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No Thank You, Mr. Pecker

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Re: No Thank You, Mr. Pecker

#191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Although, it did, I assume, trigger the divorce which will cost him a couple billion dollars

Then all the more kudos to Jeff for doing this. Taken from the point of view of the divorce court, this is a LOT more ammo for his soon-to-be-ex-wife and her side. These photos are very soon to hit the greater web/papers and WILL be used against him in the proceedings. You are correct, this decision by him to speak out is likely to cost him Billions .

I think they are pretty mature about their divorce. I'd assume they just split things in half, because they built it together anyways. Seems pretty straight forward - I doubt their will be any public drama.

Re: No Thank You, Mr. Pecker

#192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there anything particularly embarrassing about them? All sounds pretty vanilla to me?

If they have no value in causing embarrassment, what value would they have as blackmail material? There's nothing embarrassing about being naked but I'm sure most people wouldn't want naked photos of themselves made public.

It's one thing to know that someone has taken a dick pic, but another thing to actually see it.

Re: No Thank You, Mr. Pecker

#193
post #34

The elite are really the only members of society who can successfully dismantle tabloid media like AMI, see: Peter Theil v. Gawker.

perhas because they are also the only ones who would care to do so?

and have the means to put up a fight.

Re: No Thank You, Mr. Pecker

#194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Depends on the analysis I suppose. This one makes it sound unlikely that the agreement will be voided: https://twitter.com/renato_mariotti/status/10936583665834229...

"blackmail is legal" is a pretty depressing take, but it does seem plausible.

Luckily extortion is illegal, and a venn diagram of the two is quite nearly a circle.

Re: No Thank You, Mr. Pecker

#195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Post, along with the Times, has been pursuing and reporting a story that David Pecker, AMI's CEO, has been working with a Saudi go-between, in part as an effort to expand their business. More importantly, Jamal Khashoggi, who we now know almost beyond a reasonable doubt† was targeted by Mohammad Bin Salman before Saudi assassins murdered him in Turkey (most probably at MBS's behest), was a Post employee. † Report…

How does that explain Pecker's rage at the WaPo digging into AMI's Saudi connection, though? Nearly everyone who wants funding at this scale hits up the Saudis. Describing that AMI looked for funding with the Saudi royals doesn't strike me as a particularly significant reveal; Musk did it relatively recently, and he wasn't excoriated for it. How is news that AMI is doing it worthy of a push-all-the-chips-into-the-pot…

This type of response is quite common when investigating criminal masterminds: Maximum outrage; Blatant denial; Threatening retaliation if the investigation is not halted immediately.

Whether or not Pecker is a criminal mastermind is for the courts to say, but his response does him no favors in the public eye and in the press.

Re: No Thank You, Mr. Pecker

#196

I'm impressed he didn't censor out the text that says what the photos contain. The post would have had a similar impact either way I think. Nobody should have to be embarrassed about harm-free personal activities though.

You need to describe or post the pics to defang the blackmail leverage

Re: No Thank You, Mr. Pecker

#197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there anything particularly embarrassing about them? All sounds pretty vanilla to me?

If they have no value in causing embarrassment, what value would they have as blackmail material? There's nothing embarrassing about being naked but I'm sure most people wouldn't want naked photos of themselves made public.

If he was a woman, releasing those photos could end his career as a C-level executive at any US corporation.

Re: No Thank You, Mr. Pecker

#198
post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Nobody is perfect. Gandhi was apparently racist and John Lennon was an egomaniac, I admire them both still for their efforts to make the world better than what it was before. Bezos still a human being like me and like you, whether you love him or hate him. I didn't say he cured cancer but last I checked, he puts ONE BILLION DOLLARS A YEAR into Blue Origin to help our species keep evolving towards a spacefaring civili…

Grey area? They mixed inventory and forced Apple to sue them to stop counterfeit goods from poising the public consciousness. They routinely fuck over small businesses by copying their products or allowing false inventory to compete with them.

Show me some real proof that Amazon is retraining warehouse employees with skills into high-demand jobs. It will be the first I'll hear of it.

As for building something better, doing nothing would suffice. They're a net-negative on the world. I'm not so negative on any other tech company. Most have redeemable qualities, but AZ doesn't. They're a brutally bad company and their founder is central to the problem. They're 10–100x worse than Facebook.

Re: No Thank You, Mr. Pecker

#199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Counterpoint: this is likely how a sterile robot would respond to an extortion attempt.

Sterile robots don't have naked selfies floating around.

One quarter of the first page of Google Images results for "humanoid robots" are unclothed, with unprotected robot surfaces showing.

Re: No Thank You, Mr. Pecker

#200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Gawker style?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bollea_v._Gawker
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