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

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

is the woman in the video also a celebrity

guess she is now, anyway

Denton considers the Hogan tape not only newsworthy, but in keeping with Gawker’s long-running editorial ethos. “Why does this company exist?” he said. “This company exists because journalists kept secrets amongst themselves. They passed them around as gossip.”
For instance, he noted that it had been widely known in Manhattan's media world that CNN anchor Anderson Cooper was gay and yet, unlike Gawker, other news organizations didn’t disclose that detail of the journalist’s life.

Really hung up on that "scoop"

is the woman in the video also a celebrity

guess she is now, anyway

^^

publishing true things and distributing private video seem like two different things imo

i do highly recommend reading the links i posted above which might help clarify

The thing is I have now read those links and wherever this thing ends up legally it still seems like this organization is unbelievably scummy and should largely be ashamed of itself

the new york times helped talk the country into war and employs ppl who relentlessly promote policies to transfer wealth from the poor to the super rich :)

feel like publishing the sex tape is bad and creepy but also most of the proam media critics itt are wholesale consumers of media respectability politics and are basically dramatically ripping back the curtain to reveal gawkers public mission statement

btw max did u read my technology writing this week https://medium.com/@on3ness can i be the new vallywag thx i am srs abt this

fallacy of relative privation there lag∞n

i suspect u misconstrue my point

i think yr point is a creepy one that max + gawker are making as well which is that ppl's discomfort over gawker publishing someone's private sex footage against their wishes is related to their being "squeamish," or "consumers of media respectability politics," and not that they are reacting to the humiliating wound of having yr genitalia shown to the world against yr wishes. one of the articles tried to compare this case to the Flynt cases but Hustler wasn't publishing ppl's photos against their knowledge + will. they were selling smut. that's why ppl who opposed hustler were squeamish. that's not why ppl are disgusted by the hogan sex tape publication. it's esp rich on ilx to accuse ppl of ignoring Judith Miller talking the country into war, as though they dislike the sex story but they don't care about the crime of the iraq war.

nope

"the new york times helped talk the country into war and employs ppl who relentlessly promote policies to transfer wealth from the poor to the super rich :)"

"but also most of the proam media critics itt are wholesale consumers of media respectability politics and are basically dramatically ripping back the curtain to reveal gawkers public mission statement"

there's def an attempt to accuse ppl of hypocrisy here, and maybe also yr channelling deej's insane ongoing argument that if you intend to be an asshole it's not as bad that you are one

i guess what im personally interested in is like what are these media organizations formal missions and more informal cultural ethos and do they align, and are their morally dubious articles legitimate products of that or are they misfires, do they point out inherent flaws in their ways of doing business or are they acceptable collateral damage, does gawker correct something in the way the times does business, is there any news org that has ever not published bad things, shld those bad things be seen as a like a veto over their entire output or what

i think it's pretty clear that the publication of hogan sex footage aligns completely w/ gawker's ethos. it's not that having done a bad thing, that one bad thing should veto their entire output, but that this particular bad thing is symptomatic of an ideology that produces loads of bad things.

i do think gawkers ethos of correcting media respectability politics is a valuable idea, as to whether is actually plays out well on the whole is imo a pretty complicated question

this ethos has always been a part of gawker, and predates any afaik, ilx participation in the website

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2-avakrRUaU

but like what is loads, is it a higher % than other orgs or is it just of a less socially acceptable type, does is serve a purpose, how much of what they do is good xp

i don't think that being concerned about ppl's privacy - even celebrities (tho to a smaller extent than civilians) - is a good critique of the media. and i don't think squeamishness about publishing someone's sex tape against their wishes is a sign of media respectability. it could be that gawker does other things that are worthwhile in terms of critiquing mainstream media, but this isn't one of those things imo.

Hopefully the Gawker corrective will lead to respectable media outlets mining comments sections for stories.

feel like publishing the sex tape is bad and creepy but also most of the proam media critics itt are wholesale consumers of media respectability politics and are basically dramatically ripping back the curtain to reveal gawkers public mission statement

― lag∞n, Sunday, July 12, 2015 8:39 AM

nabisco mode unlocked

like gawker's mission (if it does exist) against imperialism and capitalist exploitation is not the same as its mission to publish titillating stories about celebrities. it's bizarre to conflate the two as if the same animating principle of honesty + transparency is behind both and you can't have one w/out the other.

seems the idea gawker is operating off of is less abt media critique although obvs they do that too but rather taking that media critique and building ones publication standards around it, the idea being that the media as a whole is keeping info from the public based on cultural norms that are way too uh normalized across the industry, creating a distorted landscape this is to no small extent about wanting to be seen as respectable authorities xp

so rather than rely on yr own culturally mediate disgression u just publish everything lol

professionals want to be seen as respectable authorities and the way they do that is by adopting standards in their profession that track w/ what the general culture sees as appropriate behavior. there might be doctors that are frustrated w/ various ways that their industry impedes their abilities to, idk, use untested medication on patients, give assisted suicide, disclose hipaa information, etc, and in places where we may agree w/ a particular difference w/ the standards we may agree or disagree w/ a particular dr's decision to fight against them. but gawker takes a host of very valuable standards - don't out people w/out their permission, don't post naked pictures of them without permission, don't run stories w/out having them confirmed by a reliable source (or two!), don't violate the privacy of civilians without a strong public interest, etc - and tosses them out and you want us to talk about whether in a general sense challenging media standards is a good thing. like, no, it isn't. maybe some standards are worth challenging but it's not a totally failed institution. it's a good thing that the NYT doesn't touch most of the stories gawker does. the media would be infinitely poorer if outlets adopted gawker's standards.

why do we have to pick? isn't it a better landscape when the times is the times and gawker is gawker

don't out people w/out their permission, don't post naked pictures of them without permission, don't run stories w/out having them confirmed by a reliable source (or two!), don't violate the privacy of civilians without a strong public interest, etc

the thing is Mordy's right. those are good standards unless there's a greater-good argument - if one had needed a Nixon sex tape to break Watergate open, say. most good-practices journalism stuff is pretty glaringly obvious. whether it's illegal or not, separate question, I suspect it's protected speech, but "I'm allowed to do this" is a poor defense of shitty behavior

mordy otm

and you want us to talk about whether in a general sense challenging media standards is a good thing. like, no, it isn't.

― Mordy, Sunday, July 12, 2015 12:28 PM (58 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

okkkkkkkk

our media has actually failed the country and indeed the entire world repeatedly extremely badly in a very predicable way

i agree that the hulkster suit is a clash of cultures. rich lunkhead bro culture vs rich white dudes from academia culture.

and of course when you make an assumption that standards do not need challenging that is by default pro status quo