto case. Not to mention, we cannot ignore how each of these situations differ on a case-by-case scenario (Thiel vs. email guy vs. Mother Jones are such examples). Mother Jones is not the only company to have successfully fight and won, and will not be the only one from here on out. Furthermore, this argument that it's an attack on the freedom of the press would carry more legitimacy if it had happened to one of the USA's major news companies, not some glorified tabloid blog who thinks a person's sex life is important.

 

[neurosisxeno]

Gawker acted like absolute shitheads the entire time. They treated it as a huge joke and openly mocked the judge overseeing the case, Bollea, his lawyer, and just about anyone else who implied it was a legitimate case. They only positioned themselves as victims after they lost because they were basically screwed. There's a reason Gawker went down, but the NYT and WaPo continually weather the storm. If you're going to address the narrative of the ultrawealthy's influence on media coverage, just focus on Fox News and the Koch Brothers. They have spent the last 20 years basically destroying media credibility....

 

[Kinyou]

The whole thing was a conspiracy set up by Hogan. He wanted the sex tape to get out there. He knew about the other racist sex tape that was going to leak at some point so he made another sex tape as cover. He probably leaked it himself so that he could sue Gawker for 100 million dollars.

Hogan knew his career was over because his racist remarks were going to leak. This whole thing was planned in the same way the Kim Kardasian sex tape was 'leaked'.

I get it you guys don't like Gawker. I know they are a crappy tabloid. But do you want all the tabloids controlled by Trump allies like the National Enquirer. Gawker wasn't any different than the National Enquirer or any old fashioned tabloids. The other tabloids outed Caitlyn Jenner and they don't deserve to be shut down because of that. Tabloids are always shitty. So don't read them.

If Gawker was around today, there would be more journalists figuring what the hell happened with Trump's collusion with Russia. Gawker was the FIRST news organization to report about the Russian hacking last year with Guccifer 2.0.

Well at least the racist Hulk Hogan and the alt-right Peter Thiel are sitting happy. That is the important thing I guess.

This is one of the weirdest conspiracy theories I've ever heard. Do you think Hogan is some kind of mastermind? Did he somehow know in advance that Gawker wouldn't follow the courts order to take it down?
Also, I'm pretty sure the racist remarks are on one and the same sex tape.