Happy Friday, kleinbl00!
I am torn on this. I have wanted to dance in the ashes of Gawker (and affiliated sites, of course) for quite some time due to their attempted hijacking and destruction of my passion (gaming) to line their pockets. At the same time, this has created a blueprint for the ultra rich (top 1% of the 1%) to use the legal system to destroy journalist outlets (and theoretically other organizations) over personal vendettas. If you didn't know, a billionaire funded Hogan's, and others', lawsuits against Gawker because he did not personally like the website. What happens when Scientology uses this method to silence critics? Or any number of other potential abusers of this methodology. Anyone with enough capital and a bone to pick could copy Thiel, giving money even more power over speech than it already has. Gawker was slimey as they come, but I do wish they could've died in a way that doesn't have the potential to chill free speech everywhere.
1) This blueprint is at least 70 years old. 2) Scientology bought the Cult Awareness Network over 20 years ago, after nuking the shit out of them with frivolous lawsuits. Thiel is doing nothing original. The playbook is ancient. This one time, it's being used for good. Don't shit on that.
I understand you're not advocating it generally, but "The ends justifies the means" is only ever rolled out as an excuse by those that agree with the outcome. It appears to me that mostly those are also the people with more power to control the outcome. I may well be blinkered here. Just because we (both) might agree the outcome is a net benefit, doesn't make it less of a concern. For example, I'd love to see the collapse of Murdoch's influence around the world, but I'd hope it comes from a base of people understanding the issues and taking action (however unlikely) rather than an individual blessed with power taking it into their own hands. Yep, I know how naïve that is.
It's interesting watching the semantics shape the response on this one. "The end justifies the means" is the flip side of "justice can only be delivered by the just" which, okay, but that's a very Western view of justice. Eastern philosophy would argue that karma cannot be denied and that its instrument is irrelevant. An Abrahamic tradition would argue that justice is abstract while vengeance is concrete. And let's take a step back, shall we? Peter Thiel legally underwrote Hogan's suit. Everything here is entirely above the board. 'member when OJ Simpson was innocent of murder in a criminal court, but liable for wrongful death in a civil court? I mean, you can be all uptight about how Thomas Aquinas or some shit wouldn't pursue every legal remedy available to him because it's somehow impure but anyone who thinks civil courts are just isn't paying attention. "The ends justifies the means" is the high-brow intellectual way of saying "playing dirty is worse than not playing" without understanding that fuckin' Joseph Pulitzer created a prize for journalism so that the world would forget that he talked the US into going to war with Spain via lies, slander, exaggeration and libel. This idea that journalists are somehow pure and unsullied by greed or vanity is purest tripe; pick me a journalist and I'll show you how he or she bent the law and crushed skulls to get to where they are. They perform a valuable service, and their freedom should be respected. But they shouldn't be treated like saints. They aren't. They just want you to think they are because they protect you from the government or some shit. Unless they're helping the Bush Administration rush us into war, etc. "The ends justifies the means." "A self-made tech billionaire underwrote the substantial legal expenses of a man who was videotaped having sex without his consent and whose performance was edited for salaciousness and then published widely. The billionaire was motivated by the publisher's sensationalist disclosure of his sexual orientation." Things are so twisted-to-fuck that we've decided that's somehow dirty. On the one hand, we've got Gawker, who pays people to tell them gossip so they can get clicks. On the other hand, we've got two people whose sexual lives were invaded for money and somehow, we're trying to paint them up as the bad guys. If this were lex talionis shit, Thiel would have done everything he could to smear Al Daulerio all over every front page on the planet: A. If they were a child. Q. Under what age? A. Four. But he didn't. He assisted a wronged party in assuming redress in a civil court, and Gawker lost. You can feel bad about that. I can't stop you. But you can't make me feel bad because in my opinion? Nick Denton dying of pancreatic syphilis under experimentation by Unit 731 would be A-OK. Do the ends justify the means? Who cares? I'll go one further: the ends have nothing to do with the means.Q. Well, can you imagine a situation where a celebrity sex tape would not be newsworthy?
Yeah - it really isn't the right idea but I got distracted before I had a chance to edit it.
They outed a closeted homosexual working in an industry that is not 100% friendly to gay people. This info was not news, was publishrd solely to harm the guy and it ended up costing him business deals. Let's not forget that. He has a right to be pissed. scientology kidnaps people, kills their pets and does other illegal shit. Not quite the same as outing a gay guy.because he did not personally like the website.
What happens when Scientology uses this method to silence critics?
Gawker played with fire, dared Hogan to sue, he called their bluff and fucked them. Gawker posted the lists of every CCW and gun owner in NYC when they were advised not to, some of those people were hiding from abusive family members and had to move. Denton famously said that they wanted to liberate 'common people' from the burden of privacy. There is a ton that can be said about Gawker, none of it good. They fucked up, did not pick their enemies well and are now toast.to use the legal system to destroy journalist outlets
If anything the one thing this says about the legal system is that it's messed up Hogan wouldn't have been able to sue had he not had the financial support. Even poor people deserve justice but this has nothing to do with harming free speech. As far as I can tell Gawker was held accountable for their actions which is exactly what the legal system is there for.
The problem with this is that litigation is expensive, even for the winning party. This had made suing journalists for what they write popular in recent times. Had Hogan not succeeded, we'd simply be having the conversation a year or two later when repeated litigation had taken it's toll, regardless of the merits of said litigation. Almost all of the people who were suing Gawker had merit to their case, but this would have eventually ended in the same result either way.
And nothing of value was lost. That said, it doesn't look like much will actually change. In describing why they're putting in the first bid, the CEO of Ziff Davis said: So it looks like they'll be back at before long.“There’s a tremendous fit between the two organizations, from brands to audience to monetization. We look forward to the possibility of adding these great brands—and the talented people who support them—to the Ziff Davis family.”