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Old 05-27-2016, 08:00 PM   #1
oilyfan
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Default Hulk Hogan vs Gawker

I don't know how many people are following the story of the lawsuit between Hulk Hogan and Gawker. It is an interesting tale, on the surface quite tawdry, and at the core I believe a free speech battle.

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

The gist of it is that Hulk Hogan sued Gawker for publishing an excerpt of sex tape between him and (his ex good friend) Bubba the Love Sponge's wife Heather Clem. Apparently this was filmed surreptitiously by Bubba and Heather in Bubba's home He sued for invasion of privacy, infringement of personal rights and emotional distress.

After a court trial recently Hulk won a jury award judgement of $140MM (he was only asking for $100MM). The jury rejected the defence argument that Hulk should have expected this scrutiny because he is a public figure, and that Gawker is protected under freedom of the press. This judgement if upheld in appeal will most surely put Gawker (and its associated media properties like Gizmodo and Jalponik) out of business.

Now it gets interesting. This week it came out that Hulk's lawsuit was funded by Peter Thiel, the eccentric billionaire cofounder of PayPal. Peter motive seems to be revenge as a gawker publication outed Peter as gay a few years, even though apparently it was an open secret in Silicon Valley. Peter seems to be, because it's not proven, also funding other lawsuits with different plaintiffs against Gawker.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/26/bu...th-gawker.html (sorry it's NYT, behind a paywall)

Gawker founder Nick Denton published an open letter this Tuesday to Peter.
http://gawker.com/an-open-letter-to-...iel-1778991227

And now today Pierre Omidyar, through his organization First Look Media which is a media organization active in the free press arena has come out in support of Gawker and will file a friend of the court brief.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articl...ded-hogan-suit

While I can see this from both sides my view is titled towards Gawker because I fear that this is chilling on press freedom. It is also a dangerous precedent where someone with deep pockets can pursue a personal vendetta in the legal a system.

http://www.theguardian.com/commentis...ar-billionaire
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Last edited by oilyfan; 05-27-2016 at 08:28 PM.
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Old 05-27-2016, 08:44 PM   #2
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My brief thoughts.

Good for hogan. This public interest bs shouldn't include publishing clearly private sexual recordings. There is no public good that comes from this.

The media is imo hilariously biased against hogan here. Free speech is not even remotely an issue here. This is about public figures being allowed to be reported on because of public interest. However it should never be unlimited. Gawkers brand of sleazy reporting only encourages hackers and their ilk to steal public people's most private recordings.

The Thiel angle is also bs imo. I've read quite a few articles at note that 3rd party financing for important litigation is super common. By getting precedent on the books that stealing private videos with no public benefit, it helps protect people from this kind of sleazy reporting. Thiel being outed isn't even comparable.
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Old 05-27-2016, 08:55 PM   #3
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Originally Posted by oilyfan View Post
I don't know how many people are following the story of the lawsuit between Hulk Hogan and Gawker. It is an interesting tale, on the surface quite tawdry, and at the core I believe a free speech
I think its more of a privacy rights battle. Personally, I think privacy trumps free speech.
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Old 05-27-2016, 09:09 PM   #4
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I can see the free speech concerns - and others have commented on them - and I recognize that it is difficult to separate the philosophical concern from the fact that Gawker is evil. IMO though, the publication of Hogan's sex tape is no different, ultimately than the theft and publication of the Fappening pics. And of note, I do not see any indication that Gawker published the photos from that - even though it published several stories about it.

The perhaps unasked and unanswered question here, however, is whether Gawker should be responsible for the damages Hogan suffered, or whomever gave them the tape.
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Old 05-27-2016, 09:12 PM   #5
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I think its more of a privacy rights battle. Personally, I think privacy trumps free speech.
Perhaps. But if we allow these massive awards that puts smal. publishers out of business I think we are left with only the big guys, ones that are capable of duking it out in court. I am not trying make out gawker to be the paragon of good reporting, far from it. But this precedence is concerning to me.
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Old 05-27-2016, 11:08 PM   #6
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Also, part of the evolution of technology, the immediate interconnectedness, wifi smart home, record to the cloud. Why do you have a camera in your bedroom?

When you snap that photo it's not on a physical medium, it's alive, in the cloud and potentially still on your device when you turn it in to be recycled even if you reformat.

Let's just saying i'm not putting a video camera in my bedroom anytime soon on purpose.
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Old 05-27-2016, 11:09 PM   #7
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What ya gonna do when the 26 inches of court mandated damages go wild on you!!??!!!
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Old 05-27-2016, 11:16 PM   #8
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To all my little Hulkamaniacs, say your prayers, take your vitamins and you will never go wrong.

Also, don't have sex while videotaping in your own bedroom when you grow up. Unless your are Kim Kardashian.
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Old 05-27-2016, 11:39 PM   #9
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To all my little Hulkamaniacs, say your prayers, take your vitamins and you will never go wrong.

Also, don't have sex while videotaping in your own bedroom when you grow up. Unless your are Kim Kardashian.
Except this wasn't in his bedroom.
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Old 05-27-2016, 11:44 PM   #10
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My bad, it was Bubba's room.
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Old 05-28-2016, 07:42 AM   #11
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I'm not a Hulk Hogan fan, I think he's a narcissist who believes his own hype, and can't tell reality from fiction "I wrestled Andre in these boots at Wrestlemania brother, and a week later he was dead"

That said, he was recorded having sex without his knowledge. The public does not have an interest in seeing people having sex without their knowledge or consent (no matter how intriguing an Umpa Loompa on steriods sex tape may be).

He wasn't in public, he had no knowledge, he never consented. No way should it be broadcast.
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Old 05-28-2016, 10:08 AM   #12
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Originally Posted by oilyfan View Post
Perhaps. But if we allow these massive awards that puts smal. publishers out of business I think we are left with only the big guys, ones that are capable of duking it out in court. I am not trying make out gawker to be the paragon of good reporting, far from it. But this precedence is concerning to me.
In the information age, there will always be a medium for the smaller guys. There has never been more access to alternate sources of information and if one goes down, another will take its place.

Gawker effed up and deserves what they get IMO. We don't need them (or anyone else) playing the roll of big brother.
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Old 05-28-2016, 11:39 AM   #13
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I'm not a Hulk Hogan fan, I think he's a narcissist who believes his own hype, and can't tell reality from fiction "I wrestled Andre in these boots at Wrestlemania brother, and a week later he was dead"

That said, he was recorded having sex without his knowledge. The public does not have an interest in seeing people having sex without their knowledge or consent (no matter how intriguing an Umpa Loompa on steriods sex tape may be).

He wasn't in public, he had no knowledge, he never consented. No way should it be broadcast.
I will admit that I'm not a fan of Hulk Hogan, I never have been. From listening to other Wrestlers that have worked with him, except for his circle of suck ups he's not a guy that's viewed very positively in the wrestling community as a whole.

I will admit that he treated me very nicely in Winnipeg when I pounded on his door and told them to quiet down because people were trying to sleep.

But just reading about how he treated this business, he's no hero and not one to look up to
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Old 05-28-2016, 02:09 PM   #14
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I for one hope that this lawsuit destroys Gawker.

Just the worst.
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Old 05-28-2016, 02:12 PM   #15
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Yeah Gawker is getting what's coming to them, the disappearance of them is a win for society.
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Old 05-28-2016, 02:13 PM   #16
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Denton is a tool, Gawker.com is trash, and Jezebel is toxic and hypocritical.

Hopefully he can sell of Jalopnik and Deadspin to someone as they're the only decent sites.
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Old 05-28-2016, 02:22 PM   #17
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naw, Deadspin is the same trash
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Old 05-28-2016, 02:45 PM   #18
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So is Jalopnik.

Honestly, I had no idea these were all owned by the same company and now that I do it's the most obvious thing possible.

What a fine collection of trash. I honestly don't have a horse in this race because I think both sides could do with disappearing forever, but if all those websites close down? The world is a better place.
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Old 05-28-2016, 04:19 PM   #19
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Gawker and Gawker media. Everything about it. It needs to die.

Lots of people complain about how the media is a shell of its self. We complain about real news being lost and instead getting shock journalism and gotcha stories written by people who have no real media accreditation or untrue stories being blown up by bloggers who don't fact check.

Gawker is at the center of this. They may not have started it, but they've certainly tried to perfect it. It's insane to think that a news site that deals mostly in fake bull #### and exaggerated stories will be undone by a man that got famous in fake bull #### and exaggerated stories.
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Old 05-28-2016, 06:32 PM   #20
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Gawker and Gawker media. Everything about it. It needs to die.

Lots of people complain about how the media is a shell of its self. We complain about real news being lost and instead getting shock journalism and gotcha stories written by people who have no real media accreditation or untrue stories being blown up by bloggers who don't fact check.

Gawker is at the center of this. They may not have started it, but they've certainly tried to perfect it. It's insane to think that a news site that deals mostly in fake bull #### and exaggerated stories will be undone by a man that got famous in fake bull #### and exaggerated stories
.
The definition of irony?
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