131–140 of 335 posts
I absolutely despise Gawker. The stories they run and the stuff they do would normally mean that I would love for them to be run into the ground. At the same time, they are the only independent online media outlet left in the world. Every other company that once prided itself on being "independent" from the large media network owned by ancient billionaires has now received at least hundreds of millions of dollars in…
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"Goebbels was in favor of free speech for views he liked. So was Stalin. If you're really in favor of free speech, then you're in favor of freedom of speech precisely for views you despise. Otherwise, you're not in favor of free speech."
Denton and the people in his employ have their right to free speech, and Hulk Hogan has the right to use the beautiful system of Anglosphere common law -- certainly the best legal system in the world -- to deal with Gawker's poison. (Goebbels and Stalin is a bit too hyperbolic, I think. Maybe try and scale it down -- say, Joe McCarthy.)
I love liberty as much as the next guy, but libertarianism all too often seems to mean the liberty of the guy with money and power to mess with the little guy.
Seems a little weird that a self-professed libertarian like Thiel aligns with Trump, noted authoritarian who's not above calling for violence against those who disagree with him, wants to go after Jeff Bezos and Amazon because he doesn't like what the Washington Post says, calls the CNN control room to tell them what to cover, while at the same time threatening to cancel CNN's 'FCC license' and take them off the air.
Personally, if a boot is stomping on my face I'm not that concerned with whether it's a private boot or a public boot. I'm not cool with government telling the press what to print, and I'm not cool with large capital pools going on secret vendettas against media that doesn't do what they want, and making sure they get sued on any completely unrelated thing that comes up where they might be vulnerable.
Josh Marshall, from John Gruber: It all comes down to a simple point. You may not like Gawker. They’ve published stories I would have been ashamed to publish. But if the extremely wealthy, under a veil secrecy, can destroy publications they want to silence, that’s a far bigger threat to freedom of the press than most of the things we commonly worry about on that front. If this is the new weapon in the arsenal of the…
Gawker wasn't some bastion of journalism - it was a libelous rag, good riddance.
>He added: “It’s not for me to decide what happens to Gawker. If America rallies around Gawker and decides we want more people to be outed and more sex tapes to be posted without consent, then they will find a way to save Gawker, and I can’t stop it.” An important reminder of exactly what conduct, on Gawker's part, people are defending. They have no moral high ground, noble principles, or higher purpose. They're scum…
As long as we're quoting someone with an obvious vested interest, how do you feel about what Gawker points to: "Hillary Clinton’s secret email account, Bill Cosby’s history with women, the mayor of Toronto as a crack smoker, Tom Cruise’s role within Scientology, the N.F.L. cover-up of domestic abuse by players and just this month the hidden power of Facebook to determine the news you see.” It's not so cut and dry, wh…
He can't do a single thing to them unless they break the law.
As someone who wrote for Denton, I'm shocked to learn how much $ Gawker was making. He paid writers as little as $5 a post.
Link to the $5 figure, or their financials? Sounds interesting.
Thiel claims to despise "massive privacy violations" on the part of groups like Gawker, yet he was one of the co-founders of Palantir. These people are just narcissists who want revenge for someone splashing mud on their boots. They're not fighting for our privacy, or for the common good. Sorry buddy, you are worth more than 99.999% of us. That makes you a significant figure and thus newsworthy. Your sexual orientati…
I might be interpreting your words, but are you suggesting that being extremely wealthy is reason enough to give up on privacy?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_Times_Co._v._Sullivan
> New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, 376 U.S. 254 (1964), was a landmark United States Supreme Court case that established the actual malice standard, which has to be met before press reports about public officials can be considered to be defamation and libel; and hence allowed free reporting of the civil rights campaigns in the southern United States. It is one of the key decisions supporting the freedom of the press. The actual malice standard requires that the plaintiff in a defamation or libel case, if he is a "public figure", prove that the publisher of the statement in question knew that the statement was false or acted in reckless disregard of its truth or falsity. Because of the extremely high burden of proof on the plaintiff, and the difficulty of proving the defendant's knowledge and intentions, such cases—but only when they involve public figures—rarely prevail.
As it's taught in journalism schools, this precedent is seen as the major driver of American press freedom.
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Exactly what is unethical about his conduct here? I really don't understand what problem anyone has with this.
A libertarian using the power of government to crush free speech is pretty hypocritical if not unethical.
despite the somewhat narrow notion of what "libertarian" encompasses in US politics, even there they aren't equivalent to zero-government anarchists.
> to crush free speech
i'm increasingly believing that the notion of "free speech" has asymptotically zero meaning in general discourse. that said, an interesting counterpoint is in the article: "Mr. Thiel has donated money to the Committee to Protect Journalists and has often talked about protecting freedom of speech."
it certainly appears to me that he sees gawker as a particularly hostile and unethical enterprise. the cases wouldn't exist without gawker's behavior, and the judges ostensibly render judgement according to the law.
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All I see are slippery slope arguments claiming that, next time, Thiel might go after someone who didn't unarguably deserve it.
Why do you think the wealthy should be able to stop the free press from publishing things they don't like?
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Exactly what is unethical about his conduct here? I really don't understand what problem anyone has with this.
I wonder whether Hogan/Bollea was advised by "his" counsel about the ramifications of dropping one of the pieces of litigation - a piece that would have increased the ability for Bollea to collect that damage award. As it happens the particular tort that was dropped was the only one that would allow Gawker to use their insurance to cover the liability of the verdict awarded. Thiel's goal is to destroy Gawker. A Gawke…
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Basically any influence by 'extremely wealthy' is automatically viewed as an attack on 'freedom'. It's a straw-man political argument.
No one gave him the authority to control speech. He has money, but we didn't give him the authority to do this. I honestly hope you are wealthy and this viewpoint supports some sort of authoritarian self-interest. Or you're not American I guess.