Gawker.com go bye-bye

I hadn't read that. But I had the same reaction when the jury came back with the decision. Hulk Hogan is 1) a public figure, 2) had talked publicly (jokingly) about the sex tape and about his sexual prowess.

Gawker lost a case due to a state law that makes it illegal to embarrass someone by publicizing private facts about their life. I don't see how that kind of law is kosher, period, but particularly when it comes to a public figure.

I don't want to make Nick Denton into a martyr. He's a sleazeball. But this was not justice. Set aside the ridiculous law. The law then gave the jury the ability to reward unreasonable financial damages, essentially creating a remedy that far outweighed any harm done. Isn't that at odds with the purpose of civil law? Then add in the fact that the whole thing was being bankrolled by a thin-skinned non-party who was out for revenge, because he didn't like Denton. That isn't how our civil system should work. It just feels wrong.

I don't know if anyone read Peter Thiel's op ed in the New York Times, but it had me shaking my head. On the one hand, he said that it's not his role to decide or judge what journalists can cover. But in the same paragraph, he contradicted himself, saying a free press is too important to be undermined by people like Nick Denton.

Therefore. ... well, we needed Peter Thiel to right the situation. He incomprehensibly doesn't seem to get that he did make it his role to regulate what journalists can cover. And the reason he got to hijack that role is because of a really bad law and the fact that he had a huge checkbook. He may have done an ace job of fucking with someone he hated. Kudos for that. He destroyed Nick Denton. But he shouldn't be patting himself on the back for performing some kind public service, And he should realize he contradicted himself in trying to rationalize it all and make himself into a hero to all of us.

 

I don't think I have ever seen anyone say that Gawker's sites aren't sleazy and smarmy at times -- at least not anyone who wasn't commenting 100 times a day on their site. If anything, the version of Gawker I usually saw people talk about was the one that crossed lines of good taste. Am I missing something?

Likewise, I have seen lots of people point out that while there was a certain schadenfreude in seeing Nick Denton humbled that way, the way it was actually done wasn't quite right. You can feel that way and not be living some fantasy of what Gawker is. For one thing, it was a crap state law that has the potential to stifle the work of people (and destroy those people) you might like a lot more than AJ Daulerio (and find more valuable). For another, the law itself runs roughshod over the first amendment. For a third, Peter Thiel's involvement, while funny from the "obsessed with revenge" standpoint, in effect made it so that anyone with the ability to spend a boatload of money has the potential to use shitty laws to shut up anyone he or she doesn't like. His bankrolling that mess may have been legal (and funny on the level of, "Oh shit did he destroy them."), but would you feel the same way about how it went down if a Peter Thiel, or someone like him, decided some news source or something you find more legit needs to be destroyed because of a vendetta?