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No Thank You, Mr. Pecker
121–130 of 783 posts
Re: No Thank You, Mr. Pecker
#122Earlier quoted context omitted.
But what person without means is going to be the target of tabloid blackmailing?
not exactly tabloid blackmail, but 'revenge porn' was and is still prevalent on the internet, and I don't doubt that a lot of small scale blackmail happens as well, and if I would guess I think many of the affected people have very little recourse.
I mean, technically, they've opened themselves up to multiple felonies.
Re: No Thank You, Mr. Pecker
#123Slightly off topic, but the fact that the world's richest man who owns a tech giant chose to publish this on a closed platform like Medium should be worrisome for the future of the open web. On the other hand, this might just be the biggest brand endorsement for Medium till date.
Only HN could turn Jeff Bezos publicly outing a company attempting to extort him with naked photos into a threat to the "future of the open web".
I mean, he's talking about journalistic standards. Having an open web is crucial for having good journalism on the web.
Re: No Thank You, Mr. Pecker
#124Earlier quoted context omitted.
Really? I'm at the other extreme: blackmailing me would be pointless as there would be no gain (not to mention in my boring case any unclad selfies would have to be synthesized). And in the current world[+] there's so much exposure that such pictures will be drowned out by the sheer volume of stuff. Yes, we're still at a point where politicians can lose their jobs because of racialist photos or certain indiscretions,…
At minimum, this type of post would intensify a very expensive legal battle, which Bezos admits in this article he's looking forward to. For anyone else, going bankrupt in an attempt to fight blackmail would be a pyrrhic victory in the best-case scenario.
This could become a replay of Peter Thiel episode, with Bezos destroying the tabloid or at least seriously wounding it.
Morality aside, I don't have any sympathy for tabloids like these. What bothers me is I don't think much will change, even if Bezos wins here. As long as the public has voracious appetite for celebrity juicy stories, someone will find a way to feed it.
Re: No Thank You, Mr. Pecker
#125Whatever you think about Jeff, this is the correct way to handle such things. We should all have the same character in such a situation (despite how the situation arose; in this case via an affair). Jeff has MANY other issues of moral disfortitude (we all do to some degree, though not at these scales). However, this particular event is to be applauded and emulated.
This sounds too bad to be true , but if true i think it's how any sensible person should handle it. I mean, a dik pik who will care a month later. Did they really think that such misguided extortion would work? It really doesn't make much sense unless someone else was pushing forward this extortion
Re: No Thank You, Mr. Pecker
#126Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is worse than Gawker outing Thiel as gay. In this case they're attempting blackmail ahead of time, which may be a crime.
It’s generally not blackmail to threaten someone with some action that, by itself, is legal. See, for example, the many civil settlements where rich people stop the people they raped from going to the police. And I’m unsure what the status is on publishing salacious private photos. Sure, there is a copyright issue. But that’s a civil matter, not criminal. If it were a crime, it really wouldn’t be much of a threat bec…
Revenge porn elevates the issue regardless.
Re: No Thank You, Mr. Pecker
#127Earlier quoted context omitted.
It’s generally not blackmail to threaten someone with some action that, by itself, is legal. See, for example, the many civil settlements where rich people stop the people they raped from going to the police. And I’m unsure what the status is on publishing salacious private photos. Sure, there is a copyright issue. But that’s a civil matter, not criminal. If it were a crime, it really wouldn’t be much of a threat bec…
That's not true at all. > Blackmail is the crime of threatening to reveal embarrassing, disgraceful or damaging information about a person to the public, family, spouse or associates unless money is paid to purchase silence. It is a form of extortion. Because the information is usually substantially true, it is not revealing the information that is criminal, but demanding money to withhold it. https://definitions.usl…
Correct. And it's important to note that AMI's claim that they could publish the photos at all is dubious at best. Whoever took the photos (presumably Bezo and/or his girlfriend) holds the copyright to the images and fair use only allows them to be reproduced by AMI if they're newsworthy. AMI claims the photos are newsworthy because they speak to his business judgment which is a serious stretch for the photos of Bezos and completely irrelevant with respect to the photos of his girlfriend.
Re: No Thank You, Mr. Pecker
#128Important note: This is written by Jeff Bezos himself . Normally, the Bezos affair story would be gossipy, but this alleges extortion , extraordinarily. (Also, why is Jeff Bezos using Medium? He owns a newspaper.)
> (Also, why is Jeff Bezos using Medium? He owns a newspaper.) Using his stake in the WaPo to boost a personal rebuttal would be a tremendous ethical lapse.
And also contrary to his own arguments in this very story.
Re: No Thank You, Mr. Pecker
#129Earlier quoted context omitted.
The problem I have with most super rich people is that they consider genuine risk far less important than potential embarrassment. E.g. they won't dare taking a stand politically because of the chance that someone will go public with some scandalous nonsense. Bezos on the other hand seems willing to calculate differently. I have to say, this has changed my opinion of him a lot in his favour. On the very remote chance…
Although, it did, I assume, trigger the divorce which will cost him a couple billion dollars
If his wife is divorcing him because he's cheating on her, the divorce was inevitable anyway.
Re: No Thank You, Mr. Pecker
#130Earlier quoted context omitted.
The problem I have with most super rich people is that they consider genuine risk far less important than potential embarrassment. E.g. they won't dare taking a stand politically because of the chance that someone will go public with some scandalous nonsense. Bezos on the other hand seems willing to calculate differently. I have to say, this has changed my opinion of him a lot in his favour. On the very remote chance…
I agree. One thought did occur to me is that he is basically daring AMI to release the pictures. What if he knows the providence of these pictures, knows how they got into AMI hands, and knows that if AMI publish them he can sue them, Gawker (not Buzzfeed) style, into the ground?
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