Daily Mail Published Nude Photos of Katie Hill. Now She Has to Pay Them $100k
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The Daily Mail published accurate, redacted photos showing Katie Hill engaging in drug use and sexual behavior with a campaign aide.
Katie Hill sued on the grounds that this isn't newsworthy. And they should have redacted more than they did.
There's a reason Katie Hill is the one paying the other side's attorney fees. This was an incredibly frivolous lawsuit.
Aside from her being a politician as other comments say.
> 18. (a) A Member, Delegate, or Resident Commissioner may not engage in a sexual relationship with any employee of the House who works under the supervision of the Member, Delegate, or Resident Commissioner, or who is an employee of a committee on which the Member, Delegate, or Resident Commissioner serves. This paragraph does not apply with respect to any relationship between two people who are married to each other.
Of this, Speaker Pelosi said "[Hill made] some errors in judgment that made her continued service as a Member untenable. We must ensure a climate of integrity and dignity in the Congress, and in all workplaces."
In this case, there was at least some other motive (exposing an elected public official engaging in an unethical/inappropriate/potentially abusive* relationship with one of her staffers).
*: I don’t know whether the relationship was actually abusive
Publishing a persons nude photos without permission is a hateful act.
I fundamentally disagree with the judge in this case. These were not shocking pictures of a crime let alone a serious one. Even if you think holding a bong in California in 2017 or a tiny tattoo of a run of the mill iron cross on her hip suddenly justifies it as depicting a crime, there is still no difference between describing it in text and showing it in picture. These are private vulnerable photos of someone naked. There is no public interest in allowing what is essentially revenge porn to be distributed of someone just because they’re a public figure. If your naked photos are used without your permission and weaponized against you and you’re not committing some crime in them that the public has a right to know about, it’s revenge porn plain and simple.
This is not just smelling of misogyny, a long past of weaponizing women’s sexual side against them, but homophobia, as the “shock” factor comes in part from her being naked with another woman.
Frankly, you cannot claim you value the right to privacy when it comes to Apple and Google etc. but then say, yeah showing someone’s nude photographs to the entire world without their permission for nothing more than a pornographic and homophobic shock factor is A-OK because it comes from the sacred media.
There are reasonable limits on freedom of the press. Very few, but this case is undoubtedly one of them.
The media don't have any special privileges. But the details of Katie Hill's life are of public interest.
> publishing extremely personal and private nude photographs of you without your permission for all the world to see
The photos were originally published by Hill and her husband for all the world to see.
> a tiny tattoo of a run of the mill iron cross on her hip
Given that ordinary citizens lose their jobs for the OK symbol and other such innocuous things, it feels like a throwback to another time to hear the phrase "run of the mill iron cross".
> homophobia, as the “shock” factor comes in part from her being naked with another woman.
I don't think so. Straight people, particularly men, have a strong physiological reaction to male homosexuality that doesn't really exist with female homosexuality. There's even evidence that the latter has historically been strongly selected for as a socially acceptable outlet for female sexuality (it "didn't count" as losing one's virginity or cheating). Hence it was often tolerated in countries that strongly prohibited male homosexuality (i.e. Nazi Germany), and when not tolerated was less fervently repressed. It would have been more shocking if the photos were of her and a male staffer.
That’s blatant homophobic apologia. There is no physical basis for a negative reaction to seeing gay people. That is a product of millennia of straight people banishing homosexuality from their society and perpetuating a hatred and taboo of gay people. I have never observed any non-homophobic straight person holding in their vomit when I kiss my boyfriend. The fact that you think observing gay people causes straight people to naturally have a negative reaction says a lot about what you think about gay people and homophobia.
Given these predicates, it's natural to expect that heterosexual men are more likely to be attracted to two females (twice the female forms) and not two men (no female forms).
> The results of the current study suggest that all individuals, not just highly sexually prejudiced individuals, may experience a physiological response indicative of stress when witnessing a male same-sex couple kissing.
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/19419899.2017.13...
Everything aside, I'm amazed and disappointed such a thing exists. More of character self-indictment of the people involved than anything.
In the same way that clinton was impeached over monica.
We want the press to be able to do things similar to this without repercussions.