151–160 of 176 posts
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What is your actual argument in terms of how this is a threat to freedom of speech? Apologies if I am misreading your meaning.
There is none. The ruling isn't a threat to free speech at all. The trial was never about whether or not the content constituted obscenity or any other measure that would involve the Miller rule. This case was about damage to someone's life and career.
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Personally, I think that while Gawker wasn't right to release the tape, fining them $115 million isn't right either. $115 million could easily sink Gawker entirely. I'm not exactly the biggest fan of the place but it's a dangerous precedent to set for press freedom if a single editor's single bad decision can take down an entire site. Of course, the amount is likely to be revised down in appeals.
While I respect that conclusion in general, I think that Gawker in particular has done a lot of sadistic and mean "reporting" which serves no public good. Them being sunk seems almost a public good in my opinion.
Let me put it this way: I don't care for Gawker and wouldn't mind personally if it sank (though there are good journalists there doing good work); I do care for the potential chilling effect this could have on other media.
(And let me make clear that I do think Bollea should have been compensated and Gawker punished, just not with $115 million.)
So I see a lot of journalists on twitter defending Gawker. In my opinion Gawker is making journalists look bad at first place. I believe in press freedom but is "revenge porn" freedom of press ? If an unknown party leaked that sex tape, most journalists would condemn that and not label it "freedom of speech" so why the double standard ?
Personally, I think that while Gawker wasn't right to release the tape, fining them $115 million isn't right either. $115 million could easily sink Gawker entirely. I'm not exactly the biggest fan of the place but it's a dangerous precedent to set for press freedom if a single editor's single bad decision can take down an entire site. Of course, the amount is likely to be revised down in appeals.
So I see a lot of journalists on twitter defending Gawker. In my opinion Gawker is making journalists look bad at first place. I believe in press freedom but is "revenge porn" freedom of press ? If an unknown party leaked that sex tape, most journalists would condemn that and not label it "freedom of speech" so why the double standard ?
Yes. It is freedom of the press. Leaking the tape to the public should be punishable, but just broadcasting information obtained should not be. Gawker did not produced said sex tape. On a personal level I would love to see Gawker the company fold - but punishing media for publishing true facts is troubling. After all Eliot Spitzer and Anthony Wiener also had their privacy invaded. The idea of a media outlet being sue…
someone give gawker your bank account details, and gawker decides to publish. it's okay for gawker to do this?
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Sweden recently created a new law to explicit punish those who distribute sexual videos and images of a person without their consent. They don't distinguish if the images was stolen, created without the victims knowledge, or even created with consent. The law makers recognize the damage that non-consenting distribution cause.
Constitutions are created to kill popular, reasonable laws. There are plenty of disincentives for bad behavior that don't require the force of law.
I think @Popehat summed this up nicely: https://twitter.com/Popehat/status/710972390566563845 First they came for Gawker, and I did not speak out. Because fuck Gawker.
Bad things happen to bad people too :^)
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It wasn't just about earnings. $55 million was for economic injuries and $60 million for emotional distress.
How do you find a number for emotional distress? I get the feeling numbers in US lawsuits are made up and adjusted for the receiver -- I.e you can sue McDonalds for a larger sum after burning on a cup of coffee than you can the coffee shop on the corner, despite your own costs/damages being the same? Isn't that using a lawsuit as a kind of punishment, something which should be reserved for a criminal case?
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I don't think Bollea is a particularly good person, but I'm not clear on how his conduct in this controversy was "contemptible". For the 1A concern here, consider the Anthony Weiner case, in which indisputably private photos of Weiner were also published. I don't like that they were (I think he could have been just as effectively ejected from public life with good writing) but it's concerning to think that he'd have…
In the Wiener case he was sending the pictures of his crotch via SMS. There's no expectation of privacy from content that you've shared willingly, no matter how perverted the content.
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How do you find a number for emotional distress? I get the feeling numbers in US lawsuits are made up and adjusted for the receiver -- I.e you can sue McDonalds for a larger sum after burning on a cup of coffee than you can the coffee shop on the corner, despite your own costs/damages being the same? Isn't that using a lawsuit as a kind of punishment, something which should be reserved for a criminal case?
if/when mcdonalds gets dinged with amounts more suitable to a mom 'n pop shop, they give zero shits.
The difference is that a multi million fine would be awarded by a criminal court, since it is a punishment, and the money would go to the government and not to whoever got a hot coffee. It's perfectly fine if a small business would be fined 1% of their revenue, and McDonald's would be too.
I know this is probably some quirk of the US legal system but I really don't understand the benefits of having civil courts dealing with punishments that seem arbitrarily set by one part in the case rather than by law.
I am sure Gawker didn't help their case with jurors when they said they would only draw a line at posting a sex tape of a four year old [1]. If they did have a chance of winning this case, they totally shot themselves in the foot with their testimony. [1] http://nypost.com/2016/03/09/gawker-editors-line-a-sex-tape-...
A lawyer prepping someone for testimony will say: "Remember, your job here is not to score points. All you want to do is to prevent points from being scored." Meaning don't lose your cool, never be glib, never make jokes, don't try to pretend you're smarter than the attorney, don't lie, but most of all, don't state anything more than the minimum necessary to answer the question. Good advice that's too easily forgotte…