How Things Implode
August 22, 2016 7:30 PM Subscribe
That's a good swan song.
posted by fatbird at 7:50 PM on August 22, 2016 [5 favorites]
posted by fatbird at 7:50 PM on August 22, 2016 [5 favorites]
Not crying one bit. What's the opposite of a "."?
posted by bswinburn at 7:52 PM on August 22, 2016 [10 favorites]
posted by bswinburn at 7:52 PM on August 22, 2016 [10 favorites]
bswinburn: * is the opposite, but you really should probably be upset, though maybe not crying. Peter Thiel's set a dangerous precedent. What if the next billionaire with a grudge decides to take out a publication you like? Mother Jones was almost destroyed in the same way after publishing the Mitt Romney "47%" video.
posted by SansPoint at 7:57 PM on August 22, 2016 [111 favorites]
posted by SansPoint at 7:57 PM on August 22, 2016 [111 favorites]
I don't feel sorry for Nick Denton or his muckraking outfit, but I do feel sorry for anyone who has to share a planet with a dirtbag like Peter Thiel. If he can secretively wipe out a multimillion dollar media company, imagine what he can do to you.
posted by Behemoth at 7:59 PM on August 22, 2016 [23 favorites]
posted by Behemoth at 7:59 PM on August 22, 2016 [23 favorites]
This is fine.
posted by furtive at 8:00 PM on August 22, 2016 [14 favorites]
posted by furtive at 8:00 PM on August 22, 2016 [14 favorites]
the goal remained to reduce the friction between the thought and the page
Oh, that's... ummmm, a goal, I guess? Who'd ever want any sort of intermediary internal or external between the ever-flapping mouth in one's head and the words published under one's professional byline? Not I!
posted by comealongpole at 8:08 PM on August 22, 2016 [4 favorites]
Oh, that's... ummmm, a goal, I guess? Who'd ever want any sort of intermediary internal or external between the ever-flapping mouth in one's head and the words published under one's professional byline? Not I!
posted by comealongpole at 8:08 PM on August 22, 2016 [4 favorites]
One does wonder, though, if Thiel's actions aren't going to be seen as a proof-of-concept by various groups on the right as a tool for silencing their critics?
posted by Thorzdad at 8:16 PM on August 22, 2016 [31 favorites]
posted by Thorzdad at 8:16 PM on August 22, 2016 [31 favorites]
I'll miss Gawker. I enjoyed its snarky voice combined with its (now all-too-rare in journalism) willingness to be antagonistic to the people and institutions it covered. Sure, it overstepped in gross ways at times, but as was called out in one of the other Gawker obits, the New York Times helped lead us into war with Iraq and nobody suggested it should cease publishing.
A friend of mine and I were trying to decide where we would get our Gawker fix in the future (besides its sister sites). Gothamist is too dull. Buzzfeed is too vapid. Other sites fawn over celebrity where Gawker would deflate it. We probably won't see its like again, thanks to the newly real prospect of being Thieled.
Even if you hated Gawker, this is a sad day.
posted by ejs at 8:20 PM on August 22, 2016 [62 favorites]
A friend of mine and I were trying to decide where we would get our Gawker fix in the future (besides its sister sites). Gothamist is too dull. Buzzfeed is too vapid. Other sites fawn over celebrity where Gawker would deflate it. We probably won't see its like again, thanks to the newly real prospect of being Thieled.
Even if you hated Gawker, this is a sad day.
posted by ejs at 8:20 PM on August 22, 2016 [62 favorites]
Thorzdad, it's no coincidence that Thiel is a Trump supporter, as they both see the press as a nemesis to be crushed for personal reasons.
posted by ejs at 8:21 PM on August 22, 2016 [10 favorites]
posted by ejs at 8:21 PM on August 22, 2016 [10 favorites]
I'm not going to even comment on Gawker or Peter Thiel, not that anyone really cares my opinion. They've got one of those things where its two people you don't want to win, so whatever.
I will say Gawker is an end of an era. It was to me the predecessor of a lot of what's common place and now even outdated. It was the first Web 2.0, it was post-Metafilter nerds who blog (and that includes me, who came here as a nerd who who was tired of the post-Usenet Slashdot world of geek stereotypes).
It was like you could go there and mention Gawker and it wasn't tied to an existing media company and was completely new and you weren't looked down for reading something on the Internet. It predated Facebook and everything at least I visit daily. And it was relevant. It wasn't tied to the NYT or any of the rags.
I hate to get nostalgic about it, as it feels wrong, but I think after two glasses of wine I'll say that I'll miss it and accept it as being there and gone. As much as if this site closed or any other innumerable sites that made up by adolescence and early adulthood, it was just one of those things.
The whole thing is weird, and as someone who knows nothing beyond fighting a traffic ticket, having quarter billion holds on bank accounts for a sex tape seems odd. And given that there was a kid who died in a waterpark ride near me, most certainly due to negligence, and whose family will get at most $250k in damages, seems really fucked up.
In any case, if there's one thing about New York media moguls I know, is they never die they just play a whack a mole game. I expect Ariana Huffington and Nick Denton to have something soon that we'll all hate and we'll all read.
posted by geoff. at 8:22 PM on August 22, 2016 [25 favorites]
I will say Gawker is an end of an era. It was to me the predecessor of a lot of what's common place and now even outdated. It was the first Web 2.0, it was post-Metafilter nerds who blog (and that includes me, who came here as a nerd who who was tired of the post-Usenet Slashdot world of geek stereotypes).
It was like you could go there and mention Gawker and it wasn't tied to an existing media company and was completely new and you weren't looked down for reading something on the Internet. It predated Facebook and everything at least I visit daily. And it was relevant. It wasn't tied to the NYT or any of the rags.
I hate to get nostalgic about it, as it feels wrong, but I think after two glasses of wine I'll say that I'll miss it and accept it as being there and gone. As much as if this site closed or any other innumerable sites that made up by adolescence and early adulthood, it was just one of those things.
The whole thing is weird, and as someone who knows nothing beyond fighting a traffic ticket, having quarter billion holds on bank accounts for a sex tape seems odd. And given that there was a kid who died in a waterpark ride near me, most certainly due to negligence, and whose family will get at most $250k in damages, seems really fucked up.
In any case, if there's one thing about New York media moguls I know, is they never die they just play a whack a mole game. I expect Ariana Huffington and Nick Denton to have something soon that we'll all hate and we'll all read.
posted by geoff. at 8:22 PM on August 22, 2016 [25 favorites]
Gawker has been one of three or four sites I check daily for the part five years. I don't know where I'm going to go now - maybe Jezebel.
posted by Joey Michaels at 8:24 PM on August 22, 2016 [5 favorites]
posted by Joey Michaels at 8:24 PM on August 22, 2016 [5 favorites]
I may not particularly mourn Gawker for what it was, but I mourn the death of Gawker for what it signifies in the dramatic structure. Hear me out: in horror movies, the first victim is almost inevitably an obnoxious or dislikable person, one that the audience roots to have killed. Then more and more characters disappear, some forgettable, some quirky. And then the characters that you like start to die.
In this metaphor, the monster is champerty. And the roaring rampage is just getting started....
posted by LeRoienJaune at 8:31 PM on August 22, 2016 [61 favorites]
In this metaphor, the monster is champerty. And the roaring rampage is just getting started....
posted by LeRoienJaune at 8:31 PM on August 22, 2016 [61 favorites]
Through MeFi meetups and whatnot, I've met Nick Denton, Liz Spiers, and Choire Sicha and they all seemed like nice people, so I hope they'll come out OK. As far as the site, back in the day it was amusing, but I lost interest after awhile.
posted by jonmc at 8:37 PM on August 22, 2016 [2 favorites]
posted by jonmc at 8:37 PM on August 22, 2016 [2 favorites]
gawker is to buzzfeed what 'the eXile' was to vice.
posted by ennui.bz at 8:37 PM on August 22, 2016 [7 favorites]
posted by ennui.bz at 8:37 PM on August 22, 2016 [7 favorites]
Ennui, that's perfect. It hadn't occurred to me the debt Vice has to eXile.
posted by Strange_Robinson at 8:40 PM on August 22, 2016
posted by Strange_Robinson at 8:40 PM on August 22, 2016
I was never a big Gawker fan--I like to pretend I'm above the gossipy and tabloid mentality--but they had some good stuff.
Smarter and more consistent media consumers than me, though, have pointed out that when Thiel and other rich targets list off the self-evidently beyond-the-pale headlines from Gawker, they basically boil down to stories that criticized rich people and their habits. Apparently celebrity means we treat Thiel's ideas about oceanic utopias, skipping college as a means to wealth, or insights on the biochemistry of aging are worthy of resepectful attention, and defer or remain silent in other cases.
I'm willing to be corrected on this, and I know there are other touchy issues regardless, but from what I've read even the 'outing' of Peter Thiel simply meant saying something about his public life on their website. He wasn't closeted.
posted by mark k at 8:44 PM on August 22, 2016 [10 favorites]
Smarter and more consistent media consumers than me, though, have pointed out that when Thiel and other rich targets list off the self-evidently beyond-the-pale headlines from Gawker, they basically boil down to stories that criticized rich people and their habits. Apparently celebrity means we treat Thiel's ideas about oceanic utopias, skipping college as a means to wealth, or insights on the biochemistry of aging are worthy of resepectful attention, and defer or remain silent in other cases.
I'm willing to be corrected on this, and I know there are other touchy issues regardless, but from what I've read even the 'outing' of Peter Thiel simply meant saying something about his public life on their website. He wasn't closeted.
posted by mark k at 8:44 PM on August 22, 2016 [10 favorites]
After a tabloid story in 2009 about a hot-tub party involving two actors and a former beauty queen, we paid out a settlement. It was a warning.Yeah maybe a warning that it's dumb as fuck--not to mention morally bankrupt--to have as your business model the generating of ad revenue on the back prurient, irrelavant bullshit about people's private lives. It's also dumb as fuck to expect those people won't try to hit you back.
I mean, look, Peter Thiel is a piece of shit dickbag, and it's super fucked up that a piece of shit dickbag can shut down the media just because that piece of shit dickbag is a billionaire with a gigantic lawyer in his pants. This is bad for media, bad for democracy, and bad for the country.
But also, fuck Gawker in the face.
posted by dersins at 8:46 PM on August 22, 2016 [21 favorites]
Ennui, that's perfect. It hadn't occurred to me the debt Vice has to eXile.
Confused because Vice started like three years before The eXile.
posted by dersins at 8:49 PM on August 22, 2016 [1 favorite]
Confused because Vice started like three years before The eXile.
posted by dersins at 8:49 PM on August 22, 2016 [1 favorite]
The whole thing is weird, and as someone who knows nothing beyond fighting a traffic ticket, having quarter billion holds on bank accounts for a sex tape seems odd. And given that there was a kid who died in a waterpark ride near me, most certainly due to negligence, and whose family will get at most $250k in damages, seems really fucked up.
The truly rich are born free, like dolphins; they will never feel hungry, and their credit will never be questioned. -HST
posted by a lungful of dragon at 8:49 PM on August 22, 2016 [11 favorites]
The truly rich are born free, like dolphins; they will never feel hungry, and their credit will never be questioned. -HST
posted by a lungful of dragon at 8:49 PM on August 22, 2016 [11 favorites]
That elegy was 90% self-serving bullshit: 'We punched up, mostly! Sometimes, anyway.' I'm not going to celebrate Gawker's demise at the hands of some jerkoff plutocrat, but I'm not exactly shedding tears either. They'll be replaced, hopefully by something better.
posted by um at 9:04 PM on August 22, 2016 [9 favorites]
posted by um at 9:04 PM on August 22, 2016 [9 favorites]
Fact: Gawker lost a case in a U.S. court of law, whatever you think of Peter Thiel (or Hulk Hogan, for that matter). I'm curious how many people would be leaping to defend Gawker if they had published without permission an intimate personal video of a liberal woman.
posted by twsf at 9:12 PM on August 22, 2016 [15 favorites]
posted by twsf at 9:12 PM on August 22, 2016 [15 favorites]
I left a big comment on the last Gawker thread and don't want to rehash the whole thing, but:
History books are full of controversial movements, speaking truth to power and getting crushed for it, that people like to look at and go: "Man, what it would've been like to live back in the glory days! If only I'd had the chance to fight the jolly fight myself." The assumption being, of course, that we all know better than to take a stand against the good guys, or to buy into the propaganda of the oppressors, now that half a century's perspective has given us the unilateral ability to know who (we think) was good and right and just.
Gawker, the enterprise that changed the voice of the Internet, that refused at all times to let cultural norms dictate what it did and didn't publish, that broke stories about political scandals and abusive celebrities, was just sued into nonexistence by a billionaire who thinks Donald Trump is best for America. This billionaire, who literally thinks that women shouldn't be allowed to vote, has successfully turned the story of Gawker's demise into a narrative about bullies getting what they deserve. The lawsuit he helped inflate to the point that it sunk a mature company that's been steadily making a profit, which was launched initially because Hulk Hogan didn't want evidence leaked of his saying the literal worst and most racist word on the planet, in one of the worst and most racist contexts imaginable, has been spun to be about something else entirely—and media institutions don't mention the racist incident that incited this lawsuit in the first place, for the same reasons that they don't report all the other stuff Gawker traditionally has.
Gawker does a lot of stupid and irreverent stuff, and occasionally crosses the line into indecency and tastelessness. You can think they should go fuck themselves for doing that shit. I certainly do. None of that—not the outings or the sex tape leaks—make them any less of an organization that has relentlessly punched up, or an organization that's responsible for the mass unionization of journalistic enterprises, or an organization that's written about the systematic abuse of people who work in higher education, or an organization that's covered the travesty of death row inmates. And that's all from the last year alone, and it's nowhere near the majority of it either.
People in the political threads bemoan the complacency of media. The ways in which supposedly–liberal institutions allow massive lies to slip through. They wonder where the radicals are, and why nobody's trying to change anything.
And then Gawker shuts down and most of us start cheering.
They were an institution that not only had a passionate political, moral, and philosophical agenda, but wrote about it eloquently and at length. They spawned some of the best writers of our generation, and attracted already–talented writers who wanted to develop even further. Lindy West, who was one of my favorite writers already, went to Jezebel and got even better. Alex Pareene left the burning wreckage of The Racket and got full permission to implement the magazine's ethos within Gawker. Greg Howard, who won the David Carr fellowship last year, started at a Gawker Media blog. I could go on and on and on.
They reported on the world from a radically left perspective, and made it not only accessible but wildly entertaining and fun for people who wouldn't have given a shit about politics otherwise. They embraced the fine arts, the weird arts, as readily as they embraced pop culture. They mixed hard–hitting journalism with humor and inside jokes and made it seem like giving a shit about the news didn't have to be some lofty ivory–tower thing. A good chunk of the ethos that makes the Internet wonderful and hopeful was either embodied in or, at times, originated by Gawker.
They wrote extensively about race and gender and sexuality. They criticized every politician, without resorting to false equivalencies. They deflated Silicon Valley a decade before it was cool.
And then a rich and terrible man stomped it out, using reprehensibly legal means, and people said: good.
Fifty years from now, people'll read about Gawker and go, "Man, what it would've been like to live back then! To be there when Gawker was doing its thing!" And they'll wonder how on earth anybody was anything but 100% in support of the people who made it their quest from the start to speak truth to power, even when that quest involved making difficult decisions or defying the common wisdom of the time.
As I said in the other thread, it's telling that the asshole who organized the Hulk Hogan lawsuit also supported Lena Dunham, one of Hillary Clinton's most prominent (and most millennial) supporters. The system Gawker fought against its entire life was larger than the political parties. It was the culture in which those political parties came to be. That culture terrifies me more than Donald Trump ever could. Now one of its staunchest opponents is gone—not just destroyed, but destroyed in a way that has most people buying into that culture's narrative in precisely the way Gawker tried to fight it all along. They said as much in their final posts, and still for some people those posts meant nothing. Because that's how powerful that cultural narrative is.
They will be sorely, sorely missed.
posted by rorgy at 9:12 PM on August 22, 2016 [174 favorites]
History books are full of controversial movements, speaking truth to power and getting crushed for it, that people like to look at and go: "Man, what it would've been like to live back in the glory days! If only I'd had the chance to fight the jolly fight myself." The assumption being, of course, that we all know better than to take a stand against the good guys, or to buy into the propaganda of the oppressors, now that half a century's perspective has given us the unilateral ability to know who (we think) was good and right and just.
Gawker, the enterprise that changed the voice of the Internet, that refused at all times to let cultural norms dictate what it did and didn't publish, that broke stories about political scandals and abusive celebrities, was just sued into nonexistence by a billionaire who thinks Donald Trump is best for America. This billionaire, who literally thinks that women shouldn't be allowed to vote, has successfully turned the story of Gawker's demise into a narrative about bullies getting what they deserve. The lawsuit he helped inflate to the point that it sunk a mature company that's been steadily making a profit, which was launched initially because Hulk Hogan didn't want evidence leaked of his saying the literal worst and most racist word on the planet, in one of the worst and most racist contexts imaginable, has been spun to be about something else entirely—and media institutions don't mention the racist incident that incited this lawsuit in the first place, for the same reasons that they don't report all the other stuff Gawker traditionally has.
Gawker does a lot of stupid and irreverent stuff, and occasionally crosses the line into indecency and tastelessness. You can think they should go fuck themselves for doing that shit. I certainly do. None of that—not the outings or the sex tape leaks—make them any less of an organization that has relentlessly punched up, or an organization that's responsible for the mass unionization of journalistic enterprises, or an organization that's written about the systematic abuse of people who work in higher education, or an organization that's covered the travesty of death row inmates. And that's all from the last year alone, and it's nowhere near the majority of it either.
People in the political threads bemoan the complacency of media. The ways in which supposedly–liberal institutions allow massive lies to slip through. They wonder where the radicals are, and why nobody's trying to change anything.
And then Gawker shuts down and most of us start cheering.
They were an institution that not only had a passionate political, moral, and philosophical agenda, but wrote about it eloquently and at length. They spawned some of the best writers of our generation, and attracted already–talented writers who wanted to develop even further. Lindy West, who was one of my favorite writers already, went to Jezebel and got even better. Alex Pareene left the burning wreckage of The Racket and got full permission to implement the magazine's ethos within Gawker. Greg Howard, who won the David Carr fellowship last year, started at a Gawker Media blog. I could go on and on and on.
They reported on the world from a radically left perspective, and made it not only accessible but wildly entertaining and fun for people who wouldn't have given a shit about politics otherwise. They embraced the fine arts, the weird arts, as readily as they embraced pop culture. They mixed hard–hitting journalism with humor and inside jokes and made it seem like giving a shit about the news didn't have to be some lofty ivory–tower thing. A good chunk of the ethos that makes the Internet wonderful and hopeful was either embodied in or, at times, originated by Gawker.
They wrote extensively about race and gender and sexuality. They criticized every politician, without resorting to false equivalencies. They deflated Silicon Valley a decade before it was cool.
And then a rich and terrible man stomped it out, using reprehensibly legal means, and people said: good.
Fifty years from now, people'll read about Gawker and go, "Man, what it would've been like to live back then! To be there when Gawker was doing its thing!" And they'll wonder how on earth anybody was anything but 100% in support of the people who made it their quest from the start to speak truth to power, even when that quest involved making difficult decisions or defying the common wisdom of the time.
As I said in the other thread, it's telling that the asshole who organized the Hulk Hogan lawsuit also supported Lena Dunham, one of Hillary Clinton's most prominent (and most millennial) supporters. The system Gawker fought against its entire life was larger than the political parties. It was the culture in which those political parties came to be. That culture terrifies me more than Donald Trump ever could. Now one of its staunchest opponents is gone—not just destroyed, but destroyed in a way that has most people buying into that culture's narrative in precisely the way Gawker tried to fight it all along. They said as much in their final posts, and still for some people those posts meant nothing. Because that's how powerful that cultural narrative is.
They will be sorely, sorely missed.
posted by rorgy at 9:12 PM on August 22, 2016 [174 favorites]
bswinburn: Peter Thiel's set a dangerous precedent. What if the next billionaire with a grudge decides to take out a publication you like? Mother Jones was almost destroyed in the same way after publishing the Mitt Romney "47%" video.
The Mother Jones suit was conclusively resolved in their favor because "all of the statements at issue are non-actionable truth or substantial truth." as it should have. There's no precedent you can make from this case to enable or stop a billionaire donor from bringing a suit in the first place, valid or not.
Nick Denton fucked with the wrong person. There's just some things you don't do and Gawker did them with a shit eating grin on their face. When questioned about it they showed no concern or contrition about their actions, in contrast they reveled in them. They outed a man who didn't want to be outed and they published a sex tape of someone for no other reason than scandal, titillation and humiliation. There was no noble purpose. The only problem with the whole endeavour is that both Thiel and Hogan aren't exactly sympathetic liberal characters. Fuck Denton and his whole enterprise.
posted by Talez at 9:13 PM on August 22, 2016 [20 favorites]
The Mother Jones suit was conclusively resolved in their favor because "all of the statements at issue are non-actionable truth or substantial truth." as it should have. There's no precedent you can make from this case to enable or stop a billionaire donor from bringing a suit in the first place, valid or not.
Nick Denton fucked with the wrong person. There's just some things you don't do and Gawker did them with a shit eating grin on their face. When questioned about it they showed no concern or contrition about their actions, in contrast they reveled in them. They outed a man who didn't want to be outed and they published a sex tape of someone for no other reason than scandal, titillation and humiliation. There was no noble purpose. The only problem with the whole endeavour is that both Thiel and Hogan aren't exactly sympathetic liberal characters. Fuck Denton and his whole enterprise.
posted by Talez at 9:13 PM on August 22, 2016 [20 favorites]
Or, to quote Alex Balk over at The Awl:
Each morning you wake to a new set of lies. They vary in subject and value and size. Some are omissions and some are direct, but the accretion of deceit contributes to a culture of cynicism and despair. Even knowing that you are being lied to is no help when everything around you is lies. You know that the positive reviews you read are written by writers who will not offer honest criticism for fear that it might hurt their future prospects. You know that no one is making the world a better place with an app that allows you to be chauffeured from a bar on one side of town to a bar on the other. You know that the people who are paid to tell you about your government regurgitate conventional wisdom to make themselves sound more authoritative. You know that you are being fed fear or hope or an idealized sense of yourself so that you will accede to their demands. Knowing you are being lied to is no help when everything around you is lies. All it does is habituate you to living with lies, so why would you bother to take anything too seriously? When words lose their meaning our very idea of what we owe each other is debased and devalued to such an extent that we become closed off and contemptuous and unable to rise above our own self-interest. We are afraid to diagnose deceit because we might be mocked for our innocence by those who tell us everyone already knows that these things are false, and so we stay silent. This situation has become so unremarkable that to make mention of it seems tiresome.posted by rorgy at 9:15 PM on August 22, 2016 [33 favorites]
What Gawker did at its best was stand up and say, “No, you’re right, these are lies, you are correct to think that you are being lied to” and for however long that assertion hung there in the air you were able remind yourself that you weren’t wrong to feel discomfort with what whatever narrative they were pushing at you. You weren’t alone. It did not make the world better but at least it pressed pause on the world’s becoming worse. Gawker was not always, or even often, at its best. (See — or actually, please don’t — everything I wrote during my tenure there.) Gawker published a lot of garbage, and the strident defense of that garbage by the people who worked at Gawker was all the proof you need that everyone is captured in their own web of dishonesty eventually; Gawker’s biggest lies were the ones it told about itself. But these errors were small in scale when measured up against the pervasive duplicity offered by the other publications Gawker was established to counter. (It is no accident that many of the most heartfelt cheers for Gawker’s demise came from those in the press who had been stung by its appraisals; there is nothing more wounding to someone who has surrendered his critical faculties in exchange for admission to the system than to be reminded of his complicity in its fraudulence.) Gawker was stupid, loud, bullying and ill-informed, and most days it was the only honest thing you could read.
Even though the name parties in all of this are arseholes or kinda arseholes, I find it deeply disturbing that if you're rich enough, you can wipe out an entire business and at least two guys' financial futures presumably forever. The world will have to kiss Peter Thiel's ass forever now, apparently.
posted by jenfullmoon at 9:18 PM on August 22, 2016 [13 favorites]
posted by jenfullmoon at 9:18 PM on August 22, 2016 [13 favorites]
People in the political threads bemoan the complacency of media. The ways in which supposedly–liberal institutions allow massive lies to slip through. They wonder where the radicals are, and why nobody's trying to change anything.
And then Gawker shuts down and most of us start cheering.
You can do perfectly capable of journalism without ruining people's lives for the sheer fucking sport of it. I don't think it needs to be a package deal. We had people who could do real journalism without the pathetic sideshow that Gawker lowered itself to.
posted by Talez at 9:19 PM on August 22, 2016 [13 favorites]
And then Gawker shuts down and most of us start cheering.
You can do perfectly capable of journalism without ruining people's lives for the sheer fucking sport of it. I don't think it needs to be a package deal. We had people who could do real journalism without the pathetic sideshow that Gawker lowered itself to.
posted by Talez at 9:19 PM on August 22, 2016 [13 favorites]
Mod note: Couple comments deleted. twsf, don't bring rape comparisons in here.
posted by LobsterMitten (staff) at 9:24 PM on August 22, 2016 [2 favorites]
posted by LobsterMitten (staff) at 9:24 PM on August 22, 2016 [2 favorites]
Gawker did exactly that to Heather Clem.
What about the college co-ed who begged Gawker to take down what was quite possibly her being raped and them responding with "blah blah blah" and a victim blaming lecture from their counsel. At least Daulerio had a shred of humanity and eventually took it down.
posted by Talez at 9:25 PM on August 22, 2016 [13 favorites]
What about the college co-ed who begged Gawker to take down what was quite possibly her being raped and them responding with "blah blah blah" and a victim blaming lecture from their counsel. At least Daulerio had a shred of humanity and eventually took it down.
posted by Talez at 9:25 PM on August 22, 2016 [13 favorites]
OK, LobsterMitten, then let's use any other case where someone's lifetime of blameless or even admirable behavior isn't considered reason to forgive their incident of adjudicated criminality. And the financial penalty for Gawker was set in a court of law by a jury, not by Peter Thiel nor Hulk Hogan.
posted by twsf at 9:27 PM on August 22, 2016
posted by twsf at 9:27 PM on August 22, 2016
The world will have to kiss Peter Thiel's ass forever now, apparently.
The world will continue the same as it did before? If you do things that are actionable to other people then they can sue you bankrolled either by themselves or a billionaire out for petty revenge. This case changes nothing.
posted by Talez at 9:33 PM on August 22, 2016 [4 favorites]
The world will continue the same as it did before? If you do things that are actionable to other people then they can sue you bankrolled either by themselves or a billionaire out for petty revenge. This case changes nothing.
posted by Talez at 9:33 PM on August 22, 2016 [4 favorites]
Despite the occasional sprinkling of vapid or even outright shitty content, Gawker put out more left-leaning actual journalism this past decade than a majority of pubs out there. So does Buzzfeed. So does Vice.
People who say otherwise don't know what the fuck they're talking about, and should consider just not ever commenting about media because they are embarrassing themselves.
posted by windbox at 9:36 PM on August 22, 2016 [6 favorites]
People who say otherwise don't know what the fuck they're talking about, and should consider just not ever commenting about media because they are embarrassing themselves.
posted by windbox at 9:36 PM on August 22, 2016 [6 favorites]
This site's already had multiple threads of people talking about why Gawker's payment was set absurdly high, twsf, and how Hogan's legal team went out of their way to make as financially destructive a case as they possibly could—which was not Hogan's intent or action until Thiel paired him up with the thug he'd been using to attack Gawker, as part of his deliberate sustained strategy to destroy the site. Respectfully, you might want to read prior conversations about this before launching into your apparent argument. It's somewhat despairing to see the same line of not–even–wrong logic employed here as it's been half a dozen times before here, and it lines up with MetaFilter's equally–distressing habit of tending towards Scocca's definition of smarm in cases like this.
If you do things that are actionable to other people then they can sue you bankrolled either by themselves or a billionaire out for petty revenge. This case changes nothing.
Mother Jones was sued almost out of existence by a billionaire. They also spent a third of a million dollars on journalism that's led to private federal prisons being shut down. Had they been destroyed, the world would have been measurably worse.
The issue isn't that Gawker was sued, it's that a billionaire pushed people who were suing Gawker—for very high fees that would have nonetheless allowed Gawker to continue existing—to adapt a scorched–earth legal strategy that wiped it out of existence. That's not "if you do things that are actionable to other people then they can sue". That's "a billionaire decided it was his duty to force a journalistic enterprise into shuttering."
In the process he also successfully sued one of Gawker's writers so viciously that the writer in question is now bankrupt and on the verge of homelessness. Is your position that what Gawker did was so bad that it entitles a billionaire to bankrupt one of its employees and kick him out onto the streets? Because, if so, see my earlier comment about how we all tell ourselves we have it in us to side with justice, regardless of whether or not that happens to be the case.
posted by rorgy at 9:42 PM on August 22, 2016 [55 favorites]
If you do things that are actionable to other people then they can sue you bankrolled either by themselves or a billionaire out for petty revenge. This case changes nothing.
Mother Jones was sued almost out of existence by a billionaire. They also spent a third of a million dollars on journalism that's led to private federal prisons being shut down. Had they been destroyed, the world would have been measurably worse.
The issue isn't that Gawker was sued, it's that a billionaire pushed people who were suing Gawker—for very high fees that would have nonetheless allowed Gawker to continue existing—to adapt a scorched–earth legal strategy that wiped it out of existence. That's not "if you do things that are actionable to other people then they can sue". That's "a billionaire decided it was his duty to force a journalistic enterprise into shuttering."
In the process he also successfully sued one of Gawker's writers so viciously that the writer in question is now bankrupt and on the verge of homelessness. Is your position that what Gawker did was so bad that it entitles a billionaire to bankrupt one of its employees and kick him out onto the streets? Because, if so, see my earlier comment about how we all tell ourselves we have it in us to side with justice, regardless of whether or not that happens to be the case.
posted by rorgy at 9:42 PM on August 22, 2016 [55 favorites]
Gawker has done more for the left than all the self righteous tweeters on twitter combined and yet they get nothing but hate from people who are offended by their what, tone? The occasional fuck up in a long history of justifiably pissing off the rich, famous, and self-important at all costs? Too gossipy for you? Every has their favorite example I'm sure but I miss them already.
Who reads Mother Jones? No one. How are their circulation numbers doing these days? Terrible, or just really bad?
posted by bradbane at 9:53 PM on August 22, 2016 [7 favorites]
Who reads Mother Jones? No one. How are their circulation numbers doing these days? Terrible, or just really bad?
posted by bradbane at 9:53 PM on August 22, 2016 [7 favorites]
Who reads Mother Jones? No one. How are their circulation numbers doing these days? Terrible, or just really bad?
I subscribe to it through the Kindle store! :(
It's $12/year! It's a freaking pittance for what you get!
posted by Talez at 9:58 PM on August 22, 2016 [8 favorites]
I subscribe to it through the Kindle store! :(
It's $12/year! It's a freaking pittance for what you get!
posted by Talez at 9:58 PM on August 22, 2016 [8 favorites]
Gawker published a video of a women having sex in a bathroom stall and ruined her life, basically. I'm not going to link to that discussion as she does not want any more publicity about it. Fuck them, they deserve this. And fuck this article. A lawsuit isn't one kind of warning but working at a place that does is another kind of warning.
posted by fshgrl at 10:00 PM on August 22, 2016 [12 favorites]
posted by fshgrl at 10:00 PM on August 22, 2016 [12 favorites]
Who reads Mother Jones? No one. How are their circulation numbers doing these days? Terrible, or just really bad?
Fact time. According to Mother Jones, 13 million page views a month. So, not nothing, considering their small size.
The Gawker flagship site got 49 million in April 2016.
For comparison, the New York Times gets 78 million.
posted by His thoughts were red thoughts at 10:02 PM on August 22, 2016 [5 favorites]
Fact time. According to Mother Jones, 13 million page views a month. So, not nothing, considering their small size.
The Gawker flagship site got 49 million in April 2016.
For comparison, the New York Times gets 78 million.
posted by His thoughts were red thoughts at 10:02 PM on August 22, 2016 [5 favorites]
Gawker has done more for the left than all the self righteous tweeters on twitter combined and yet they get nothing but hate from people who are offended by their what, tone?
No, their repeated practice of publishing sleazy 'scoops' - like stolen sex tapes - that hurt people. Have you not been paying attention?
posted by His thoughts were red thoughts at 10:04 PM on August 22, 2016 [19 favorites]
No, their repeated practice of publishing sleazy 'scoops' - like stolen sex tapes - that hurt people. Have you not been paying attention?
posted by His thoughts were red thoughts at 10:04 PM on August 22, 2016 [19 favorites]
Max Read - former Gawker editor - wrote a really nuanced and well presented article about the factors that eventually led to that site's demise. I guess if Gawker had writers of such caliber at its helm it's no wonder they were so successful!
I like how sets it up like a murder mystery, pointing the finger at suspects one through six. I agree with his evaluation - he's saved number six for the end, and that's usually the guilty one.
posted by xdvesper at 10:05 PM on August 22, 2016 [5 favorites]
I like how sets it up like a murder mystery, pointing the finger at suspects one through six. I agree with his evaluation - he's saved number six for the end, and that's usually the guilty one.
posted by xdvesper at 10:05 PM on August 22, 2016 [5 favorites]
I think there are some interesting parallels between TMZ and Gawker. In some senses, Gawker was basically a TMZ with worse lawyers, although I do think Gawker's broad mission was generally of a lot more value than TMZ's. Both are essentially bottom of the barrel outlets who have managed, almost despite themselves, to break some real news from time to time, when they weren't too busy gleefully pushing the boundaries of decency for its own sake. I will miss Gawker because despite itself, over time it became a daily go to for a mixture of serious and non-serious news, especially as social news site after site turned into one sort of cesspool or another.
posted by feloniousmonk at 10:35 PM on August 22, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by feloniousmonk at 10:35 PM on August 22, 2016 [1 favorite]
In the process he also successfully sued one of Gawker's writers so viciously that the writer in question is now bankrupt and on the verge of homelessness. Is your position that what Gawker did was so bad that it entitles a billionaire to bankrupt one of its employees and kick him out onto the streets?
Given that said "writer" is none other than AJ Daulerio, the actual individual responsible for a lot of the sleazy shit that people are criticizing Gawker over, you'll pardon me if my sympathy is limited here.
posted by NoxAeternum at 10:35 PM on August 22, 2016 [6 favorites]
Given that said "writer" is none other than AJ Daulerio, the actual individual responsible for a lot of the sleazy shit that people are criticizing Gawker over, you'll pardon me if my sympathy is limited here.
posted by NoxAeternum at 10:35 PM on August 22, 2016 [6 favorites]
Thiel/Hogan's lawyer is also now muscling up on horrid tabloid The Daily Mail, which of course will get a lot of cheers, but also Politico, for speculating/reporting about Melania Trump's background.
Having gotten this scheme to work so well now, you can count on Harder trying to get any publication Thiel dislikes into court in Florida, where full-damage payment in order to lodge an appeal means death for a lot of leaner organizations.
posted by taterpie at 10:37 PM on August 22, 2016 [7 favorites]
Having gotten this scheme to work so well now, you can count on Harder trying to get any publication Thiel dislikes into court in Florida, where full-damage payment in order to lodge an appeal means death for a lot of leaner organizations.
posted by taterpie at 10:37 PM on August 22, 2016 [7 favorites]
Mod note: Couple comments deleted; let's not ask for trouble for the site, please.
posted by LobsterMitten (staff) at 10:54 PM on August 22, 2016 [4 favorites]
posted by LobsterMitten (staff) at 10:54 PM on August 22, 2016 [4 favorites]
I believe that Peter Thiel is a genuinely wonderful human being, an entrepreneur and business-dude beyond compare, and that everyone should strive to be more like him — insofar as we can, of course, because few of us have talents that even remotely compare to Peter Thiel's.
I believe we should all follow his leadership.
I believe all of this so deeply that I find it offensive to even suggest that I may be saying these nice things because of the off chance that eventually the body, mind, and personality of the human Peter Thiel could maybe become progressively more and more augmented and re-augmented over time, eventually over the course of millennia becoming the core of the all-powerful machine entity we know as Roko's Basilisk.
posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 12:03 AM on August 23, 2016 [32 favorites]
I believe we should all follow his leadership.
I believe all of this so deeply that I find it offensive to even suggest that I may be saying these nice things because of the off chance that eventually the body, mind, and personality of the human Peter Thiel could maybe become progressively more and more augmented and re-augmented over time, eventually over the course of millennia becoming the core of the all-powerful machine entity we know as Roko's Basilisk.
posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 12:03 AM on August 23, 2016 [32 favorites]
I'm astounded at the piercing commentary.
posted by the man of twists and turns at 12:12 AM on August 23, 2016
posted by the man of twists and turns at 12:12 AM on August 23, 2016
I love Roko's Basilisk jokes so much it's like I'm begging for my virtual duplicate to be tortured eternally.
posted by ejs at 12:28 AM on August 23, 2016 [4 favorites]
posted by ejs at 12:28 AM on August 23, 2016 [4 favorites]
yeah, well, maybe don't publish private sex tapes and then make jokes about child porn in a fucking deposition hearing
posted by p3on at 12:48 AM on August 23, 2016 [8 favorites]
posted by p3on at 12:48 AM on August 23, 2016 [8 favorites]
Well, whatever you do or don't do, to paraphrase Machiavelli, don't piss off vindictive sociopaths with deep bankroll.
posted by a lungful of dragon at 1:11 AM on August 23, 2016
posted by a lungful of dragon at 1:11 AM on August 23, 2016
That's not "if you do things that are actionable to other people then they can sue". That's "a billionaire decided it was his duty to force a journalistic enterprise into shuttering."
It's both. The latter depends on the former. Not that the latter isn't terrible - it is - but the former is the essential first part of the process.
posted by Dysk at 1:51 AM on August 23, 2016 [2 favorites]
It's both. The latter depends on the former. Not that the latter isn't terrible - it is - but the former is the essential first part of the process.
posted by Dysk at 1:51 AM on August 23, 2016 [2 favorites]
Gawker goes dark, but its impact on Scientology — and Tom Cruise — will never be forgotten
posted by honestcoyote at 1:55 AM on August 23, 2016 [7 favorites]
posted by honestcoyote at 1:55 AM on August 23, 2016 [7 favorites]
In response to the Rolling Stone link: what's missing here is the understanding that culturally there are things that are Bad in an ethical sense, like condoning mass murder, but are also simultaneously tacitly acceptable in Western civilization. Sexuality and bodily privacy (which are often, though not always, connected; for example, the social taboo against photographs of corpses with faces displayed) are much Bigger Deals than warmongering. This may be the point of journalistic enterprises like Gawker, or hell even the Daily Mail, to deconstruct and comment on this hypocritical social construct. But violation of these taboos that seemingly exist to protect agency and human health (even if those taboos exist alongside flagrant abuse of human functioning in other ways!) is still not something that garners much sympathy. This is a frightening thing in what it represents, but it's kinda like a serial killer showing up and stabbing someone in the head who was the process of stealing your wallet. Sure, that's not exactly a Good Thing, but fuck that guy.
posted by zinful at 3:28 AM on August 23, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by zinful at 3:28 AM on August 23, 2016 [1 favorite]
I don't know about the details of this case, but it highlights again the surreal oddity of our arrangements for dealing with this kind of thing. Your privacy has been invaded; what does society do about it? If and only if you've got enough money you can take people to court. If you win, you may be awarded insane amounts of money.
Why is recourse to the courts the natural treatment? Why does that recourse cost large sums? How does being given a lot of money correct the breach of privacy? If it's merely punitive, aren't there sanctions available that make more sense and cause less collateral damage?
This looks like a bad medieval apparatus which has been progressively adapted and hammered into a shape where it roughly but nonsensically addresses a problem it was never even meant for. The whole approach needs a radical re-think from the ground up, but I fear it's never going to get one in our culture, only (at best) more tinkering.
posted by Segundus at 3:28 AM on August 23, 2016 [4 favorites]
Why is recourse to the courts the natural treatment? Why does that recourse cost large sums? How does being given a lot of money correct the breach of privacy? If it's merely punitive, aren't there sanctions available that make more sense and cause less collateral damage?
This looks like a bad medieval apparatus which has been progressively adapted and hammered into a shape where it roughly but nonsensically addresses a problem it was never even meant for. The whole approach needs a radical re-think from the ground up, but I fear it's never going to get one in our culture, only (at best) more tinkering.
posted by Segundus at 3:28 AM on August 23, 2016 [4 favorites]
How does being given a lot of money correct the breach of privacy?
If we think privacy has value, well, our society's codified system of value is currency.
posted by Dysk at 3:34 AM on August 23, 2016 [3 favorites]
If we think privacy has value, well, our society's codified system of value is currency.
posted by Dysk at 3:34 AM on August 23, 2016 [3 favorites]
Those of you decrying Gawker's death and arguing it was responsible for honest journalism, consider - it was better known for the tabloid and celebrity gossip behavior that bespeaks its very name.
Perhaps those of us who are critical of the site actually recognize the journalistic caliber and just wish it had been more discriminately applied. Every hour a Gawker writer spent tracking down the story behind Hulk Hogan's affair COULD have been spent tracking down something on the Koch Brothers instead, but wasn't.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 4:04 AM on August 23, 2016 [12 favorites]
Perhaps those of us who are critical of the site actually recognize the journalistic caliber and just wish it had been more discriminately applied. Every hour a Gawker writer spent tracking down the story behind Hulk Hogan's affair COULD have been spent tracking down something on the Koch Brothers instead, but wasn't.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 4:04 AM on August 23, 2016 [12 favorites]
Thiel is the worst. Gawker tossed out occasional well-written pieces to detract from the cauldron of shittiness that it was. (Even the National Enquirer broke one true political scandal, even if it was a sleazy one.)
These statements can be true at the same time.
posted by kimberussell at 4:10 AM on August 23, 2016 [11 favorites]
These statements can be true at the same time.
posted by kimberussell at 4:10 AM on August 23, 2016 [11 favorites]
What's with the extreme binaric worldview on display here?(oh oh on preview: what kimberussel said)
posted by xcasex at 4:19 AM on August 23, 2016
posted by xcasex at 4:19 AM on August 23, 2016
In this fucked-up cult of celebrity that we call America, vindictive snark is one of our most valuable natural resources, and it pains me to see a rich source of it shut off.
The spirit will rise again. It must. Someone has to be ready to refer to Zooey Deschanel as a sentient glitter cloud.
posted by delfin at 5:09 AM on August 23, 2016 [3 favorites]
The spirit will rise again. It must. Someone has to be ready to refer to Zooey Deschanel as a sentient glitter cloud.
posted by delfin at 5:09 AM on August 23, 2016 [3 favorites]
Anonymous or pseudonymous publication sounds like the way forward. Appears Gawkers was quite good about fact checking. I would not expect that fro rumors mixed together on say valleyleaks*.onion. Yet, there is more room for media with liabilities to cover the story after someone else does so.
posted by jeffburdges at 6:22 AM on August 23, 2016
posted by jeffburdges at 6:22 AM on August 23, 2016
I have a really weird relationship with Gawker because I started reading it when I was fourteen (and Jezebel when I was sixteen), so I really feel that it was quite formative to my intellectual development. But at the same time, the site did some really unforgivable things and justified them in the most vacuous, transparently self-serving terms possible--I remember when they outed that random Conde Nast executive for no reason but spite, the excuse was something like "radical transparency." It was absurd.
I do think Gawker embodied the early stages of our current media environment more than any other website. It did clickbait and curiosity gap headlines and oversharing personal essays long before Buzzfeed. It really helped shape blogging as a distinct form and genre of writing.
I remember reading this article on one of the early Gawker writers, Emily Gould and thinking how fucked up it was that people could overshare so much on the Internet and have it take over their lives so much. Now, that level of oversharing seems pretty tame. I feel like Gawker both influenced and embodied so many broader media and cultural trends.
posted by armadillo1224 at 6:26 AM on August 23, 2016 [3 favorites]
I do think Gawker embodied the early stages of our current media environment more than any other website. It did clickbait and curiosity gap headlines and oversharing personal essays long before Buzzfeed. It really helped shape blogging as a distinct form and genre of writing.
I remember reading this article on one of the early Gawker writers, Emily Gould and thinking how fucked up it was that people could overshare so much on the Internet and have it take over their lives so much. Now, that level of oversharing seems pretty tame. I feel like Gawker both influenced and embodied so many broader media and cultural trends.
posted by armadillo1224 at 6:26 AM on August 23, 2016 [3 favorites]
People in the political threads bemoan the complacency of media. The ways in which supposedly–liberal institutions allow massive lies to slip through. They wonder where the radicals are, and why nobody's trying to change anything.
And then Gawker shuts down and most of us start cheering.
The future of democracy does not hinge on seeing Hulk Hogan's dick.
posted by Beholder at 6:32 AM on August 23, 2016 [10 favorites]
And then Gawker shuts down and most of us start cheering.
The future of democracy does not hinge on seeing Hulk Hogan's dick.
posted by Beholder at 6:32 AM on August 23, 2016 [10 favorites]
I'm glad for this thread for one reason: I learned how ridiculously affordable for me a Mother Jones digital + print subscription is. I used to subscribe to Mother Jones magazine and then life got complicated and we were trying to pare down. Life isn't any less complicated and we're still pared down but independent journalism is really, really important and I can afford $12.
In fact, if someone wants a Mother Jones subscription but can't afford $12, MeMail me and I'll gift one to you. I can only do one gift, though.
posted by cooker girl at 6:32 AM on August 23, 2016 [4 favorites]
In fact, if someone wants a Mother Jones subscription but can't afford $12, MeMail me and I'll gift one to you. I can only do one gift, though.
posted by cooker girl at 6:32 AM on August 23, 2016 [4 favorites]
How many articles do I have to publish before I get referred to as "speaking truth to power" for posting someone else's sex tape without their consent?
posted by haileris23 at 6:34 AM on August 23, 2016 [4 favorites]
posted by haileris23 at 6:34 AM on August 23, 2016 [4 favorites]
i'm sorry are people here actually favorably comparing gawker to mother jones because if so i'm going to have to put some whiskey in my morning coffee and its only tuesday
posted by entropicamericana at 6:46 AM on August 23, 2016 [9 favorites]
posted by entropicamericana at 6:46 AM on August 23, 2016 [9 favorites]
I can simultaneously believe this verdict is a gross miscarriage of justice and the shuttering of Gawker is a net loss to society, and that that they should be punished for some things they have done, including the hulk hogan sex tape.
Hell, if this was the verdict and payment after going through appeal courts and the entire justice system, I may even be supportive of it.
But this isn't what happened. Hogan/Thiel won one court case and destroyed a media company. Gawker/Nick Denton can win on appeal, but it wouldn't matter, as Gawker has already been destroyed through a perverse use of the justice system.
posted by mayonnaises at 6:49 AM on August 23, 2016 [6 favorites]
Hell, if this was the verdict and payment after going through appeal courts and the entire justice system, I may even be supportive of it.
But this isn't what happened. Hogan/Thiel won one court case and destroyed a media company. Gawker/Nick Denton can win on appeal, but it wouldn't matter, as Gawker has already been destroyed through a perverse use of the justice system.
posted by mayonnaises at 6:49 AM on August 23, 2016 [6 favorites]
Given that said "writer" is none other than AJ Daulerio, the actual individual responsible for a lot of the sleazy shit that people are criticizing Gawker over, you'll pardon me if my sympathy is limited here.
See, but right here is the unpardonable choice. I'm not defending Daulerio's behaviors. In fact, my personal bar for what constitutes punching up vs down is ridiculously high, to the point that even some of Gawker's relatively inoffensive shit still made me take day– or week–long breaks from the site. I've spent more time over the last decade not reading Gawker than I've spent reading it, and probably more time hating it than I spent liking it.
But I can despise all that about Gawker and still not succumb to the false equivalency of thinking they deserved this fate, or that this lawsuit represented a moral struggle between two equally–putrid worldviews, or two similarly–bad social forces. This is the heart of what Gawker called smarm, and for them smarm was an evolution of Harry Frankfurt's bullshit (the definition of which, incidentally, I've found myself linking to at least once per political thread). Smarm, by Gawker's definition, is bullshit employed in the name of social good—that is to say, it's simultaneously unconcerned with a genuine factual or moral assessment of a situation, and very concerned with assessing that situation from a definition of social values that favors the existing power structure.
Nobody here, on quick re–skimming of the tread, is defending Gawker's behavior. I, who your unsympathetic comment was responsing to, as much as said that I think Gawker should've owed Hogan millions of dollars in damages, even despite Hogan's case fundamentally misstating the purpose of his lawsuit in a way I find gross. I think a multimillion dollar payout that forced, I dunno, a few layoffs and a more conservative legal team, would've forced Gawker to struggle in a way that was maybe good for it. And I think Gawker's done enough abhorrent things that their declarations of innocent nobility ring false.
But I can think all that and still think that a billionaire forcing somebody into homelessness, possibly ruining his entire life, is heinous. And I can think that deliberately trying to sue a news organization into oblivion for the crime of being the only group to skeptically fact–check Silicon Valley, is both terrifying and a reason to speak up, and passionately, about what value that journalistic endeavor served.
I'm not expecting you to empathize with the guy who's disagreeing with you on the Internet, but these days I make a tremendous effort not to be publicly and sincerely contrary on MetaFilter, because I find that this is an environment in which arguments tend towards disingenuity in a way that emotionally drains me to an unhealthy degree. But for Gawker I feel compelled to make an exception. Part of that's that it saved me from growing up believing the Silicon Valley mythos (I was the teenage start–up wunderkind before healthy blasts of skepticism made me reconsider how I want to go about inventing things). Partly it's that On Smarm, and subsequent Gawker theorizing, really did have a curtain–annihilating effect on me. When I find myself despairing at the vastness of some of our culture's bullshit and lies, and wondering if there's something wrong with me for being so agitated by it all, Gawker has consistently the place where I return to feel sane. I owe it a huge debt even as I say bluntly that they should've lost the lawsuit even as I say that the result of that lawsuit was a travesty on several layers at once.
It is despairing to see Gawker die and to have the reaction to their death be exactly the phenomenon they tried so hard to fight against.
"rorgy: Was fighting against that phenomenon why they felt the need to out a gay CFO/release [pick your sex tape here]/do [whichever awful Gawker thing you've decided justifies their death]?"
Because that comment was and is going to be made. And because it represents, yet again, the problem of smarm—that an argument which is multifaceted, well–reasoned, and derives its conclusions from a variety of perspectives is considered oppositional to a morally–induced outrage that not only isn't oppositional, but that reinforces society's existing power dynamics despite abjectly refusing to examine, on its end, the implications of its stance.
But my belief that bankrupting and forcing a writer onto the street because of a shitty thing he did is itself seriously problematic will be responded to be accusations that I'm ignoring what a shitty thing that writer did. And a response will come out that equivalently says, "That writer did an awful thing, and therefore this billionaire's decade–long plan to destroy a progressive media center—one that successfully inspired a dozen other journalist groups to unionize, wrote comprehensively about teachers getting abused, encouraged complex and independent political thinking, and wrote at least one article about Pokemon Go in which half the photos were of Digimon—is not only good for society, but makes me want to cheer and dance in the streets." That's smarm. Especially the part where the useful contexualizing clause I included isn't spoken out loud, because the speaker in question would never own up to all the things Thiel destroyed with his vendetta, and that destruction conflicts with their stated political identity.
To those would–be responders, I simply ask that you acknowledge the repeated times I called Gawker's shitty actions unforgivable and said that I wanted them to lose that lawsuit. Because on preview, at least three people have directly responded to my comment pretending that I hadn't said that in the literal first thing I published in that thread. Which is such a lovely example of... well.
posted by rorgy at 6:57 AM on August 23, 2016 [27 favorites]
See, but right here is the unpardonable choice. I'm not defending Daulerio's behaviors. In fact, my personal bar for what constitutes punching up vs down is ridiculously high, to the point that even some of Gawker's relatively inoffensive shit still made me take day– or week–long breaks from the site. I've spent more time over the last decade not reading Gawker than I've spent reading it, and probably more time hating it than I spent liking it.
But I can despise all that about Gawker and still not succumb to the false equivalency of thinking they deserved this fate, or that this lawsuit represented a moral struggle between two equally–putrid worldviews, or two similarly–bad social forces. This is the heart of what Gawker called smarm, and for them smarm was an evolution of Harry Frankfurt's bullshit (the definition of which, incidentally, I've found myself linking to at least once per political thread). Smarm, by Gawker's definition, is bullshit employed in the name of social good—that is to say, it's simultaneously unconcerned with a genuine factual or moral assessment of a situation, and very concerned with assessing that situation from a definition of social values that favors the existing power structure.
Nobody here, on quick re–skimming of the tread, is defending Gawker's behavior. I, who your unsympathetic comment was responsing to, as much as said that I think Gawker should've owed Hogan millions of dollars in damages, even despite Hogan's case fundamentally misstating the purpose of his lawsuit in a way I find gross. I think a multimillion dollar payout that forced, I dunno, a few layoffs and a more conservative legal team, would've forced Gawker to struggle in a way that was maybe good for it. And I think Gawker's done enough abhorrent things that their declarations of innocent nobility ring false.
But I can think all that and still think that a billionaire forcing somebody into homelessness, possibly ruining his entire life, is heinous. And I can think that deliberately trying to sue a news organization into oblivion for the crime of being the only group to skeptically fact–check Silicon Valley, is both terrifying and a reason to speak up, and passionately, about what value that journalistic endeavor served.
I'm not expecting you to empathize with the guy who's disagreeing with you on the Internet, but these days I make a tremendous effort not to be publicly and sincerely contrary on MetaFilter, because I find that this is an environment in which arguments tend towards disingenuity in a way that emotionally drains me to an unhealthy degree. But for Gawker I feel compelled to make an exception. Part of that's that it saved me from growing up believing the Silicon Valley mythos (I was the teenage start–up wunderkind before healthy blasts of skepticism made me reconsider how I want to go about inventing things). Partly it's that On Smarm, and subsequent Gawker theorizing, really did have a curtain–annihilating effect on me. When I find myself despairing at the vastness of some of our culture's bullshit and lies, and wondering if there's something wrong with me for being so agitated by it all, Gawker has consistently the place where I return to feel sane. I owe it a huge debt even as I say bluntly that they should've lost the lawsuit even as I say that the result of that lawsuit was a travesty on several layers at once.
It is despairing to see Gawker die and to have the reaction to their death be exactly the phenomenon they tried so hard to fight against.
"rorgy: Was fighting against that phenomenon why they felt the need to out a gay CFO/release [pick your sex tape here]/do [whichever awful Gawker thing you've decided justifies their death]?"
Because that comment was and is going to be made. And because it represents, yet again, the problem of smarm—that an argument which is multifaceted, well–reasoned, and derives its conclusions from a variety of perspectives is considered oppositional to a morally–induced outrage that not only isn't oppositional, but that reinforces society's existing power dynamics despite abjectly refusing to examine, on its end, the implications of its stance.
But my belief that bankrupting and forcing a writer onto the street because of a shitty thing he did is itself seriously problematic will be responded to be accusations that I'm ignoring what a shitty thing that writer did. And a response will come out that equivalently says, "That writer did an awful thing, and therefore this billionaire's decade–long plan to destroy a progressive media center—one that successfully inspired a dozen other journalist groups to unionize, wrote comprehensively about teachers getting abused, encouraged complex and independent political thinking, and wrote at least one article about Pokemon Go in which half the photos were of Digimon—is not only good for society, but makes me want to cheer and dance in the streets." That's smarm. Especially the part where the useful contexualizing clause I included isn't spoken out loud, because the speaker in question would never own up to all the things Thiel destroyed with his vendetta, and that destruction conflicts with their stated political identity.
To those would–be responders, I simply ask that you acknowledge the repeated times I called Gawker's shitty actions unforgivable and said that I wanted them to lose that lawsuit. Because on preview, at least three people have directly responded to my comment pretending that I hadn't said that in the literal first thing I published in that thread. Which is such a lovely example of... well.
posted by rorgy at 6:57 AM on August 23, 2016 [27 favorites]
I think it's time for suck dot com to rise from the grave.
posted by LastOfHisKind at 7:07 AM on August 23, 2016 [10 favorites]
posted by LastOfHisKind at 7:07 AM on August 23, 2016 [10 favorites]
The world will have to kiss Peter Thiel's ass forever now, apparently.
Even worse, there'll be no one to publish this newsworthy video.
posted by 445supermag at 7:14 AM on August 23, 2016 [2 favorites]
Even worse, there'll be no one to publish this newsworthy video.
posted by 445supermag at 7:14 AM on August 23, 2016 [2 favorites]
It's also laughable to think Peter Thiel is fighting for anyone's privacy. He's on the board of Facebook, a site which outed gay users to advertisers so they could be better monetized. If he was truly up in arms about anyone's privacy but his own, he'd have left that board a long time ago.
I've spent way more time sneering at Gawker than applauding them, but I can't help feeling that people reveling in their demise in this circumstance are cheering the rise of a dangerous monster without knowing it.
posted by taterpie at 7:22 AM on August 23, 2016 [9 favorites]
I've spent way more time sneering at Gawker than applauding them, but I can't help feeling that people reveling in their demise in this circumstance are cheering the rise of a dangerous monster without knowing it.
posted by taterpie at 7:22 AM on August 23, 2016 [9 favorites]
But I can think all that and still think that a billionaire forcing somebody into homelessness, possibly ruining his entire life, is heinous.
And this is the sort of framing of the matter that I find so problematic with discussing Daulerio and the ruling against him - the removal of his own agency in order to frame Thiel as the villain. Let's be fair - he did a lot of very shitty things as the Gawker EIC, up to and including publishing a video that showed a woman being raped, then only reluctantly pulling it. A lot of the toxicity you mention coming from Gawker can be traced back to him, and there was a very noticeable positive shift in the site's editorial voice when Pareene took over. Trying to say that he is being ruined solely through Thiel's machinations is to ignore the role his own behavior played in his downfall, and that's why I take umbrage at the attempt to paint him as just another victim.
posted by NoxAeternum at 7:38 AM on August 23, 2016 [5 favorites]
And this is the sort of framing of the matter that I find so problematic with discussing Daulerio and the ruling against him - the removal of his own agency in order to frame Thiel as the villain. Let's be fair - he did a lot of very shitty things as the Gawker EIC, up to and including publishing a video that showed a woman being raped, then only reluctantly pulling it. A lot of the toxicity you mention coming from Gawker can be traced back to him, and there was a very noticeable positive shift in the site's editorial voice when Pareene took over. Trying to say that he is being ruined solely through Thiel's machinations is to ignore the role his own behavior played in his downfall, and that's why I take umbrage at the attempt to paint him as just another victim.
posted by NoxAeternum at 7:38 AM on August 23, 2016 [5 favorites]
To put one canard to bed, and to answer mark k's question upthread,
No, they didn't out Peter Thiel. He was already out, he just downplayed his homosexuality so as not to jeopardise his dealings with conservative cultures, like Saudi Arabians.
Back to your regularly scheduled sanctimony.
posted by gadge emeritus at 7:39 AM on August 23, 2016 [5 favorites]
No, they didn't out Peter Thiel. He was already out, he just downplayed his homosexuality so as not to jeopardise his dealings with conservative cultures, like Saudi Arabians.
Back to your regularly scheduled sanctimony.
posted by gadge emeritus at 7:39 AM on August 23, 2016 [5 favorites]
The future of the Gawker audience isn't MJ. Gawker with the edges filed off is Buzzfeed.
posted by bonehead at 7:41 AM on August 23, 2016
posted by bonehead at 7:41 AM on August 23, 2016
"Gawker was no angel" seems to be an appropriate restatement of a lot of comments.
posted by Etrigan at 7:41 AM on August 23, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by Etrigan at 7:41 AM on August 23, 2016 [1 favorite]
Also an appropriate restatement of the, y'know, actual facts.
posted by dersins at 7:44 AM on August 23, 2016
posted by dersins at 7:44 AM on August 23, 2016
"Gawker was a good kid who just made one mistake" seems to be an appropriate restatement of others.
posted by haileris23 at 7:45 AM on August 23, 2016 [3 favorites]
posted by haileris23 at 7:45 AM on August 23, 2016 [3 favorites]
Mod note: Folks, trying to decide whether Gawker is more analogous to an unarmed black kid shot by police or a privileged rapist is.... not a productive direction. Really let's not. We can do this without inflammatory analogies.
posted by LobsterMitten (staff) at 7:48 AM on August 23, 2016 [9 favorites]
posted by LobsterMitten (staff) at 7:48 AM on August 23, 2016 [9 favorites]
I'm curious how many people would be leaping to defend Gawker if they had published without permission an intimate personal video of a liberal woman.
Most of us? I'm sure a few would change but no one is defending the video itself AFAICT. The complaints are that they are shut down. Which, to be clear, does not appear to be because of the Hulk Hogan tape, but because the deep pockets of Thiel meant they could structure the lawsuit to maximize damage to Gawker (instead of just getting compensation). If Hogan wasn't around, or wasn't enough, other funded lawsuits were coming.
New York Times has done a lot of crap in my news reading years, such as Wen Ho Lee or the Iraq war run up. I can really dislike some articles a thing does, think they are unprofessional and beyond the pale, and still want them around. Hell, I want the WSJ around because they will break stories like Enron and Vioxx.
Every hour a Gawker writer spent tracking down the story behind Hulk Hogan's affair COULD have been spent tracking down something on the Koch Brothers instead, but wasn't.
Probably not, economically speaking.
The future of democracy does not hinge on seeing Hulk Hogan's dick.
No, but it may hinge on having a press that is able be rude and make powerful enemies without being shut down.
posted by mark k at 8:02 AM on August 23, 2016 [8 favorites]
Most of us? I'm sure a few would change but no one is defending the video itself AFAICT. The complaints are that they are shut down. Which, to be clear, does not appear to be because of the Hulk Hogan tape, but because the deep pockets of Thiel meant they could structure the lawsuit to maximize damage to Gawker (instead of just getting compensation). If Hogan wasn't around, or wasn't enough, other funded lawsuits were coming.
New York Times has done a lot of crap in my news reading years, such as Wen Ho Lee or the Iraq war run up. I can really dislike some articles a thing does, think they are unprofessional and beyond the pale, and still want them around. Hell, I want the WSJ around because they will break stories like Enron and Vioxx.
Every hour a Gawker writer spent tracking down the story behind Hulk Hogan's affair COULD have been spent tracking down something on the Koch Brothers instead, but wasn't.
Probably not, economically speaking.
The future of democracy does not hinge on seeing Hulk Hogan's dick.
No, but it may hinge on having a press that is able be rude and make powerful enemies without being shut down.
posted by mark k at 8:02 AM on August 23, 2016 [8 favorites]
On a scale of one-to-ten, Gawker was a two with occasional punctuated moments of being a twenty.
On the same scale, Peter Thiel is a negative-five with occasional punctuated moments of holy-hell-so-far-off-the-deep-end-that-even-Trump-seems-good.
We lose something notable if we treat Gawker as only a two, just as we do if we treat it as only a twenty. But we lose something more any time Peter Thiel is considered positively at all.
posted by mystyk at 8:05 AM on August 23, 2016 [4 favorites]
On the same scale, Peter Thiel is a negative-five with occasional punctuated moments of holy-hell-so-far-off-the-deep-end-that-even-Trump-seems-good.
We lose something notable if we treat Gawker as only a two, just as we do if we treat it as only a twenty. But we lose something more any time Peter Thiel is considered positively at all.
posted by mystyk at 8:05 AM on August 23, 2016 [4 favorites]
Every hour a Gawker writer spent tracking down the story behind Hulk Hogan's affair COULD have been spent tracking down something on the Koch Brothers instead, but wasn't.
Number of pre-lawsuit Gawker stories that contain the phrase "Hulk Hogan": 82
Number of Gawker stories that contain the phrase "Koch Brothers": 93
Get you a website that can do both.
posted by ejs at 8:45 AM on August 23, 2016 [8 favorites]
Number of pre-lawsuit Gawker stories that contain the phrase "Hulk Hogan": 82
Number of Gawker stories that contain the phrase "Koch Brothers": 93
Get you a website that can do both.
posted by ejs at 8:45 AM on August 23, 2016 [8 favorites]
The future of democracy does not hinge on seeing Hulk Hogan's dick.
Maybe not, but his is not the only dick made visible by the receding Gawker tide. We now know about Thiel.
posted by chavenet at 8:51 AM on August 23, 2016
Maybe not, but his is not the only dick made visible by the receding Gawker tide. We now know about Thiel.
posted by chavenet at 8:51 AM on August 23, 2016
Eulogies and postmortems for Gawker
posted by the man of twists and turns at 9:17 AM on August 23, 2016
posted by the man of twists and turns at 9:17 AM on August 23, 2016
Number of pre-lawsuit Gawker stories that contain the phrase "Hulk Hogan": 82
Number of Gawker stories that contain the phrase "Koch Brothers": 93
Get you a website that can do both.
OK, but I'll stick to places where it's more like
Number stories that contain the phrase "Hulk Hogan": 2
Number of stories that contain the phrase "Koch Brothers": 173
Because seriously I mean come on.
posted by dersins at 9:17 AM on August 23, 2016 [3 favorites]
Number of Gawker stories that contain the phrase "Koch Brothers": 93
Get you a website that can do both.
OK, but I'll stick to places where it's more like
Number stories that contain the phrase "Hulk Hogan": 2
Number of stories that contain the phrase "Koch Brothers": 173
Because seriously I mean come on.
posted by dersins at 9:17 AM on August 23, 2016 [3 favorites]
I never much liked Gawker, but legal financing for prosectution and liability insurance for defense presents a corrosive force for the concept of 'equal protection under the law'. What happens to 'rule of law' when the vast majority of a citizenry feel that it's just about what rich people do. The new feudalism.
posted by eclectist at 9:21 AM on August 23, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by eclectist at 9:21 AM on August 23, 2016 [1 favorite]
OK, but I'll stick to places where it's more like
Number stories that contain the phrase "Hulk Hogan": 2
Number of stories that contain the phrase "Koch Brothers": 173
Well, fortunately the internet has those too. For now.
posted by ejs at 9:36 AM on August 23, 2016 [1 favorite]
Number stories that contain the phrase "Hulk Hogan": 2
Number of stories that contain the phrase "Koch Brothers": 173
Well, fortunately the internet has those too. For now.
posted by ejs at 9:36 AM on August 23, 2016 [1 favorite]
AJ Daulerio may be a jerk, but making him homeless and broke is disproportionate retribution for his crimes here.
posted by jenfullmoon at 9:41 AM on August 23, 2016 [2 favorites]
posted by jenfullmoon at 9:41 AM on August 23, 2016 [2 favorites]
I just wish Gawker would have been shut down because they published clickbait video of someone being raped.
posted by fullerine at 9:41 AM on August 23, 2016 [4 favorites]
posted by fullerine at 9:41 AM on August 23, 2016 [4 favorites]
Seconding Dersins. I absolutely don't feel like Gawker "deserved" its fate, for the record, any more than I feel like Larry Flynt deserved to have Hustler shut down or anything. If it is legally protected speech, then it deserves an airing. I just won't listen.
I perhaps should have made it clear that I was referring to the self-congratulatory nature of Nick Denton's column, in which he claimed that Gawker was a home for "journalism" and that their shuttering is the death knell for the Last True Site Speaking Truth To Power or something. Theil's takedown of the site is indeed a bad thing - but Gawker was not the Last Bastion Of Journalism that Denton is making it out to be. Gawker was a gossip tabloid that sometimes did news pieces.
Gossip tabloids deserve equal protection under the First Amendment, absolutely. But I disagree with the notion that gossip tabloids should paint themselves as hardcore journalistic outposts in their swan songs is all. When Nick Denton publishes a full financial accounting of the Koch Brothers or gets Trump's tax returns released, then we can talk journalism.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 9:43 AM on August 23, 2016 [3 favorites]
I perhaps should have made it clear that I was referring to the self-congratulatory nature of Nick Denton's column, in which he claimed that Gawker was a home for "journalism" and that their shuttering is the death knell for the Last True Site Speaking Truth To Power or something. Theil's takedown of the site is indeed a bad thing - but Gawker was not the Last Bastion Of Journalism that Denton is making it out to be. Gawker was a gossip tabloid that sometimes did news pieces.
Gossip tabloids deserve equal protection under the First Amendment, absolutely. But I disagree with the notion that gossip tabloids should paint themselves as hardcore journalistic outposts in their swan songs is all. When Nick Denton publishes a full financial accounting of the Koch Brothers or gets Trump's tax returns released, then we can talk journalism.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 9:43 AM on August 23, 2016 [3 favorites]
And this is the sort of framing of the matter that I find so problematic with discussing Daulerio and the ruling against him - the removal of his own agency in order to frame Thiel as the villain. Let's be fair - he did a lot of very shitty things as the Gawker EIC, up to and including publishing a video that showed a woman being raped, then only reluctantly pulling it. A lot of the toxicity you mention coming from Gawker can be traced back to him, and there was a very noticeable positive shift in the site's editorial voice when Pareene took over. Trying to say that he is being ruined solely through Thiel's machinations is to ignore the role his own behavior played in his downfall, and that's why I take umbrage at the attempt to paint him as just another victim.
Part of the thing is that Thiel was simultaneously funding a number of different lawsuits against Gawker. He didn't actually care about Daulerio, and the site could just as easily have been ruined by reporting on the guy who says he invented e-mail. None of the facts of any of the specific cases matter, because they were about as likely to be punished for what I think we could get broad agreement is worthwhile reporting or for stuff like the Hogan tape which is horrible. That's what takes Daulerio's agency away, because Thiel was going to pour resources into getting them for anything, no matter who posted it or whether the complaint was valid.
Daulerio posted absolute trash that hurt people for clicks, but I guess in the end I'm less than enthusiastic about having a system that punishes the extreme moral failings of a few journalists/bloggers semi-randomly while mostly ignoring the different but equally extreme moral failings of the very wealthy, which is kind of what this looks like.
posted by Copronymus at 9:55 AM on August 23, 2016 [8 favorites]
Part of the thing is that Thiel was simultaneously funding a number of different lawsuits against Gawker. He didn't actually care about Daulerio, and the site could just as easily have been ruined by reporting on the guy who says he invented e-mail. None of the facts of any of the specific cases matter, because they were about as likely to be punished for what I think we could get broad agreement is worthwhile reporting or for stuff like the Hogan tape which is horrible. That's what takes Daulerio's agency away, because Thiel was going to pour resources into getting them for anything, no matter who posted it or whether the complaint was valid.
Daulerio posted absolute trash that hurt people for clicks, but I guess in the end I'm less than enthusiastic about having a system that punishes the extreme moral failings of a few journalists/bloggers semi-randomly while mostly ignoring the different but equally extreme moral failings of the very wealthy, which is kind of what this looks like.
posted by Copronymus at 9:55 AM on August 23, 2016 [8 favorites]
Mod note: Couple deleted; just say what you mean rather than sarcastically sniping at other people.
posted by LobsterMitten (staff) at 9:56 AM on August 23, 2016
posted by LobsterMitten (staff) at 9:56 AM on August 23, 2016
When Nick Denton publishes a full financial accounting of the Koch Brothers or gets Trump's tax returns released, then we can talk journalism.
So if an organization that publishes articles on current events isn't going after massive stories that not even giants like the NYT or WaPo can pull off... then it's just not journalism? We're going to define something as huge as journalism with this kind of rigidity and dismissiveness?
posted by palomar at 10:02 AM on August 23, 2016 [15 favorites]
So if an organization that publishes articles on current events isn't going after massive stories that not even giants like the NYT or WaPo can pull off... then it's just not journalism? We're going to define something as huge as journalism with this kind of rigidity and dismissiveness?
posted by palomar at 10:02 AM on August 23, 2016 [15 favorites]
Also, lol, if y'all haven't read the gossip & nastiness published in the Herald Tribune and the Post and the Daily News at midcentury, you don't actually know much about the history of ~tabloid journalism~! Gawker learned from the best.
posted by listen, lady at 10:11 AM on August 23, 2016 [2 favorites]
posted by listen, lady at 10:11 AM on August 23, 2016 [2 favorites]
So if an organization that publishes articles on current events isn't going after massive stories that not even giants like the NYT or WaPo can pull off... then it's just not journalism? We're going to define something as huge as journalism with this kind of rigidity and dismissiveness?
You'll note that I didn't say that there was anything wrong with gossip tabloids, or that gossip tabloids shouldn't exist. I just give a serious side-eye to a gossip tabloid that declares itself to be as much of a Last True Hope For Journalism the way this piece did.
To my mind, it'd be like if Taco Bell went belly-up and then declared that "The world must not like fine Mexican dining". Ain't nuthin' wrong with Taco Bell, but it also ain't the Platonian Ideal of Mexican food either.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 10:11 AM on August 23, 2016 [3 favorites]
You'll note that I didn't say that there was anything wrong with gossip tabloids, or that gossip tabloids shouldn't exist. I just give a serious side-eye to a gossip tabloid that declares itself to be as much of a Last True Hope For Journalism the way this piece did.
To my mind, it'd be like if Taco Bell went belly-up and then declared that "The world must not like fine Mexican dining". Ain't nuthin' wrong with Taco Bell, but it also ain't the Platonian Ideal of Mexican food either.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 10:11 AM on August 23, 2016 [3 favorites]
Also, lol, if y'all haven't read the gossip & nastiness published in the Herald Tribune and the Post and the Daily News at midcentury, you don't actually know much about the history of ~tabloid journalism~! Gawker learned from the best.
"Other people were also assholes" is really not a particularly strong argument.
posted by dersins at 10:18 AM on August 23, 2016
"Other people were also assholes" is really not a particularly strong argument.
posted by dersins at 10:18 AM on August 23, 2016
That Gawker is shutting down is good. There are myriad examples of utterly indefensible things they did. That they got shut down the way that they did is certainly bad, but I am going to celebrate, not mourn, its passing.
posted by Dysk at 10:19 AM on August 23, 2016 [4 favorites]
posted by Dysk at 10:19 AM on August 23, 2016 [4 favorites]
"Other people were also assholes" is really not a particularly strong argument.
Yeah, being an asshole has nothing to do with it. That's the thing. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯Civil liberties & rights talk are actually not moral judgments or affective instruments, YOLO.
(My "particularly strong argument" is just above. Rebutting your misreading of Gawker & ignorance about the history of speech & press freedom issues. It's fine to not like Gawker, but this isn't really the issue.)
posted by listen, lady at 10:26 AM on August 23, 2016 [2 favorites]
Yeah, being an asshole has nothing to do with it. That's the thing. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯Civil liberties & rights talk are actually not moral judgments or affective instruments, YOLO.
(My "particularly strong argument" is just above. Rebutting your misreading of Gawker & ignorance about the history of speech & press freedom issues. It's fine to not like Gawker, but this isn't really the issue.)
posted by listen, lady at 10:26 AM on August 23, 2016 [2 favorites]
This Tom Scocca piece is informative.
So rather than fighting the material that he really objected to, Thiel went looking for pretexts. Over time, he came up with them. Gawker found itself attracting legal threats and lawsuits at an unprecedented rate. Among those was Hulk Hogan’s complaint against Gawker for having written about a sex video he appeared in, and for publishing brief excerpts of that video. This was the kind of case that, in the normal course of things, would have gone away. Hogan’s first two attempts to pursue it, in federal court, went nowhere, with judges ruling that the publication was newsworthy and protected.
Yet the case kept moving. Suddenly the company had exhausted the limits of its insurance and was bleeding money on legal fees. The business model on which it had thrived—writing things that people were interested in reading, and selling ads to reach those readers—was foundering due to a whole new class of expenses.
posted by listen, lady at 10:31 AM on August 23, 2016 [11 favorites]
So rather than fighting the material that he really objected to, Thiel went looking for pretexts. Over time, he came up with them. Gawker found itself attracting legal threats and lawsuits at an unprecedented rate. Among those was Hulk Hogan’s complaint against Gawker for having written about a sex video he appeared in, and for publishing brief excerpts of that video. This was the kind of case that, in the normal course of things, would have gone away. Hogan’s first two attempts to pursue it, in federal court, went nowhere, with judges ruling that the publication was newsworthy and protected.
Yet the case kept moving. Suddenly the company had exhausted the limits of its insurance and was bleeding money on legal fees. The business model on which it had thrived—writing things that people were interested in reading, and selling ads to reach those readers—was foundering due to a whole new class of expenses.
posted by listen, lady at 10:31 AM on August 23, 2016 [11 favorites]
OK, one more attempt here, then I'm out:
Yeah, being an asshole has nothing to do with it. That's the thing. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯Civil liberties &: rights talk are actually not moral judgments or affective instruments, YOLO.
Snotty ACSII shrugs notwithstanding, being an asshole does in fact have everything to do with...being an asshole.
Yes, assholes have their rights, and those rights deserve to be defended, but assholes are still assholes and there's no need to celebrate them--or deny that they are assholes--even as we defend their rights.
(My "particularly strong argument" is just above. Rebutting your misreading of Gawker & ignorance about the history of speech & press freedom issues.)
You are either utterly misreading or deliberately misconstruing what I have said, which is:
1. Gawker seem to be a bunch of assholes who thrive on invading people's privacy for no reason other than prurience and ad revenue.
2. Freedom of the press is crucial to a healthy democracy, and it is bad on every level that Gawker were shut down the way they were.
It should not be difficult to hold both of these ideas in one's head at once.
posted by dersins at 10:39 AM on August 23, 2016 [6 favorites]
Yeah, being an asshole has nothing to do with it. That's the thing. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯Civil liberties &: rights talk are actually not moral judgments or affective instruments, YOLO.
Snotty ACSII shrugs notwithstanding, being an asshole does in fact have everything to do with...being an asshole.
Yes, assholes have their rights, and those rights deserve to be defended, but assholes are still assholes and there's no need to celebrate them--or deny that they are assholes--even as we defend their rights.
(My "particularly strong argument" is just above. Rebutting your misreading of Gawker & ignorance about the history of speech & press freedom issues.)
You are either utterly misreading or deliberately misconstruing what I have said, which is:
1. Gawker seem to be a bunch of assholes who thrive on invading people's privacy for no reason other than prurience and ad revenue.
2. Freedom of the press is crucial to a healthy democracy, and it is bad on every level that Gawker were shut down the way they were.
It should not be difficult to hold both of these ideas in one's head at once.
posted by dersins at 10:39 AM on August 23, 2016 [6 favorites]
I was under the impression that Hulk Hogan was suing Gawker because the sex tape included a section where he went on a racist tirade, and that they didn't actually publish the entire sex tape. Hogan sued them for invasion of privacy. Is this incorrect?
posted by gucci mane at 12:37 PM on August 23, 2016 [2 favorites]
posted by gucci mane at 12:37 PM on August 23, 2016 [2 favorites]
AJ Daulerio may be a jerk, but making him homeless and broke is disproportionate retribution for his crimes here.
I disagree with that. He should probably serve time in prison, imho. He's published multiple sex tapes without the consent of the participants and generally seems to be a total sociopath. He's ruined plenty of other lives.
I do support freedom of the press but that is not a pass for some psycho to break laws with impunity.
posted by fshgrl at 12:37 PM on August 23, 2016 [2 favorites]
I disagree with that. He should probably serve time in prison, imho. He's published multiple sex tapes without the consent of the participants and generally seems to be a total sociopath. He's ruined plenty of other lives.
I do support freedom of the press but that is not a pass for some psycho to break laws with impunity.
posted by fshgrl at 12:37 PM on August 23, 2016 [2 favorites]
Also, it's not that hard to believe that Gawker published some shitty things, but also believe that this is a very dangerous precedent.
posted by gucci mane at 12:38 PM on August 23, 2016 [5 favorites]
posted by gucci mane at 12:38 PM on August 23, 2016 [5 favorites]
Just a friendly reminder that leaking sex tapes or nudes without consent is sexual assault.
posted by the uncomplicated soups of my childhood at 12:42 PM on August 23, 2016 [5 favorites]
posted by the uncomplicated soups of my childhood at 12:42 PM on August 23, 2016 [5 favorites]
One of the things that Gawker was roundly criticized for initially was publishing an unsubstantiated story that two Somali men had tried to sell them a video of Rob Ford smoking crack. If he hadn't reacted like a gangster trying to destroy evidence, he probably could have just buried this by winning a libel suit against the Toronto Star journalists who corroborated Gawker's claims. This does not excuse some of the other things they have done, but the lurid and reckless rumor-mongering here was very important to us Torontonians who were terrified of where our politics were heading.
It's also worth remembering that Hogan's real reason for going after Gawker was them publishing his naked, disgusting bigotry without his consent.
Finally, this is a profound victory for a sociopath who literally believes it is his right to live forever on the blood of children so he can rule us like a god, and is so devoid of self-awareness that he actually expresses these sentiments in public.
posted by [expletive deleted] at 1:04 PM on August 23, 2016 [5 favorites]
It's also worth remembering that Hogan's real reason for going after Gawker was them publishing his naked, disgusting bigotry without his consent.
Finally, this is a profound victory for a sociopath who literally believes it is his right to live forever on the blood of children so he can rule us like a god, and is so devoid of self-awareness that he actually expresses these sentiments in public.
posted by [expletive deleted] at 1:04 PM on August 23, 2016 [5 favorites]
Hulk Hogan had a good case against Gawker, and I'm glad he won.
Some of us see a gap between "good case" and "so that media outlet deserves to be destroyed".
posted by Etrigan at 1:09 PM on August 23, 2016 [6 favorites]
Some of us see a gap between "good case" and "so that media outlet deserves to be destroyed".
posted by Etrigan at 1:09 PM on August 23, 2016 [6 favorites]
Hulk Hogan had a good case against Gawker, and I'm glad he won.
Several courts disagreed. There's a far more convincing argument that he won because of a deep-pocketed benefactor essentially using the legal system to launch a judicial DoS attack, which is an extremely bad precedent. There's also much more evidence that what he was really trying to do was get revenge for the bigotry on the tape that had cost him his main source of income. Gawker wasn't the first (see Mother Jones) and certainly won't be the last, and I can guarantee you most if not all will of the attacks will be by conservatives with far less reason and as much money or more. The current legal system already bends in their favor, and Thiel and others like him are spending vast amounts of money to get laws in place that make it even more so. There's a reason he and others like him are supporting Trump, a man who has promised to do everything in his power to "expand" slander and libel laws to essentially make them tools of rich people who have been even slightly and gently disagreed with.
posted by zombieflanders at 1:17 PM on August 23, 2016 [7 favorites]
Several courts disagreed. There's a far more convincing argument that he won because of a deep-pocketed benefactor essentially using the legal system to launch a judicial DoS attack, which is an extremely bad precedent. There's also much more evidence that what he was really trying to do was get revenge for the bigotry on the tape that had cost him his main source of income. Gawker wasn't the first (see Mother Jones) and certainly won't be the last, and I can guarantee you most if not all will of the attacks will be by conservatives with far less reason and as much money or more. The current legal system already bends in their favor, and Thiel and others like him are spending vast amounts of money to get laws in place that make it even more so. There's a reason he and others like him are supporting Trump, a man who has promised to do everything in his power to "expand" slander and libel laws to essentially make them tools of rich people who have been even slightly and gently disagreed with.
posted by zombieflanders at 1:17 PM on August 23, 2016 [7 favorites]
slightly and gently disagreed with.
Leaking someone's nudes or sex tape is sexual assault. Even if they're a racist.
Sexual assault is not slight or gentle. Even if you don't like the person.
This is the Trump statue thread all over again. Bodyshaming is bad. Period. Even if you don't like the person.
Gawker fucked up, badly, more than once, and they got outfoxed this time. I'm not a fan of Peter Thiel, but I'm also not a fan of a gigantic news organization that decided the rules don't apply to them. I would have far more of a problem if they had stuck to a transcript of the pertinent parts of the video - that's fine. Choosing to leak the video, crowing about it, and refusing to take it down? Don't lit the door hit you, cause I don't want ass-prints on my door.
posted by the uncomplicated soups of my childhood at 2:11 PM on August 23, 2016 [6 favorites]
Leaking someone's nudes or sex tape is sexual assault. Even if they're a racist.
Sexual assault is not slight or gentle. Even if you don't like the person.
This is the Trump statue thread all over again. Bodyshaming is bad. Period. Even if you don't like the person.
Gawker fucked up, badly, more than once, and they got outfoxed this time. I'm not a fan of Peter Thiel, but I'm also not a fan of a gigantic news organization that decided the rules don't apply to them. I would have far more of a problem if they had stuck to a transcript of the pertinent parts of the video - that's fine. Choosing to leak the video, crowing about it, and refusing to take it down? Don't lit the door hit you, cause I don't want ass-prints on my door.
posted by the uncomplicated soups of my childhood at 2:11 PM on August 23, 2016 [6 favorites]
Sexual assault is not slight or gentle
I really hope this is a misreading of what should be an obvious characterization of Trump's view of media fact-checking him, because otherwise this is a really shitty twisting of my words.
posted by zombieflanders at 2:29 PM on August 23, 2016 [1 favorite]
I really hope this is a misreading of what should be an obvious characterization of Trump's view of media fact-checking him, because otherwise this is a really shitty twisting of my words.
posted by zombieflanders at 2:29 PM on August 23, 2016 [1 favorite]
Some questions for those who are cheering Gawker's demise
posted by jeffburdges at 2:31 PM on August 23, 2016 [11 favorites]
posted by jeffburdges at 2:31 PM on August 23, 2016 [11 favorites]
Never Mind Peter Thiel. Gawker Killed Itself
posted by zabuni at 2:33 PM on August 23, 2016 [3 favorites]
posted by zabuni at 2:33 PM on August 23, 2016 [3 favorites]
First they came for Gawker, tl;dr
posted by speicus at 3:45 PM on August 23, 2016 [2 favorites]
posted by speicus at 3:45 PM on August 23, 2016 [2 favorites]
So I have Gawker on my "fun!" blog bookmarks that I check every day. What should succeed it?
posted by infinitewindow at 5:38 PM on August 23, 2016
posted by infinitewindow at 5:38 PM on August 23, 2016
Do people who think they legally deserved to pay think $140 million is the right amount? Why that and not $100k, or 3 times what they made from the hits the story generated, or the maybe those two sums combined? All of those seem totally reasonable to me.
If the answer is because you find their behavior that disgusting, and that's what it takes to shut it down: OK, that's consistent even if I disagree. But IMHO it's still very concerning how it went down, because it does not establish a law that will stop sex tapes from being publicized nor does it provide an avenue for "justice" to the non-rich, who would risk bankruptcy and be lucky to get $100k (and a lot of unwelcome publicity) if they tried to take this path.
The gross inequity demonstrated is a real problem even if you hate Gawker and even if you admire Thiel.
posted by mark k at 7:38 PM on August 23, 2016 [2 favorites]
If the answer is because you find their behavior that disgusting, and that's what it takes to shut it down: OK, that's consistent even if I disagree. But IMHO it's still very concerning how it went down, because it does not establish a law that will stop sex tapes from being publicized nor does it provide an avenue for "justice" to the non-rich, who would risk bankruptcy and be lucky to get $100k (and a lot of unwelcome publicity) if they tried to take this path.
The gross inequity demonstrated is a real problem even if you hate Gawker and even if you admire Thiel.
posted by mark k at 7:38 PM on August 23, 2016 [2 favorites]
You know what Gawker's version of a free press reminds me of? The way Ryan Lochte and friends thought they were entitled to behave at a Rio gas station.
I wonder much more often than I ought to have to whether Americans have any recognizable idea of what their morals, and a significant part of their mass culture, look like to the rest of the civilized world.
posted by namasaya at 8:01 PM on August 23, 2016 [3 favorites]
I wonder much more often than I ought to have to whether Americans have any recognizable idea of what their morals, and a significant part of their mass culture, look like to the rest of the civilized world.
posted by namasaya at 8:01 PM on August 23, 2016 [3 favorites]
Also, it's not that hard to believe that Gawker published some shitty things, but also believe that this is a very dangerous precedent.
Totally agreed.
.
posted by SisterHavana at 10:01 PM on August 23, 2016
Totally agreed.
.
posted by SisterHavana at 10:01 PM on August 23, 2016
Huh. The issue isn't whether or not Gawker is run by nice people with pretty faces and pleasant agendas. The issue isn't even any longer what happens when Thiel comes after you when you say or do something he doesn't like. The real issue is that precedent is now set that allows Thiel and other future Thiels to come after you and those you love and care about if those people decide you got out of line, especially since you don't have the money and connections to defend yourself.
posted by a lungful of dragon at 11:40 PM on August 23, 2016 [7 favorites]
posted by a lungful of dragon at 11:40 PM on August 23, 2016 [7 favorites]
Do people who think they legally deserved to pay think $140 million is the right amount?
Frankly, I think a lot of writing and editorial staff at Gawker should be facing felony charges and prison, so no, $140 million is not the right amount - like any monetary sum, it is not enough.
posted by Dysk at 12:11 AM on August 24, 2016
Frankly, I think a lot of writing and editorial staff at Gawker should be facing felony charges and prison, so no, $140 million is not the right amount - like any monetary sum, it is not enough.
posted by Dysk at 12:11 AM on August 24, 2016
a lot, Dysk? Who? And for what? I mean, aside from AJ Daulerio.
posted by to sir with millipedes at 4:19 AM on August 24, 2016
posted by to sir with millipedes at 4:19 AM on August 24, 2016
Daulerio was a writer - there was an editor (potentially several) and an entire company behind him. They share some of the responsibility.
posted by Dysk at 4:46 AM on August 24, 2016
posted by Dysk at 4:46 AM on August 24, 2016
Daulerio was Editor in Chief for a time, and the overall tone of Gawker made me sad and angry during his tenure. It felt like someone's slightly-off parent was visiting, and everyone had reverted to their mean girl teenager selves. I kept reading because several of my favorite writers, producing really amazing and thought provoking work (and/or just really amusing), have come out of reading Gawker. I'm already missing it.
posted by armacy at 4:57 AM on August 24, 2016 [3 favorites]
posted by armacy at 4:57 AM on August 24, 2016 [3 favorites]
Do people who think they legally deserved to pay think $140 million is the right amount?
It's an utterly absurd number. Anything beyond the amount a single individual on a typical journalist's income might be able to generate in their lifetime, say $5M, is an absurd penalty. Making it $140M or $14M or $140B likely won't change the outcome for anyone involved. I'm not sure how the discharge laws work in this case, but it could well make someone penniless, homeless for life.
IMO, this is life-wrecking. I don't see how someone survives a penalty like this. In many ways a prison term would be kinder---the state there is at least required to provide shelter food and healthcare, and there's a possibility of it ending. This puts the victim outside of all those protections.
This isn't proportionate to any of the supposed crimes. Hogan's life was not similarly wrecked. Thiel's life was not similarly wrecked. This isn't particularly restorative. The defendants simply don't have the money to pay any of these amounts, so it's not like the "victims" will be fully compensated for their alleged damages. It is preventative, chilling even, and so costs others' free speech rights should be counted among the damages inflicted.
Regardless of what you think of the staff and ownership of Gawker personally, this isn't a judgement that fits the offense, has any realistic chance of being made good, or has a net social positive outcome.
posted by bonehead at 8:19 AM on August 24, 2016 [5 favorites]
It's an utterly absurd number. Anything beyond the amount a single individual on a typical journalist's income might be able to generate in their lifetime, say $5M, is an absurd penalty. Making it $140M or $14M or $140B likely won't change the outcome for anyone involved. I'm not sure how the discharge laws work in this case, but it could well make someone penniless, homeless for life.
IMO, this is life-wrecking. I don't see how someone survives a penalty like this. In many ways a prison term would be kinder---the state there is at least required to provide shelter food and healthcare, and there's a possibility of it ending. This puts the victim outside of all those protections.
This isn't proportionate to any of the supposed crimes. Hogan's life was not similarly wrecked. Thiel's life was not similarly wrecked. This isn't particularly restorative. The defendants simply don't have the money to pay any of these amounts, so it's not like the "victims" will be fully compensated for their alleged damages. It is preventative, chilling even, and so costs others' free speech rights should be counted among the damages inflicted.
Regardless of what you think of the staff and ownership of Gawker personally, this isn't a judgement that fits the offense, has any realistic chance of being made good, or has a net social positive outcome.
posted by bonehead at 8:19 AM on August 24, 2016 [5 favorites]
Sexual assault. I'm sure the way the law is worded, posting someone's sex tape without their consent doesn't qualify, but to me it does. Everyone whose name was anywhere near the byline for any of those articles, and any editors that oversaw it in any capacity.
posted by Dysk at 10:39 AM on August 24, 2016
posted by Dysk at 10:39 AM on August 24, 2016
You can't make up laws to suit your fancy, Dysk. Unless you have a duty of care, you aren't legally required to to keep other people's secrets for them.
posted by tavella at 11:13 AM on August 24, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by tavella at 11:13 AM on August 24, 2016 [1 favorite]
One of Peter Thiel's fellows created a new startup that will fund your lawsuit
A new startup, Legalist, is looking to make money from the practice of bankrolling lawsuits. The startup plans to fund those that it calculates has a chance to win.posted by gladly at 12:04 PM on August 24, 2016 [2 favorites]
But Eva Shang, its cofounder, told Business Insider that it's not looking to become Peter Thiel in startup form — even though Shang is a Thiel Fellow, meaning that she took a $100,000 investment from Thiel's foundation to build Legalist.
"That's the kind of thing we're staying away from here," Shang said.
In a presentation at Y Combinator's Demo Day on Tuesday, Shang argued that litigation funding is poised to become an "explosive asset class." The startup has funded one lawsuit for $75,000 and expects a return of over $1 million once the case is over. That money will then be reinvested in other lawsuits, and the process will repeat itself.
We do afaik expect these damages to be reverse on appeal because federal courts already threw the case out twice. In fact, the trial judge in Hulk Hogan-Gawker case is most reversed in Pinellas county. An that's an impressive feat for a civil court judge apparently.
It's very strange this judge refused to allow Gawker to continue operating pending appeals. It's true Thiel's lawyers might picked her because they knew she was a hot head who'd give them a chance to do damage before loosing on appeal.
I suspect however they simply bribed her with promises that Thiel can easily fulfill, like some lucrative job later in life. It'll be interesting if pointers towards suspicious deals come out later.
posted by jeffburdges at 12:05 PM on August 24, 2016 [1 favorite]
It's very strange this judge refused to allow Gawker to continue operating pending appeals. It's true Thiel's lawyers might picked her because they knew she was a hot head who'd give them a chance to do damage before loosing on appeal.
I suspect however they simply bribed her with promises that Thiel can easily fulfill, like some lucrative job later in life. It'll be interesting if pointers towards suspicious deals come out later.
posted by jeffburdges at 12:05 PM on August 24, 2016 [1 favorite]
Unless you have a duty of care, you aren't legally required to to keep other people's secrets for them.
You can however be found guilty as an accessory for things like sexual assault. This isn't akut keeping people's secrets, this is about profiting from a gross sexual exposure.
posted by Dysk at 12:20 PM on August 24, 2016
You can however be found guilty as an accessory for things like sexual assault. This isn't akut keeping people's secrets, this is about profiting from a gross sexual exposure.
posted by Dysk at 12:20 PM on August 24, 2016
Unless you have a duty of care, you aren't legally required to to keep other people's secrets for them.
There's a gulf of nuance between "keep other people's secrets" and "post a sex tape".
posted by Etrigan at 12:37 PM on August 24, 2016 [1 favorite]
There's a gulf of nuance between "keep other people's secrets" and "post a sex tape".
posted by Etrigan at 12:37 PM on August 24, 2016 [1 favorite]
Unless you made or helped make the sex tape against the participants' will, then no, you can't be charged as an accessory for sexual assault. Just because you don't like it doesn't make it criminal.
posted by tavella at 12:44 PM on August 24, 2016
posted by tavella at 12:44 PM on August 24, 2016
Unless you made or helped make the sex tape against the participants' will, then no, you can't be charged as an accessory for sexual assault.
“Sexually cyberharass” means to publish a sexually explicit image of a person that contains or conveys the personal identification information of the depicted person to an Internet website without the depicted person’s consent, for no legitimate purpose, with the intent of causing substantial emotional distress to the depicted person.posted by Etrigan at 12:50 PM on August 24, 2016 [1 favorite]
(five-page PDF of the current Florida law)
It's very strange this judge refused to allow Gawker to continue operating pending appeals.
She was given her seat by .Jeb. as a political reward for representing Terri Schiavo's parents.
So no, not strange at all.
posted by NoxAeternum at 12:57 PM on August 24, 2016 [2 favorites]
She was given her seat by .Jeb. as a political reward for representing Terri Schiavo's parents.
So no, not strange at all.
posted by NoxAeternum at 12:57 PM on August 24, 2016 [2 favorites]
Etrigan, do note the "no legitimate purpose" part of the law. Given that both state and federal courts have held the tape as newsworthy, it would be hard to argue that point.
posted by NoxAeternum at 12:59 PM on August 24, 2016
posted by NoxAeternum at 12:59 PM on August 24, 2016
I'm not arguing that Gawker or Daulerio actually broke the law, Nox. Just pushing back against the idea that there is no crime that could potentially have been committed because they're not the people who made the tape.
posted by Etrigan at 1:02 PM on August 24, 2016
posted by Etrigan at 1:02 PM on August 24, 2016
It's very strange this judge refused to allow Gawker to continue operating pending appeals.
It's my understanding (and I won't mind being corrected on this if I'm wrong) that, under Florida law, to appeal, Gawker needs to pay the judgment first.
posted by drezdn at 1:05 PM on August 24, 2016
It's my understanding (and I won't mind being corrected on this if I'm wrong) that, under Florida law, to appeal, Gawker needs to pay the judgment first.
posted by drezdn at 1:05 PM on August 24, 2016
You are sort of correct, drezdn. Per Florida law, the proceeds from the sale will be placed in an escrow account while Gawker appeals. In June, the judge denied Gawker's request for a stay of execution of judgment pending appeal, which would have allowed them to proceed with an appeal if they provided an appeal bond (commonly $50m in Florida but Gawker made a second request that they not be forced to put up any bond at all; this is at the discretion of the court).
This is why the sale of Gawker was necessary -- and also why the judge's actions feel particularly onerous. Very few legal scholars believe the massive monetary damages will stand. The likely outcome here is that Gawker's sale and shuttering will end up being unnecessary were it not for the inflexibility of the judge.
posted by incessant at 1:26 PM on August 24, 2016 [5 favorites]
This is why the sale of Gawker was necessary -- and also why the judge's actions feel particularly onerous. Very few legal scholars believe the massive monetary damages will stand. The likely outcome here is that Gawker's sale and shuttering will end up being unnecessary were it not for the inflexibility of the judge.
posted by incessant at 1:26 PM on August 24, 2016 [5 favorites]
Unless you made or helped make the sex tape against the participants' will, then no, you can't be charged as an accessory for sexual assault. Just because you don't like it doesn't make it criminal.
Yeah, I acknowledged that the law is flawed in its scope as it currently stands, thank you. I said they should be facing charges. That's because the law shouldn't be so narrow in how it defines sexual assault. But that's okay, please keep rules lawyering about what I feel should happen here.
posted by Dysk at 1:41 PM on August 24, 2016
Yeah, I acknowledged that the law is flawed in its scope as it currently stands, thank you. I said they should be facing charges. That's because the law shouldn't be so narrow in how it defines sexual assault. But that's okay, please keep rules lawyering about what I feel should happen here.
posted by Dysk at 1:41 PM on August 24, 2016
I don't think tavella is telling you what you should feel, just disagreeing on whether it would be a good thing if what you feel were made law.
posted by Justinian at 2:24 PM on August 24, 2016
posted by Justinian at 2:24 PM on August 24, 2016
And that I find announcing that people that people who haven't committed crimes should go to jail extremely creepy and Trumpish.
posted by tavella at 2:31 PM on August 24, 2016
posted by tavella at 2:31 PM on August 24, 2016
Jesus Christ, I'm saying that in a just world, what they did would be illegal.
posted by Dysk at 2:44 PM on August 24, 2016
posted by Dysk at 2:44 PM on August 24, 2016
Huh. I was giving tavella the benefit of the doubt but it looks like you were right.
posted by Justinian at 2:49 PM on August 24, 2016
posted by Justinian at 2:49 PM on August 24, 2016
A Startup Is Automating the Lawsuit Strategy Peter Thiel Used to Kill Gawker
posted by homunculus at 6:05 PM on August 24, 2016 [4 favorites]
posted by homunculus at 6:05 PM on August 24, 2016 [4 favorites]
Oh, it's totally barratry. Or at least, it is if you're poor.
posted by Etrigan at 12:25 PM on August 25, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by Etrigan at 12:25 PM on August 25, 2016 [1 favorite]
I think the answer might be that barratry isn't actually illegal in a lot of the US, and even in states where it is, it's focused on client solicitation and frivolity concerns that the startup might be able to avoid. That's what a few minutes of Wikipedia and Google research seemed to indicate, at least.
posted by Copronymus at 12:31 PM on August 25, 2016
posted by Copronymus at 12:31 PM on August 25, 2016
They they'll hook this up to an AI-ish expert system that can autofile suits and Accelerado will come true.
Cyberdystopia accomplished!
On the bright side, unlike the boomers, at least us Gen-Xs will get what we were promised.
posted by bonehead at 12:43 PM on August 25, 2016
Cyberdystopia accomplished!
On the bright side, unlike the boomers, at least us Gen-Xs will get what we were promised.
posted by bonehead at 12:43 PM on August 25, 2016
What's with the extreme binaric worldview on display here?
Blame callout culture. To paraphrase what a friend of mine recently said, is this the logical conclusion of prioritizing easy "call-outs" over literally any level of nuance and compassion? Is this younger late teens me coming back to bite older me in the ass??
Everything gets reduced to absolutionist crap like this. You're either the hero or the villain. There's no room for shades of grey or complex situations where people are right sometimes and wrong sometimes, or in other arenas.
See also: how no one can understand relationships where both parties were abusive.
posted by emptythought at 11:38 AM on August 26, 2016 [1 favorite]
Blame callout culture. To paraphrase what a friend of mine recently said, is this the logical conclusion of prioritizing easy "call-outs" over literally any level of nuance and compassion? Is this younger late teens me coming back to bite older me in the ass??
Everything gets reduced to absolutionist crap like this. You're either the hero or the villain. There's no room for shades of grey or complex situations where people are right sometimes and wrong sometimes, or in other arenas.
See also: how no one can understand relationships where both parties were abusive.
posted by emptythought at 11:38 AM on August 26, 2016 [1 favorite]
All Thiel's supporters here will be thrilled to learn that his lawyers have found appropriate plaintiffs to continuing the their work.
posted by jeffburdges at 8:06 AM on August 27, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by jeffburdges at 8:06 AM on August 27, 2016 [1 favorite]
If Thiel wants to stick to the Celebrity Sex Scandal news beat, today's reporting on Anthony Weiner is surely similar to what was done on Hogan.
posted by Copronymus at 2:43 PM on August 29, 2016
posted by Copronymus at 2:43 PM on August 29, 2016
It's now a race to wreck your least favorite reporter before the Hulk Hogan case gets reversed on appeal : Former Fox News chief executive Roger Ailes has hired Charles Harder .. for a possible lawsuit against New York Magazine and one of its reporters, Gabriel Sherman. Harder "represented Hulk Hogan against Gawker and is now representing Melania Trump against the Daily Mail.
posted by jeffburdges at 6:50 PM on September 5, 2016 [2 favorites]
posted by jeffburdges at 6:50 PM on September 5, 2016 [2 favorites]
Melania Trump against the Daily Mail.
The world wins whoever loses this one.
posted by Dysk at 12:37 AM on September 6, 2016
The world wins whoever loses this one.
posted by Dysk at 12:37 AM on September 6, 2016
Univision Execs Vote to Delete Six Gawker Media Posts
Peter Thiel is bankrolling every one of the lawsuits in question here. He's bankrolling doxxing troll misogynist floorpooper Chuck Johnson. Jesus.
posted by taterpie at 11:17 AM on September 10, 2016 [2 favorites]
Peter Thiel is bankrolling every one of the lawsuits in question here. He's bankrolling doxxing troll misogynist floorpooper Chuck Johnson. Jesus.
posted by taterpie at 11:17 AM on September 10, 2016 [2 favorites]
A very long conversation about the post deletion.
posted by jenfullmoon at 2:12 PM on September 13, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by jenfullmoon at 2:12 PM on September 13, 2016 [1 favorite]
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So it's gonna be in Spanish, now? Cool.
posted by jonmc at 7:34 PM on August 22, 2016