
The R. Kelly ‘cult’ story and the ‘Gawker Effect’ - iamjeff
https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/that-r-kelly-cult-story-almost-never-ran-thank-hulk-hogan-for-that/2017/07/30/19e1f8ea-72c5-11e7-8839-ec48ec4cae25_story.html
======
jgacook
Gawker posted a sex tape of Hulk Hogan online, without his consent, and
refused to take it down. It was a tape that the Gawker editor who posted it
had to admit in court had no news value. It's pretty disgusting to hear WaPo
hand-wring over rape culture without addressing the fact that Gawker's non-
consensual posting of two people's sex act is the very definition of rape
culture. Peter Thiel is an unlikeable human for many reasons, but let's not
forget that Gawker also outed him as gay without his permission. WaPo skips
over that too.

It sounds like the outcome of Hogan v. Gawker is that news media - and
especially the ream of online-only "news" sites that have sprouted over the
past decade - are far more likely to fact check their stories before they
publish stories that only serve to humiliate and degrade their subjects.
Sexual predator or not, slow coverage of the R. Kelly debacle can hardly be
pinned on Hulk Hogan holding Gawker accountable for their actions.

~~~
tptacek
I agree: my attitude towards the Thiel/Hogan/Gawker fiasco was, as someone
else put it, _first they came for Gawker, and I said nothing, because fuck
Gawker_.

But what's your point? The Gawker fiasco absolutely did spook other media
outlets and has made them nervous about publishing negative stories about
other media figures. That's what WaPo is observing here.

~~~
mmjaa
> them nervous about publishing negative stories

But thats a good thing. We are witnessing checks and balances in play. The
Fifth Estate is necessary, whether we like it or not - power always corrupts,
and media have power that we, the people, do not. How else should things
continue: totally unchecked?

~~~
jgalt212
I think you meant Fourth Estate

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_Estate](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_Estate)

~~~
Intermernet
The fifth estate[1] has apparently existed for a while now, despite my hatred
of all "nth estate" nomenclature

Seriously, in the US, if you regard the clergy, nobleman and peasants (the
traditional first 3 estates) as the most important power structures, then you
need to recalibrate your world view.

[1][https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fifth_Estate](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fifth_Estate)

~~~
vec
That's the origin of the phrase, yes, but in the US the phrase "Fourth Estate"
has been bastardized to mean "Fourth Branch of Government".

------
austenallred
Am I the only one who sees a major difference between publishing a negative
story about someone and publishing an illegaly-obtained sex tape in its
entirety, and refusing to take it down after a judge orders to do so?

I get the concern that blowback a could happen, but Gawker died because of
Gawker, not just because some rich guy went after them.

~~~
awkwarddaturtle
> but Gawker died because of Gawker, not just because some rich guy went after
> them.

No. Gawker died because of a billionaire who wanted to take it down and the
mass PR firm he hired to get people on his side on social media.

Also, the top comments on this thread are repeating the same lies over and
over again.

> publishing an illegaly-obtained sex tape in its entirety

Was it illegal? Then why isn't the gawker people in prison?

> and refusing to take it down after a judge orders to do so?

They have a right to refuse an unconstitutional order and their refusal was
vindicated by the courts.

"The injunction was quickly stayed on appeal, and was denied in 2014 by the
appeals court, which ruled that under the circumstances it was an
unconstitutional prior restraint on speech under the First Amendment."

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bollea_v._Gawker](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bollea_v._Gawker)

The courts ruled that the judge's injunction violated FIRST AMENDMENT FREE
SPEECH RIGHTS.

The top comments in this thread repeat the same debunked lies over and over
again. But I guess that's the power of billionaires and their PR firms. A lie
repeated over and over again becomes the truth?

~~~
openasocket
You have the right to appeal a temporary injunction for your sex tape and
publish it without the approval of the subject, but people also have the right
to judge you for that. You're also ignoring the part where Gawker lost at
trial. They lost because the Gawker editor admitted under cross-examination he
did not believe a depiction of Hulk Hogan's genitals had any "news value."

On a more personal note, I really don't see any difference between this case
and "revenge porn" cases.

~~~
awkwarddaturtle
> You have the right to appeal a temporary injunction for your sex tape and
> publish it without the approval of the subject

I know. That's my point. Not only that, the appeals court ruled in favor of
gawkers.

> but people also have the right to judge you for that.

Sure...

>You're also ignoring the part where Gawker lost at trial.

No I'm not. I actually addressed it.

> They lost because the Gawker editor admitted under cross-examination he did
> not believe a depiction of Hulk Hogan's genitals had any "news value."

No. That's not why they lost. Trials are FICKLE.

> On a more personal note, I really don't see any difference between this case
> and "revenge porn" cases.

What does this have to do with "revenge porn"?

~~~
openasocket
I've looked at the facts of the case, and it seems clear to me that Gawker was
guilty of an invasion of privacy, and the intentional infliction of emotional
distress. Can you give me an argument, based on the facts of the case, that
Gawker did not commit those violations?

------
Zafira
I feel like virtually all of the comments here are focusing on the fact that
Gawker, as a company, was generally unethical and harmed a lot of people for
no good reason.

This is _not_ the point. Hulk Hogan is entirely moot to the issue at hand.

Hogan's case was just a vehicle for Thiel's goal of getting back at a company
who had written articles that he disliked. What Thiel did was to tell people
with deep enough pockets to see that it's possible to destroy someone for
writing articles that they disagree with. The case was structured to ensure
that Gawker could not rely on insurance for paying certain damages and that
people became personally liable for the damages arising from the case[1].

So, imagine that Warren Buffet dislikes an expose in the Chicago Tribune about
him. He then waits for someone to have a grievance against them and then tells
that person that he'll provide all the financial resources to drag this case
on for years and refuse to settle or repeatedly finds various proxy parties
and repeats this behavior. Tronc is then forced to sell assets to keep afloat
while dealing with this litigation.

Thiel's behavior shows this works and that most people seem okay with it.
That's the problem.

[1][https://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/02/business/media/nick-
dento...](https://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/02/business/media/nick-denton-
gawker-bankruptcy.html)

~~~
AlexB138
I don't follow the logic here. Gawker was brought down via the Hogan case,
which was financed by Thiel.

Do you believe the Hogan case was an illegitimate suit? If not, why does it
matter who financed it? I find the fact that it requires huge funds to win a
case much more troubling, personally. If the suit itself is legitimate, then
him winning is a good thing.

If you take exception to Thiel financing Hogan's case, why? Hogan very likely
would not have been able to afford the case without the financing, meaning
justice wouldn't have been served because he was not rich enough.

~~~
aphexbr
It goes both ways. If Thiel's money was necessary for Hogan to get justice,
that is indeed a problem with the US legal system.

But, on the flipside, Thiel was financing numerous lawsuits against Gawker due
to a personal vendetta, many of them much more frivolous and defensible than
the Hogan case. He clearly intended to bury Gawker, the Hogan thing was just a
way he found to do it quickly rather than waiting for their legal defense
funds to run out.

Both of these are problems. What's troubling/chilling is that Thiel hasn't
stopped, he's just agreed to finance other peoples' vendettas (in the first
case, Shiva Ayyadurai, about whom Techdirt are telling the absolute verifiable
truth when they say he's lying about inventing email). That's where it crossed
the line, and created a dangerous precedent that has a real chilling effect.

------
Overtonwindow
The Gawker Effect is that journalists are now, for perhaps the first time in
modern history, contemplating if a news story that is going to print is
actually news, or merely gossip. I don't think the Hogan or Kelly stories
should have been printed. They're gossip about someone's private life. Even if
they're in the public eye, I think they do deserve privacy, and media
publications should avoid reporting on what happens in bedrooms.

~~~
yellowapple
I think the Kelly story is valid, since it does involve behavior that might
very well be illegal.

The Hogan "story", however, should indeed have never seen the light of day.

~~~
Overtonwindow
I agree, and when the media reports on something that may be illegal, or
harmful to the public, that's news. A videotape of a man's private sex life is
not news.

------
tptacek
Well. It almost never ran in Buzzfeed (or the other 3 outfits DeRogatis
pitched it to). But it certainly would have run! DeRogatis has been on the R.
Kelly beat ever since he broke the original story about Kelly's statutory
rape. He didn't report this story on a whim. One way or the other, it would
have gotten out, and it would have gotten attention.

Not only that, but it's possible the story would have been better, or at least
sharper: Buzzfeed's lawyers cut back the allegations.

------
NietTim
Author complaining about chilling effect after venomous 'journalists' that
have outed someone as gay before, publish a sex tape without consent.

I honestly can't feel sorry. And the fact that this journo from wapo is only
victim blaming doesn't surprise me one bit.

~~~
a2tech
Gawker didn't 'out' Peter Thiel. Everyone in the valley had known for years
that he was gay. They posted a link to his public tumblr account that showed
him cavorting with young men in exotic locales.

~~~
Chris2048
Fine, they made his sexual orientation more widely known.

~~~
rurban
Hardly. The last time I was in the valley was over 30 years ago, and I still
knew from Europe that Thiel is gay. Not that I cared about that, only about
his hardcore libertarianism, german roots, questionable investments and chess
skills.

Eg the New Yorker outed him 2011
[http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2011/11/28/no-death-no-
tax...](http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2011/11/28/no-death-no-taxes)

------
endgame
Gawker didn't have to defy a judge and leave the sex tape up. Why is the
author blaming the victim here?

------
AJRF
What I read between the lines here was that publications will fact check they
story and ensure that before they publish the story has actual value?

News Media has really lost its way, it needs shook up bigtime.

------
honestoHeminway
The real horror-story is, how some parents educate there children to be such
authority puppets, that anyone speaking a little louder can hold force and
influence over them. Thats a attack on free society, right there, weak
individuals because so much easier to control, to educate and far fewer
suprises.

------
smegel
God it would be amazing if BuzzFeed was destroyed after Gawker was hulked to
death.

~~~
magic_beans
BuzzFeed has a lot of BS, but they really do support quality journalism as
well.

------
throwaway0to1
_> Peter Thiel is an unlikeable human for many reasons..._

Care to elaborate? I always thought he was just a startup investor, albeit a
very successful one.

~~~
somedangedname
In his own words:

"Most importantly, I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are
compatible"

[https://www.cato-unbound.org/2009/04/13/peter-
thiel/educatio...](https://www.cato-unbound.org/2009/04/13/peter-
thiel/education-libertarian)

~~~
hoorayimhelping
I tend to agree with him. Look at what happens whenever we put things to a
popular vote in this country. Even in places that re known as being very
liberal, like California, half the population regularly votes against gay
marriage and marijuana legalization.

Either way, someone expressing a loss of belief in something makes them
unlikable? You don't like Peter Thiel because he's become cynical about
democracy?

~~~
somedangedname
I think that someone who thinks democracy cramps his style has no business
advising the president.

~~~
oh_sigh
The president isn't elected via democracy. It seems like congresspeople should
be most concerned with democracy.

~~~
somedangedname
The electoral college is weighted representative democracy as opposed to a
direct vote. It's clumsy but still reflects the popular vote.

~~~
dragonwriter
It's actually unequally-weighted doubly indirect representation with
structural incentives (but no guarantee) for the representatives actually
tasked with choosing the voting representatives to both delegated that task to
the citizenry and a separate set of incentives and abide by the results and a
separate set of incentives (and, again, no guarantee) for the set of voting
representatives to vote in accordance with the preferences expressed by the
voters by whom they were elected.

And neither of those sets of incentives is, unlike the doubly-indirect
structure itself, part of the federal Constitution; they are both much more
recent federal statute and state law incentives.

~~~
somedangedname
Yah, so like I said it's clumsy.

------
alphabettsy
As a media group they did some incredibly shady stuff, I recall Gizmodo
obtaining a lost iPhone prototype instead of encouraging the finder to return
it.

~~~
lawnchair_larry
That's not shady in the least. That's journalism. They got the early scoop
because someone left it in a bar. The fact that Apple's hype machine wants it
to be a surprise isn't a consumer tech blog's problem.

~~~
Chris2048
Not if it's someone else's property, and you take it for your own purposes
rather than hand it in to the bar/law.

~~~
lawnchair_larry
That isn't what happened. Nor is it the case that they discouraged the finder
from returning it. Finder tried to locate the owner, and then contacted Apple
multiple times, eventually getting a support case opened that went nowhere.

So, Gizmodo said they would return it to Apple, and paid the finder. Then they
promptly returned it to Apple, directly contacting the employee who lost it
and making arrangements.

 _J: You work at Apple, right?

G: Um, I mean I can't really talk too much right now.

J: I understand. We have a device, and we think that maybe you misplaced it at
a bar, and we would like to give it back._

~~~
Chris2048
I'm not suggesting they didn't return it, but that they _specifically_ didn't
hand it in. Why did _they_ have to hunt down the owner? There's no reason they
had to maintain possession.

> Finder tried to locate the owner, and then contacted Apple multiple times

Give it to the police. No consumer-electronics publication required.

Is this the device? : [http://gizmodo.com/5520164/this-is-apples-next-
iphone](http://gizmodo.com/5520164/this-is-apples-next-iphone)

They take the thing apart? So they "said they would return it", but not before
taking the opportunity to fully evaluate the thing they decided to keep hold
of?

Also, how diligent were they as self-appointed owner-finders?:

[http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/apple/7731500/Steve-
Jo...](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/apple/7731500/Steve-Jobs-
personally-asked-Gizmodo-to-return-secret-iPhone-prototype-to-Apple.html)

[https://www.cnet.com/uk/news/how-gizmodo-escaped-
indictment-...](https://www.cnet.com/uk/news/how-gizmodo-escaped-indictment-
in-iphone-prototype-deal/)

It's not Gizmodo's business to handle lost property, especially when they
intend to gain something from the possession.

------
NTripleOne
I'll be honest, the only R. Kelly cult story I care about is Trapped in the
Closet - seriously, even if that's not your scene, watch it, you won't regret
it.

I think currently it stands at about 3-4 hours of comedy gold, whether it's
intended to be or not is another subject entirely...

