Gawker Can’t Shield Founder from Hulk Hogan Sex-Tape Verdict • Hacker News Board

Re: Gawker Can’t Shield Founder from Hulk Hogan Sex-Tape Verdict

#101

Post by tedks » Wed, Jul 20, 2016, 3:22 PM UTC

redthrowaway wrote: post #45

gohrt wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is this some sort of gamergate leakage, that makes Gawker "left" because they are united with Kotaku, who gamergate hates, and social-justice fighers hate gamergate, and social-justic fighters are "left", so Gawker is "left"?

Gawker Media, along with Vice, Salon, Vox, Buzzfeed, HuffPo, etc., are left wing online publications. It has nothing to with GamerGate. It would take some impressive sophistry to claim they're not left wing, just as it would take quite some sophistry to claim Breitbart, Daily Wire, National Review, etc weren't right wing.

Well, you could get a little less myopic, zoom out of the purely American perspective where left=Democrat and right=Republican, and see that none of the publications you named are left in any way.

(Vox sometimes has leftists writing for it, but I wouldn't call it left as a whole.)

Re: Gawker Can’t Shield Founder from Hulk Hogan Sex-Tape Verdict

#102

Post by bobwaycott » Wed, Jul 20, 2016, 4:16 PM UTC

jdmichal wrote: post #100

bobwaycott wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe the precedent the GP was referring to, to which the parent was replying—and to whom I replied—is a billionaire using the legal system and a case to which he's not a party to seek revenge by bankrolling that case. I see no one disputing the legitimacy of suing Gawker or defending Gawker's disgusting and illegal behavior.

You realize that this is the same mechanism used by groups like the EFF, ACLU, and NAACP to bring cases? And what about a lawyer agreeing to take a case on contingency; isn't that technically the lawyer funding the case, and not the plaintiff? Also, what is the alternative here? Sure, Hogan maybe has enough money that he could have funded the case. Could Joe Smith working his 9-to-5 have funded that case? If not, how…

I'm not sure why you've decided to argue with me. You seem to have erroneously concluded I have some issue here for you to fix. The GP is the person who had questions. I merely replied to someone who made a fairly combative and unnecessarily political reply to point out the GP's concerns were in no way addressed—such is the way of political rants.

Re: Gawker Can’t Shield Founder from Hulk Hogan Sex-Tape Verdict

#103

Post by jdmichal » Wed, Jul 20, 2016, 5:56 PM UTC

bobwaycott wrote: post #102

jdmichal wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You realize that this is the same mechanism used by groups like the EFF, ACLU, and NAACP to bring cases? And what about a lawyer agreeing to take a case on contingency; isn't that technically the lawyer funding the case, and not the plaintiff? Also, what is the alternative here? Sure, Hogan maybe has enough money that he could have funded the case. Could Joe Smith working his 9-to-5 have funded that case? If not, how…

I'm not sure why you've decided to argue with me. You seem to have erroneously concluded I have some issue here for you to fix. The GP is the person who had questions. I merely replied to someone who made a fairly combative and unnecessarily political reply to point out the GP's concerns were in no way addressed—such is the way of political rants.

Sorry; I assumed that by replying to you and you replying to me that we were entering into a conversation. I am attempting to address your interpretation of the concerns raised by GP. Replying to your interpretation of the concerns seems like a natural place to do that.

As it is, your reply here was not really necessary.

Re: Gawker Can’t Shield Founder from Hulk Hogan Sex-Tape Verdict

#104

Post by internaut » Thu, Jul 21, 2016, 8:52 PM UTC

FireBeyond wrote: post #99

maratd wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't it equally presumptuous of you to assume that he is? Your only source of evidence is his financing of an aggressive lawsuit against a known asshole and his company.

Maybe I think Thiel is an asshole because of his funding of Palantir?

Thiel's explanation is that it was better to sift through the data torrent more judiciously than collecting every particle of data on every man, women and child forever. That is relevant surveillance on a limited pool vs mass surveillance. Supposing a state to be malevolent, then an efficient malevolent state ought to be still less evil than an inefficient malevolent one.

This was in the context of the sentiment after 9/11.

Unfortunately it later turns out the government with its god-like power of 'infinite money' decided to do both at the same time, which explains his disgust at the NSA post-Snowden.

Surely a giant database in the sky could never fall into enemy hands with data transfer and data medium densities growing exponentially.

In the future, wars shall be lost because some dork left a usb drive on a train somewhere.

Re: Gawker Can’t Shield Founder from Hulk Hogan Sex-Tape Verdict

#105

Post by jessaustin » Fri, Jul 22, 2016, 5:05 PM UTC

redthrowaway wrote: post #10

vonklaus wrote: post #7

How in the world did the court come up with a $140M sum for the settlement? This seems so excessive, it is actually comical. Obviously, everyone has beleaguered this point, but I feel obligated to state it one more time: Scumbaggery and poor taste shock journalism are pretty shitty, but fuck Peter Theil if he thinks setting a precedent like this is net good for anything other than his petty vendetta. edit: Yes, Gawke…

It's amazing to see how the left latched onto this as a "billionaire buys lawsuit" narrative, as opposed to the much more accurate "shitty darling of the left that habitually engaged in abuse got its comeuppance" narrative. Gawker repeatedly, knowingly, unabashedly, broke the law. They repeatedly, knowingly, unabashedly, tried to ruin innocent people's lives. They absolutely deserve everything that happened to them a…

>Also. This has nothing to do with left v. right.

Only people on the left believe this.

I suspect this was before they learned that Thiel would be speaking at the Republican Convention.