Gawker Media is kill!

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/thr-esq/gawker-media-files-chapter-11-901536

GET FUCKED YOU CORRUPT CLICKBAIT PEDDLING PIECES OF ****!

Somebody doesnt like gawker

The implications of a billionaire being able to shut down a media outlet - however trashy that outlet may be - is more concerning, methinks.

You forgot the bit with the court case.

I'd agree with you if the lawsuit wasn't 100% warranted.

A court case can both be warranted, and the results chilling for what it implies for free speech. You can dislike Gawker, and be worried about what the case represents.

The course case itself wouldn't have been possible without Peter Thiel's backing. A billionaire with specific views spending his practically-infinite money just to shut down an outlet he doesn't like? That's worrying.

It is more concerning to me that it requires a billionaire to stop a company that is breaking the law.

"breaking the law" is a very flexible definition that comes into question when discussing the impact on free speech.

As an easy example, imagine what counts as breaking the law in Ukraine currently

We're not in Ukraine though, are we?

"do not share porn videos of random people".
I'd say that doesn't affect all that much "free" speech.
Although I agree setting the damage to 100+ million certainly is ridiculous as well.

that includes Kotaku. good riddance shoo!

It really isn't.
We aren't talking fair use here, Gawker was literally committing a breach of privacy. That is not free speech, it's borderline paparazzi behaviour.

We're not, but if you're not going to get the point I'm not going to waste my energy convincing you.

Hulk Hogan is not a random person, and his status is such that it's a completely different power dynamic to doing it to an unknown individual. This is not me saying that it isn't bad, and shouldn't be done. But Hulk Hogan was also backed up by a billionaire who is on-record as disliking Gawker.

That alone, legally, is conflict of interest. You don't think there might have been reasons why Peter Thiel was unable to do it himself? The Hogan case was an excuse.

The principle here is shutting down a media outlet with money. This serves as a legal precedent (it's one of the few parts of law they actually get right on TV so I'm surprised none of you are picking up on it). Gawker was in the wrong. However, the ethics behind a billionaire shuttering Gawker because of this just because he could are unsettling and paint a bleak picture of the field of journalism going forwards.

We even have people celebrating Kotaku being under Gawker because of their personal ideologies (primarily right-wingers, though left-wing folk aren't exactly a monolithic entity in awe of Kotaku either). That should also be troubling.

People would complain if I championed shutting down the Telegraph in the UK, despite it's pro-Tory right-wing bias that I believe has shaped our country for the worse. If I spent money to do it, I'd be accused of a bajillion things.

Why is it so different here?

I'm not defending Gawker.

You can hate what Gawker does, and be afraid of how it was shut down and what that means for other media outlets.

Do you get where I'm coming from?

Agreed, gorbles.

It's frightening that media is shut down by a billionaire for personal reasons, and we have people cheering for it.

So you say if the telegraph shares unvoluntary porn of any person they should not face consequences?

cola, why can't you read my posts? I've made this very clear, three times now:

1. Gawker did a bad thing. They should face consequences.

2. The fact that these consequences were funded by and only possible through a billionaire with a vendetta against the outlet is bad ethics as well as setting a legal precedent that could be abused against other outlets.

There are entire disciplinary committees for this in companies across the world for similar reasons.

The only bad ethics I can see is that it took a billionaire to push this through. Any victim should've been able to do that. I dunno about the details of the case, so I dunno if it really took a billionaire, or if that just sped up the process.

What I see is that other media outlets should not do things that are this clearly illegal. Yes there is a risk of self censorship in situations like this, but in this specific case I don't think it's very high. Any half way serious journalist knows that doing what gawker did is plain stupid, bad, illegal and will (or should) result in consequences.

Setting the damage at 100+ million, apparently too much for gawker to survive, sure is also a very debatable thing, but the gist "if you breach privacy of people this hard for it you're gonna face consequences" isn't bad. And it's important to notice that the privacy breached here wasn't of any importance to the general public. If somebody blows a whistle about bad issues that affect the public it's a completely different question. But sharing private porn videos? Yeah no.

Yes, it took a billionaire to push it through. How many other news sites are sued into oblivion by Peter Thiel, champion of the downtrodden? Do you know how many things tabloid newspapers get wrong on a weekly basis? They're mocked in the UK for their "retractions" which are tiny hard-to-read paragraphs apologising for a full-page spread revealing someone's private life unnecessarily.

It's a bad precedent. Bad all-round. It would never have happened if Peter Thiel didn't have a grudge against Gawker. And that is all sorts of wrong (both for Gawker being able to get away with it, and for him being the sole reason it actually went through), for all involved.

I tend to completely ignore tabloid newspapers, so dunno what they do on a daily basis. I also dunno much about Peter Thiel, except he apparently is pretty rich.
But yeah it's wrong it took a billionaire to push it through. That's the only thing I can see what is really wrong though.

All in all I feel pretty neutral about this. Like looking at stupid people somewhere far away that do stupid things. Let them be stupid, what do I care. It's not about real press anyway?

No, I don't. In fact I feel the opposite way, why did it take a billionaire to shut down a corrupt, shallow media outlet that should've been shut down years ago?

If what you're saying is that this is somehow beginning an era where any media outlet can and will be shut down by a billionaire with differing opinions, then I'm sorry but you're paranoid.