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Gawker Files for Bankruptcy, Will Be Put Up for Auction

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Re: Gawker Files for Bankruptcy, Will Be Put Up for Auction

#531

Post by Retra »

SilasX wrote: post #489
unclebucknasty wrote: post #483

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "it should take an exponential investment to produce a linear impact on the award" I'm not sure how we would manage that but, assuming we could, doesn't this cut both ways? As long as money is in the equation, then don't all parties still benefit by having as much money as possible?

No, because (under the condition I described), the size of the award increases much slower than the investment, so it quickly becomes a losing proposition; the gain in award is exceeded by the loss in expenditures (assuming the bounds on legal costs awarded are bounded by a slower function). Under that condition, each doubling of the amount spent on influencing the outcome (via payments expert witnesses, bribes to th…

The problem is that a court ruling can result in exponential benefits for the victor.

Re: Gawker Files for Bankruptcy, Will Be Put Up for Auction

#532

Post by Retra »

FireBeyond wrote: post #208
nickff wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you'd like it if Gawker was trolling your feed (and those of your friends and family) for what they feel to be sufficient disclosure to post some gossip clickbait?

If I was a public figure (as most billionaires are classified, by the courts), and posted a picture of me on a public profile page, then I would be entirely disingenuous to say "you have no right to know this!". Just like in Gawker's case, decisions have consequences. Don't claim your sex life is private and no-one's business (and I have zero interest) whilst posting pictures of yourself on gay cruises. "Like" it doe…

Your right to privacy is essentially a right to determine what private moments get shared and which do not. It is not a decision you make once (at the time you become a public figure, or when you first post a private picture publicly.) It is a decision you are allowed to make with every private moment.

So this:

"Just like in Gawker's case, decisions have consequences. Don't claim your sex life is private and no-one's business (and I have zero interest) whilst posting pictures of yourself on gay cruises."

...is not saying that decisions have consequences. It is saying that people who make decisions you don't agree with have no right to privacy. You are arguing that a perceived moment of hypocrisy should somehow revoke a person's ability to make decisions.

Re: Gawker Files for Bankruptcy, Will Be Put Up for Auction

#533

Post by acdha »

selimthegrim wrote: post #524
acdha wrote: post #497

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I keep coming back to a very simple policy: disclosure. When the ACLU pays for lawyers, it's not a secret and e.g. a judge, government official, etc. making decisions about the case does so with full knowledge of who's backing it. As with campaign finance, this has two benefits: it avoids trying to enumerate all of the ways someone might try to game the system and it addresses free speech concerns by simply requiring…

Oh really, so then you'd be OK with throwing out the case law for cases like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NAACP_v._Button and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NAACP_v._Alabama ?

In neither case was the NAACP's involvement concealed so I assume you're switching to the question of whether this goes more than one level deep to include the membership lists. That's a good question – it would be interesting to see how a modern court would rule on something like setting minimum thresholds, or how many more options a state-level attacker has now to build that kind of list without permission.

Re: Gawker Files for Bankruptcy, Will Be Put Up for Auction

#534

Post by SilasX »

Retra wrote: post #531
SilasX wrote: post #489

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, because (under the condition I described), the size of the award increases much slower than the investment, so it quickly becomes a losing proposition; the gain in award is exceeded by the loss in expenditures (assuming the bounds on legal costs awarded are bounded by a slower function). Under that condition, each doubling of the amount spent on influencing the outcome (via payments expert witnesses, bribes to th…

The problem is that a court ruling can result in exponential benefits for the victor.

And if that ruling is unwarranted, it should take double-exponential costs to get it!

Re: Gawker Files for Bankruptcy, Will Be Put Up for Auction

#535

Post by dang »

throw10010110 wrote: post #228
olliej wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It wasnt illegally made, it wasnt stolen, it was in the public interest (hogan is a very public figure, and has gone on at length about being faithful, not cheating, loose morals of young people). So... Reporting on that seems like actual information that should be public? Compare to the pamela anderson tape, which was with her husband, was literally /stolen from their home/, and was sold for profit. Judge ruled that…

I'm posting this on a throwaway account for obvious reasons, so this comment is showing up as dead. Would someone mind vouching it? Thanks! It wasnt illegally made, it wasnt stolen, it was in the public interest (hogan is a very public figure, and has gone on at length about being faithful, not cheating, loose morals of young people). This fetish is called wifesharing. It's not cheating, and it's not immoral. You may…

I've unkilled your comment and marked the account legit, but please don't ask for people to vouch for a dead comment. That's no better than asking for votes, which isn't allowed. Also, please don't post the same comment twice.

Re: Gawker Files for Bankruptcy, Will Be Put Up for Auction

#536

Post by argonaut »

CPLX wrote: post #456
argonaut wrote: post #425

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rather than just relying on what you think, you would need to propose a legal framework that can actually be enforced, for distinguishing between the two. Because it is legally ambiguous. Because if your framework becomes "non-profit that publicly reports spending is okay," what's to stop a billionaire from donating millions to their own non-profit, governed by a bunch of their "elected" friends (membership fee = $1M…

That would be fine. The hypothetical billionaire non-profit would have disclosure rules, and the judge could determine if their charter was sufficiently related to be able to weigh in. This isn't actually all that complicated, we do it for amicus filings all the time.

And if the judge determines the charter is unrelated, for example, you can expect a never-ending series of appeals over that judicial decision. That's just one example.

Re: Gawker Files for Bankruptcy, Will Be Put Up for Auction

#537

Post by kofejnik »

sheepleherd wrote: post #443
smt88 wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Libel and slander have no place in a functioning democracy One man's libel/slander is another man's investigate journalism ("muckraking" in the US). In this particular case, Gawker wasn't guilty of either libel or slander because they didn't publish anything about Hogan that was false. > it shouldn't take a billionaire to sue and win judgement against slanderous publishers It's actually much harder to win a libel/s…

| Gawker wasn't guilty of either libel or slander because they didn't publish anything about Hogan that was false. ...not to mention, Hogan's public persona and living he has earned has been by posing as a larger than life clownish character; I don't even see that he was harmed. Ask yourself, do you think less of Hogan now? (and not because it turns out that he has less impressive sounding real name) I'd have more sy…

Jennifer Lawrence's persona and living are based on being extremely attractive, so was it Ok to hack her iCloud and publish her nude selfies? Strangely, Gawker crowd was very upset that no one went to jail for it.

Re: Gawker Files for Bankruptcy, Will Be Put Up for Auction

#538

Post by kofejnik »

wrsh07 wrote: post #318
karmacondon wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thiel was well within his legal rights. "Both sides are wrong" is a common cop out. False equivalency isn't helping

I wouldn't say they're equivalent. I find a private, rich entity shutting down a media company much scarier than a media company publishing facts.

The judge shut down the company, not Thiel. Or are you saying the court was Thiel's sock puppet? Then you have a much bigger problem.

Re: Gawker Files for Bankruptcy, Will Be Put Up for Auction

#539

Post by gd1 »

pron wrote: post #472
jacquesm wrote: post #453

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Spending a lot more money than that isn't going to get you a much better result. And that's precisely the point, if you don't have that money (and this can be quite a lot) then you're out of luck. The linked case is about a celebrity worth quite a bit of money and still it wasn't enough to get the case decided in his favor, it needed yet another - bigger - millionaire / billionaire to step in to sway the case. I do…

> The linked case is about a celebrity worth quite a bit of money and still it wasn't enough to get the case decided in his favor, it needed yet another - bigger - millionaire / billionaire to step in to sway the case. But that's not what happened. The case was "decided in his favor" a long time ago when Gawker offered to settle for a sum of money that would far exceed anything he could have expected in his wildest d…

> Thiel intervened not to win Bollea more money (indeed, he may end up getting less), but to pay Bollea off so that the case would be about hurting Gawker more than benefiting Bollea, which is what Thiel wanted.

Do you have any evidence of this at all?

Re: Gawker Files for Bankruptcy, Will Be Put Up for Auction

#540

Post by gd1 »

grellas wrote: post #278

A few thoughts: 1. The pressure point here was a court ruling declining to stay enforcement of the $140M judgment pending appeal. This left Gawker having to post a $50M bond in order to avoid enforcement proceedings by which its assets could have been seized and its business literally dismantled. Gawker may or may not ultimately prove to have a successful basis upon which to get this judgment reversed but, without a…

>To illustrate how this sort of intermeddling tainted the processes in this case

Do you have any evidence that the 'scorched-earth' came from Thiel and not Hogan? If not, you'd best withdraw your 'illustration'.

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