I would just like to note, that the gist of the problem with Hogan is that Gawker has been ordered to remove the said tape by a court and they refused to comply.
That is the real reason why they got obliterated in the end.
That is the real reason why they got obliterated in the end.
This could have had a very real impact on personal relationships in both of their lives, which they've chosen to not publicise precisely because it's personal and none of our business.
Trying to argue whether or not someone's life was actually ruined is irrelevant. That's not for you to decide. It clearly damaged someone enough for them to dump millions of dollars into a totally legal retaliation effort.
Gawker had no right to do what they did, as determined by a court. This is the crucial point. They tried to screw someone by financially strong arming them out of justice, so Thiel did that to them instead.
It's absolutely tone deaf to say that outing someone as gay or posting a sex tape couldn't have devastating effects.
Gawker certainly were judged to have broken the law, and certainly did pursue a legal strategy that was at best unwise.
HN regularly anoints as justified activities that break the law if we find the law unjust or unwise, and typically looks pretty badly on legal authorities who impose massive disproportionate penalties on people who disrespect the legal authority.
The person who kicked off this thread asserted that this issue had "absolutely nothing to do with free speech", and that Gawker had ruined lives as a way to argue that this was not appropriate, hacker-like lawbreaking, but inappropriate, opprobrium-worthy lawbreaking.
The idea that this case had "nothing to do with free speech" is farcical in a "black is white" kind of way. It was about whether it was okay for reporters for a news organization to print a story.
The idea that it "ruined lives" runs up pretty hard against the evidence that pretty self-evidently, neither Thiel's nor Hogan's lives were ruined. Now, could we argue that perhaps they did suffer in some way for the story? Sure! Which is why I noted that the "ruined lives" thing was overheated rhetoric, rather than saying that it contains no truth of any kind.