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    Graby SauceJohn Cook
    1/18/14 2:28pm

    Never doubted you had the right to. Supremely dismayed that you thought you ought to.

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      Heather SimonGraby Sauce
      1/18/14 4:01pm

      Crazy-ass Poor Taste, that's the Gawker way!

      PS: I love you, Graby.

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      Graby SauceHeather Simon
      1/18/14 4:23pm

      Aww, thanks! I need that after the non-love I got yesterday.

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    TheresDozensofUsJohn Cook
    1/18/14 2:33pm

    And that's how history is made, folks. Where were YOU when a Florida appeals court supported Gawker's right to post a clip of a leathery old wrestler boning?

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      victornightingaleTheresDozensofUs
      1/18/14 2:38pm

      I was in front of my computer, hugging my children and weeping with joy.

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      GregSamsaTheresDozensofUs
      1/18/14 5:33pm

      I was sitting in a restaurant, using the free wifi to check the news when the flash came up. I audibly gasped, and my waiter came over to make sure I was okay. I just pointed at the screen in disbelief. Soon, most of the staff and the restaurant's owner were reading over my shoulder, some weeping openly.

      Wait. No, that was the death of Michael Jackson. So easily confused with this momentous story.

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    Pikachu JonesJohn Cook
    1/18/14 2:22pm

    So you guys are Real Americans, huh. Fighting for the rights of everyone.

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      VeryWellPikachu Jones
      1/18/14 2:33pm

      The 1st Ammendment cuts in every direction like Darth Maul's lightsaber. We don't get to pick and choose. I think the issue is that Terry Bollea is a ridiculous name- no wonder he changed it to "Hulk Hogan". I'd've.

      (see infallible founding fathers)

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      wyominghippiePikachu Jones
      1/18/14 2:34pm

      Gawker took its vitamins and said its prayers, brother.

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    VeeDeeisFreeJohn Cook
    1/18/14 3:06pm

    You guys can't do a more thorough story other than a 40-word lede on your own legal victory? That's just lazy.

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      benjaminalloverVeeDeeisFree
      1/18/14 3:17pm

      The more that is said, the more hypocritical they look. Yes, they have a right to publish, but it kind of makes them assholes at the same time, and was a pretty pointless bit of speech to fight for, I think.

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      VeeDeeisFreebenjaminallover
      1/18/14 3:20pm

      Yeah, simply because you can do something doesn't mean you should.

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    OMG!PONIES!John Cook
    1/18/14 5:29pm

    Good for you guys!

    I support what you are doing just as I support Chief Justice John Roberts' opinion in Snyder v. Phelps.

    In this country, speech is protected. Not just pretty speech. It protects the distasteful, the repulsive, and the offensive. This nation professes to cherish freedom of thought and expression. Well, the full range of thought and expression encompasses the bad and the good.

    In this country, we protect homophobic hate speech designed the rile and anger, as best illustrated by the Westboro Baptist Church. That level of repugnance is protected. And therefore, because even that is protected, I can be assured that my right to free speech is similarly protected.

    The Hulk Hogan post was disgusting and repugnant. If you wish to make your bones by posting clickbait trash like that, that's your choice. I don't like your choice of how to make a living - by posting sex tapes that would turn even the stomach of Al Goldstein.

    But I like that you have that choice. Virtue as mandated by law is no virtue. Your ability to publicize vulgarity is proof of my freedom of speech.

    It is a sublime perversity that sleaze is the foundation of the First Amendment.

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      sizor_sisterJohn Cook
      1/18/14 2:31pm

      Congratulations....?

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        I Wish My Name Was DaxJohn Cook
        1/18/14 3:02pm

        I have to say that I'm troubled by Gawker's arguments in this case. As an attorney, I understand the slippery slope that develops when any type of expression or speech is suppressed, but I'm also concerned by the dangerously permissive atmosphere that this ruling may create.

        Are we really ready to interpret the First Amendment as protecting the publication and dissemination of celebrity sex videos? And where do we draw the line with this? Gawker readers are correctly offended and indignant when addressing the problem of revenge porn, but because Terry Hogan is a semi-celebrity there's supposedly some kind of valuable speech or expression attached to the publication of his sex video? How are the two different? Why are we so eager to defend the publication of a D-list celebrity's video-taped trist, but then demonize people like Hunter Moore?
        Revenge Porn Law Proposed For New York State Revenge Porn Law Proposed For New York State Revenge Porn Law Proposed For New York State

        Last week, California criminalized revenge porn. Now, New York state legislators are proposing a… Read more Read more

        I'm sorry, but I don't see how the First Amendment's protections to extend to this video. To the article written in response to it and the comments thereuner, there is undoubted protected speech, but to the video itself? I understand that the Amendment was designed to protect unpopular or marginalized speech, but when such speech violates the privacy of an individual and there is so little political, economic, or social utility in its publication, I have to believe that privacy interests should win out.

        The First Amendment is not a blank check. It's a novel (and at the time if its drafting a unique) responsibility belonging to all Americans. It's a wonderful and burdensome heritage. And just as neglecting it would have dire consequences for our country, abusing it to the point where something like a celebrity's sex tape becomes protected speech or expression could be just as perilous.

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          I Wish My Name Was DaxI Wish My Name Was Dax
          1/18/14 6:36pm

          [Follow-up]: After reading the appellate court's opinion, I have to amend what I said above (Bad attorney! Baaad attorney!) because, while I agree with what I wrote, the logic is flawed. The Florida Court of Appeals did not find that the posting of the video violated Gawker's first Amendment freedom of speech/expression rights. It found that to uphold Judge Campbell's order would be to create a prior restraint on the press, which is a First Amendment no-no.

          So...with that said...I fall back on my original argument and ask Gawker...what freedom of either speech or expression would be restrained if this video was not published? The only real social utility in publishing Hogan's sex tape is for identification purposes, however Gawker could have easily written up a description of the video and identified Hogan using text. I honestly don't see how publication of the video serves any social or journalistic utility. I still think that publication of a D-list celebrity's home-made sex tape should not be protected speech.

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          Xyl0c41n3I Wish My Name Was Dax
          1/18/14 7:19pm

          Thank you! You said, with perfect eloquence (and also all the right legalese I, as a non lawyer, couldn't) exactly what I was trying to comment below.

          This and your follow up comment are spot on. As a former journalist myself, gawker is pretty much pissing on, then setting on fire, then laughing at, the hard-won press and speech freedoms that have been defended and upheld in cases where they actually were threatened.

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        Xyl0c41n3John Cook
        1/18/14 2:41pm

        So, I'm all for free and public speech, even of subjects I think are unsavory. Hulk Hogan fucking his friend's wife is neither here nor there. A former Gawker employee's overly long write-up of said fuck session is also neither here nor there (for me). But, tell me again how publishing this sex tape is different than publishing a sex tape, boudoir shots, or photoshopped images in the revenge porn arena? I mean, wasn't it you guys who, just a few weeks (months?) ago published that story about the jerk who was publishing revenge porn shots from girls whose emails had been hacked? Wasn't it you guys who illustrated just how unfairly tough it was for revenge porn victims to seek redress and removal of that content via the legal system? How come it's not ok for those to be published, and you got righteously angry at that guy, but this is ok? (Now, I'm not disputing your rights to publish the story that was written... I'm asking specifically about the actual video footage).

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          elaine layaboutJohn Cook
          1/18/14 3:50pm

          i will pass on any and all hulk hogan shtupping videos ... but it's nice to see that an amendment other than #2 still has some force

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            IDRIVENEONJohn Cook
            1/18/14 3:41pm

            A dissapointment to all the little Hulksters I'm sure, but fuck Hogan.

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