"Borderline" criminal isn't criminal and Gawker didn't operate from the United Kingdom or a jurisdiction where this isn't allowed, it operated in the United States, where the courts have been very clear on this.
Also, Gawker was actually taken down for defying the court's orders. Even if they knew they were right, that was a dumb move. You sort that out on appeal, rather than defying the courts. That is absolutely illegal, regardless of whatever defenses they might have had for invasion of privacy.
Gawker then compounded that by saying that they would have also posted stolen child pornography of anyone not under 4 in their deposition, as you can see on video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t0p4V1-va00
So you're not going to get much sympathy from normal people for a pedo-friendly, non-consensual porn publisher going down the toilet.
That's the thing, though, more than one person can be wrong here. He said a hurtful word in the heat of the moment which is morally wrong, but not illegal. Gawker made a deliberate decision to put themselves above the law and defy a court order. It's not a big surprise which of these would lose in a court of law.
I agree it was sufficiently murky to warrant some sort of monetary award. But hundreds of millions? You can't have it both ways – he's either a public figure, in which case some invasion of privacy is defendable, or he's a private individual, in which case that amount of money is in no way justified.
> Gawker then compounded that by saying that they would have also posted stolen child pornography
A Gawker writer made a stupid joke during a long deposition. Nothing in Gawker's history indicates they would have done so.
I don't see anyone laughing or smiling in the clip around 1:25 in the video I linked and a court deposition is not a place one would normally tell jokes. I certainly never joked back when I gave a deposition, I read tons of depositions on Groklaw and I can't remember any jokes in them, and I don't really think stolen, non-consensual sex tapes are particularly funny, either.
In short, I really can't find any evidence in favor of them joking and their bad conduct, like defying the court, points to poor judgement and weighs against any credit I might want to give them.
We're in full agreement about it being stupid, though.
> Nothing in Gawker's history indicates they would have done so.
Gawker's choice to defy court orders and publish stolen, non-consensual sex tapes means that I cannot give them the credit I would give to a normal person here in much the same way I would not be inclined to trust a drink handed to me by Bill Cosby, Roman Polanski, or Harvey Weinstein, as compared to one from a normal person.
You're arguing a number of points I haven't actually made. I can explain why the court did what they did, but if you think the law should be otherwise, you would have to write your representatives to tell them how you want to better protect media companies from contempt of court charges, punitive awards, and publishing non-consensual sex tapes or what have you.
As for the point on the monetary award, that was because of contempt. As I said, the merits of invasion of privacy stopped mattering at that point because they shot themselves in the foot with a bazooka.
But I have to say, I don't understand your point about why a private person shouldn't be entitled to a large award for having their sex life exposed to internet voyeurs. Awards like this are made for the purpose of discouraging others and are expressly punitive. The court wanted to put their head on a stake so that nobody would be dumb enough to try that in the future.
That's you. I've given testimony in a grand jury about a serious crime, and I might have made a couple of off-hand jokes. People deal with the stress of such situations in different ways.
> As I said, the merits of invasion of privacy stopped mattering at that point because they shot themselves in the foot with a bazooka.
Not quite. The merits of invasion of privacy stopped mattering because the litigant was being secretly funded by a billionaire with essentially limitless resources, and a desire to crush Gawker.
Without Thiel, Hogan would have gotten a few million dollars, the editor would have been fired, and this would remain a cautionary tale about how it's not cool to publish sex tapes of fading stars.
Personal anecdotes are meaningless, but if you want to compare them, I've been a witness in a first degree murder trial, where I gave an interview to the police, a deposition, and then was examined and cross-examined on the stand. I was a teenager at the time.
But I knew even then that cracking jokes in any of these was a bad idea. So, maybe you're like him enough to understand him, I don't know. I'd never joke about child pornography in court and I'm very probably incapable of understanding anyone who would.
I see a straight face with no evidence of joking and anyone can watch the video to make up their own mind, I don't expect to change opinions here. I haven't heard what you see on his face or in his voice that leads you to think 'joke' and I certainly didn't hear anyone laugh, not even AJ himself.
> Not quite. The merits of invasion of privacy stopped mattering because the litigant was being secretly funded by a billionaire with essentially limitless resources, and a desire to crush Gawker.
No amount of funding by Thiel could cause Gawker to disobey a court order.
Without contempt of court, and the terrible, terrible idea to "joke" with a straight face that they'd post sex tapes of anyone over 4, they might have survived. Gawker had competent legal representation and they had their day in court. Nobody but them chose to defy the court.
> Without Thiel, Hogan would have gotten a few million dollars, the editor would have been fired, and this would remain a cautionary tale about how it's not cool to publish sex tapes of fading stars.
This is an assumption for which you provide neither a rationale nor any evidence. Not even anecdata this time. It seems far more credible to me that not choosing to piss off the judge would've helped them avoid punitive damages.
Also, they went to crowdfunding to try to revive the site, but failed miserably. So they had their day both in court and again in the court of public opinion. Both times, they were judged to be losers. They wanted to be above the law and they found out that they were not.
I don't know you, but I suspect you weren't a regular reader of Gawker and its writers' general brand of humour.
> This is an assumption for which you provide neither a rationale nor any evidence
Settlements are the norm in the US legal system. That's not anecdata. Furthermore, Gawker Media (and other similar outlets) have a history of paying out sums of money to avoid court battles. They were expecting that this would be no different, especially as Hulk Hogan didn't have the money to wage a lengthy legal fight. It's extraordinarily unlikely he would have gone to court had Thiel not promised to pay any and all legal bills.
So you're right, I did give AJ too much credit here. You're right to point out that his straight-faced joke was meant to show contempt both for the justice system and anyone too poor to access it. A contempt he paid quite dearly for in the judgement.
It was about how just because something is legal doesn't mean it's right.
Just because something is legal also doesn't mean that they are taking "journalistic risks".
The world is better without Gawker.
[0] https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/bills/2017/s2725/amendm...