
The Next Gawker Will Be Darker - mudil
https://www.wired.com/2016/06/peter-thiel-gawker/
======
str33t_punk
I have been seeing a lot of people I know defending Gawker and I don't really
get it. If a business uses illegal practices they should be sued. There is
freedom of the press but that doesn't give you complete immunity for
everything. It seems like journalists these days think they can do anything
they want. Remember the News International phone hacking scandal? You can't
break the law to get profits. I wouldn't mind if the "next gawker" is
underground -- at least no one would be profiting on shady journalist tactics

~~~
thatcat
>Remember News International phone hacking

Did they hack Hogans phone to get the tape? >Gawker says it received the Hogan
sex tape anonymously on a DVD in the mail [0]

People are defending Gawker because outing Peter Thiel wasn't illegal and the
First Amendment is specific about celebrities personal lives being news
worthy. Hogan's a public figure by his own choice and the story was true, it's
not even really a case worth trying.

The fact that Thiel can bleed a publisher until it goes out of business for
hurting his feelings shows how unfortunately fragile the first amendment has
become.

[0] [http://www.wired.com/2016/03/hulk-hogans-nsfw-gawker-suit-
fr...](http://www.wired.com/2016/03/hulk-hogans-nsfw-gawker-suit-free-speech-
battle-royale/)

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codybrown
I'm the author of this piece. can anyone explain why this piece is flagged? it
has been submitted, upvoted to the home page, then banned 3 separate times.

~~~
tptacek
Users of the site, like me, with more than some (nominal, low) amount of karma
points clicked the "flag" button that appears under the headline and flagged
it off the site.

Your story hasn't been "banned".

~~~
codybrown
what's the difference? It was upvoted to the main page then flagging boots it
off right?

and why did you flag it if you don't mind me asking?

~~~
tptacek
It makes an argument I agree with but have read in dozens of other places, and
makes it in an insufferable tone. It's written in such a way that it will
generate a horrible thread here. Some topics are worth long arguments on HN,
but the Nth take on why Thiel vs Gawker is ominous isn't one of them.

~~~
codybrown
ah. just see you edited your comment here. glad you agree w/ the argument.

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627467
Why has this been flagged?

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minimaxir
Almost anything with "Gawker" in the headline tends to get flagged.

~~~
codybrown
I'm the author of this piece. why is mentioning Gawker grounds for
'flagging/banning' this?

~~~
minimaxir
Some people _really_ do not like Gawker.

~~~
codybrown
this post is about what happens if Gawker is destroyed by thiel... if people
really don't like gawker, then I _really_ don't think they'll like what is
likely to come next. this is a prohibitionist argument and it seems like a
good thing for Hacker News to discuss instead of flagging.

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Grue3
So you're saying the next [website doing illegal things] will be forced to go
underground? Well, duh.

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slantaclaus
Some people just want to watch the world burn...

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ldom66
Ooooh, interesting article, it's talking about... Oh, sorry I was reading...
You don't like ad blockers you say? Oh well, guess it must be a pretty boring
article anyway. Farewell.

~~~
dang
Please don't post unsubstantive comments here.

~~~
ldom66
This is a bit insulting. If you find my comment unsubstantive, please delete
it. I think this kind of paywall is threatening the web and thought important
to point it out.

~~~
dang
I certainly didn't intend to insult you! It's more that that kind of snark is
deprecated on HN, because it's associated with lower-quality internet
discourse and we're trying for higher quality here.

The point about paywalls also comes up so often that we've asked people not to
post such complaints in the threads; for the most part they're off-topic
ballast. Few people here like paywalls, but it just gets tedious reading the
same complaints over and over, even if one shares the complaint.

~~~
ldom66
I have to admit it was snarky. Thank you for explaining.

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tacos
> The next Gawker will be decentralized and it may follow the Wikileaks model
> or even publish on the dark web.

There are plenty of ways to publish someone's sexual preference or sex video
and you don't need to evoke Wikileaks.

Likewise I doubt the marketing maven for the next Adam Sandler movie will be
paying in Bitcoin for a site takeover of a .onion domain, no matter how many
celebrity nudes and confidential Sony documents it leaks.

