hey gawker dudes. what the fuck is wrong with you?

legally speaking a "public figure" can expect a different standard of treatment than a "private individual" but it's not always clear where the line is drawn. judges often tend to see "public figures" largely as people involved in political life (esp. elected officials) since there's a public interest in folks being allowed to criticize them and know what they are up to.

using this legal framework as an excuse to post articles with paparazzi photographs of celebrities on vacation etc. cannot really be justified except in terms of the bottom line. the paparazzi do some pretty awful things and sites that utilize them are obviously complicit in that. so, in fact, are all the people who click on their articles. but that isn't an excuse for gawker et al.

not entirely self explanatory: do you mean to say "i don't think celebrities have the same expectation of privacy as average citizens" (i.e. they don't expect it to be so) or "i don't think celebrities have the same expectation of privacy as average citizens" (i.e., in my opinion, being a public figure means they don't have the right to expect the same level of privacy as a plebe) or "i don't think celebrities have the same expectation of privacy as average citizens" (i.e. everyone is in on the game, everyone is culpable, we're all normal horrible people)

"they" in that first option being "celebrities", natch

legally speaking...

i'm pretty sure gossip/tabloids are legal

xpost

If you didn't believe some combination of all three of those options, would you ever take a job writing for Gawker?

then it was picked up by antifeminists and other people who hate "outrage culture" or just hate jezebel generally. another day on the internet more or less.

― goole, Monday, July 6, 2015 12:02 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

in fairness it was a pretty egregious example of outrage culture

tattoo artists shd refuse to tattoo anyone imo

after all there are two kinds of people in this world: tattoo artists that refuse to tattoo anyone and those that don't

tattoo artists that refuse to tattoo anyone are like those pro-life "pregnancy counseling" centers where your "advice about abortion options" is "don't get an abortion"

i swear--by my life and my love of it--that i will never tattoo the neck of another man, nor ask another man to tattoo mine

arise then sir knight
for i dub thee
No Tattoo of Bridgeport

THR: Gawker has been accused of invading people's privacy on many occasions, from George Clooney complaining about "Gawker Stalker" to the Hulk Hogan sex tape.

Denton: Just once in a while, I think it's worthwhile to take stock and recognize that the supposed invasion of privacy has incredibly positive effects on society. It has. … Ten years ago, people maintained very different private and professional personas. Now that line has been obliterated. An employer would be a complete fool to let an image like college partying influence their hiring decisions. Because so many of those photographs have been published (in social media), it's been normalized in a way. Take attitudes towards gay sex and gay relationships. Yes, in part that's been driven by the outing of celebrities like Anderson Cooper, something I'm proud to say we played a part in, but more of it is just in the self-outing of people's friends through party photographs, through the random indiscretion on Facebook that makes it actually increasingly difficult for people to maintain secrets.

What does this even mean? Nick Denton seems like the most depressing dude ever; what a sad, grim legacy to leave

Sounds like a lobbyist trying his damnedest to be a crusader for a cause that's slowly eroding his basic humanity from the inside out.

not saying gawker is the most moral institution but whats the condition that causes ppl to think its the worst shit ever and write sad poems abt it lmao

It's called glawkoma

we need to spread awareness of this bad disease

I was trying for a haiku but I needed every syllable.

An employer would be a complete fool to let an image like college partying influence their hiring decisions.

You know the culture that gets countless girls raped on campus year after year? An employer would be an IDIOT to let that influence their hiring decision!

is he saying that image is ubiquitous or harmless?

I hate the idea of people not having secrets or being able to control their public image. It seems un-American: this is the country where people are supposed to be able to reinvent themselves.

If you've done something heinous then it's ok to be exposed obviously. "Outing" people against their will seems awful though.

xpost Yeah, it's kinda gross how unconcerned many people are about privacy these days, but I don't know how much of that is cause for legitimate concern and how much of it is 'lol ur an old'.

But, yes, outing private citizens or unheinous aspects of public citizens' lives that they strive to keep private is pretty unambiguously shitty, no matter how mealy mouthed you get in your attempts to reframe it.

its like a professional wrestler can't even tape a radio guy slamming his wife anymore

http://i.imgur.com/9MdzihP.jpg

cant believe ppl itt r defending this guy

its like a professional wrestler can't even tape a radio guy slamming his wife anymore

― lil dork (Whiney G. Weingarten), Friday, July 10, 2015 10:10 AM (40 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this isn't what happened. gawker should sue you.

this url had to be on purpose
http://defamer.gawker.com/jason-biggs-fucked-a-pie-and-then-got-this-sweet-ass-ho-1716586452

yes and i also made sure the post stopped at 69,000 pageviews

"in part that's been driven by the outing of celebrities like Anderson Cooper, something I'm proud to say we played a part in"

cant believe ppl itt r defending this guy

not about defending hogan

not knowing either irl, kinda like denton & don’t like hogan & think hogan is dick for not settling

but denton’s way of framing issue strikes me as bs; e.g.:

Denton calls the Hogan trial “nothing less than a clash of cultures”. In one corner is a self-proclaimed all-American hero known for the discussion of his “mancode” on shock-jock radio. In the other, a gay Brit whose Hungarian mother survived the Nazis, who lives with his husband in downtown Manhattan and makes no secret of his penchant for recreational drugs. Denton discusses at length how publication of the sex tapes is important in making a stand against celebrities controlling their own image, but fails to mention the fact that the Hogan story, tape now removed, has so far been clicked on 5.3m times.

“clash of cultures” here just = ad hominem. what if hogan was political refugee lesbian who rescues stray dogs
i just feel there’s some irony/hypocrisy in denouncing celebrities’ desire/right to “control their own image” when so much of denton’s rhetorical defense is based precisely on respective celebrity images

i’m a hardcore first amendment supporter; but also hold “privacy” (citizens’ ability to freely engage in private not public sphere) as essential value— don’t think that’s contradictory, in my mind it’s complementary. don’t think either are inconsistent with thinking a) hogan is a dick & b) propagating his private sex tape without his consent is NOT noble act of speaking to truth to power, but sleazy exploitation of unlikable person’s private possession

i’d have less of a problem if gawker just described contents of sex tape. i’m not in favor of chilling celebrity/ public figure gossip. but just broadcasting tape to the world, without consent, with impunity? that does creep me out

& in my mind law is/ should not be ad hominem

this is a case in which i’m genuinely ambivalent; wd like to root for denton but
(not convinced he’s in the right)

"cant believe ppl itt r defending this guy"

ya denton is shit

Denton discusses at length how publication of the sex tapes is important in making a stand against celebrities controlling their own image

okay lol.

you all realize i posted "cant believe ppl itt r defending this guy" right after a montage of hogan doing 9/11

totally missed that

ya :)

(aware you weren't making completely serious un-lol claim there, but yr post un-contexted still was convenient rhetorical starting point for me)

(sorry if i suggested otherwise)

(tbh so far it's hard to tell what anyone on ilx really thinks about merits of case one way or another)

just to be very clear since i think there's a misconception, the original post contained a 90-second edit, featuring about 10-20 seconds of actual sex, down from a complete 30-minute sex tape--not "the sex tape"

i’d have less of a problem if gawker just described contents of sex tape. i’m not in favor of chilling celebrity/ public figure gossip. but just broadcasting tape to the world, without consent, with impunity? that does creep me out

do this and you end up with a situation like gawker had with its first rob ford story--i.e., in the absence of specific hard evidence of the tape's existence, the subjects of the story are given a wide berth to deny/prevaricate. (even as it is now the absence of the original video leads to a wrong understanding of the case predicated on the idea that gawker published the entire tape)

i don't really but "clash of cultures" either, at least how denton describes it (if there is a "clash of cultures" its between celebrities/public figures [who demand the right to control their public image without criticism], journalists [for whom the idea of such a right is anathema] and the people who fall in with either group in that fight). but this kind of thing: what if hogan was political refugee lesbian who rescues stray dogs--well if hulk hogan was not hulk hogan, this would likely be a very different case and a very different story

thanks for clarification, puts things in better perspective

in principle i side with journalists (critics & criticism in general, freedom of speech as freedom to criticize). still, struggle to see airing bit of private sex video as ‘criticism’… on the other hand, do want that freedom interpreted as broadly as possible…

again, ambivalent. what i hear denton sometimes defending, e.g. in quote upthread re ‘college partying’ and ‘self-outing’, is not just journalistic right to criticize public figures— or their ‘lack of right to control public image without criticism’— but almost zuckerbergian idea of radical transparency, outmodedness of certain notions of privacy & the ethical benefits of world without it. this is more unsettling when you consider what constitutes ‘public figure’ nowadays, when not just ‘rich & powerful’ but even ‘ordinary citizens’ are public/online personae. i’m willing to go v v long way on 1st amendment grounds, but here i feel denton loses me

true that story was story in first place bc hh is hh; unlikely gawker wd choose to ‘criticize’ (or embarrass) hypothetical prlwrsd in that particular way
but if gawker can criticize hh in that way, wouldn’t some other site (with maybe different agenda) have just as much right to criticize hypothetical prlwrsd— or anyone else who’s a ‘public figure’— in that way?

tbh don’t know details of case, and details prob what will decide it

at least in interviews, denton himself prob not his best advocate

some good background reading:

http://motherboard.vice.com/read/hulk-hogans-sex-tape-is-about-to-go-to-trial-gawker

http://www.si.com/more-sports/2015/06/30/hulk-hogan-sex-tape-lawsuit-gawker-wrestling

http://www.capitalnewyork.com/article/media/2015/06/8570075/gawker-fight-its-life-hulk-hogan-sex-tape-suit

https://reason.com/archives/2015/07/02/hulk-hogan-gawker-lawsuit-free-speech

I just want to take a gander at Hulk's balls. Will clicking on any of those links help me achieve that goal?

have the love sponge and the hulkster patched things up

$100 million is a lot of money and I don't think the crime of broadcasting hogan's porn tape is a sufficient one to put a media company out of business (tho here it might operate in the sense of capone getting nailed for tax evasion). i do think tho that a media outlet shouldn't have the right to broadcast a celebrity's sex tape. i don't think the argument that bc hogan already talked about his sex life that gives the media open game to broadcast footage of him naked + participating in a sex act. even celebrities deserve some level of privacy and nothing anyone does, save signing away the right to broadcast footage of them having sex, should sign away the right to broadcast footage of them having sex.

I'd love to hear an argument for how this particular situation differs substantially from revenge porn.

publishing the sex tape is indisputably constitutional. it's sort of a dick move though and fans of gawker might wish their publication had a bit more of a conscience

I'm not sure if it is constitutional. I'd think the right to privacy would protect you from someone publicizing your private sexual content.

I'd love to hear an argument for how this particular situation differs substantially from revenge porn.

― Something Called Fudge (Old Lunch), Saturday, July 11, 2015 8:06 PM (27 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i guess i've only heard 'revenge porn' in the context of being an emotionally motivated, vindictive act, and i got the impression Bubba The Love Sponge and his wife leaked the tape for profit? not prepared to die on that hill, just saying.

I'm not sure if it is constitutional. I'd think the right to privacy would protect you from someone publicizing your private sexual content.

― Mordy, Sunday, July 12, 2015 12:18 AM (53 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

what did the founders think about revenge porn: a SCOTUSblog symposium

i do think tho that a media outlet shouldn't have the right to broadcast a celebrity's sex tape.

the right at stake here is not the absolute right to "broadcast sex tapes" but the right to publish true and newsworthy things. the specific nature of this true and newsworthy thing is only relevant to the extent that it makes people squeamish and therefore more likely to side against the first amendment rights of a publisher.

i do highly recommend reading the links i posted above which might help clarify a) how this differs substantially from "revenge porn" and b) why all precedent and legal thought establishes gawkers constitutional right to publish this (and why the case will eventually be ruled in gawkers favor on appeal even if the floridian jury rules against it in this case)

did we talk about this one anywhere? it gave me a lot of food for thought to chew on

http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/users/2015/06/hulk_hogan_sues_gawker_celebrity_sex_tapes_used_to_thrill_us_now_they_trouble.html