Kinja reply list

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ViaminVeniamJohn Cook
4/25/13 5:34pm
you guys are gross. take it down it's gross.
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  CommonVicesViaminVeniam
  4/25/13 5:46pm
  The remedy for you not liking something someone is saying/writing/posting isn't them being forced to shut up and/or shut it down.
  
  It's you not listening/reading/watching.
  
  The world is under no obligation to cater to your delicate sensibilities.
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  JamisonPCommonVices
  4/25/13 5:50pm
  I can't believe the argument for keeping this up. It's free speech? Really? That's your argument for wanting to keep an illegally recorded video of a man who had no idea he was being filmed online?
  
  I'm all for online rights, but you assholes are making a serious case for needing CISPA and the ability to enforce this shit - because this is wrong.
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ProoferJohn Cook
4/25/13 5:44pm
Really?

This is the Freedom Of Speech fight you're picking?

That is sad.
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  John CookProofer
  4/25/13 5:50pm
  Which other injunction ordering us to remove the editorial work of Gawker staffers would you have us fight?
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  Grim3Proofer
  4/25/13 5:57pm
  I mean, I know it is the principle of the thing, but I have a hard time cheering someone on who is fighting the man for the right to post a Hulk Hogan sex tape.
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yandatJohn Cook
4/25/13 5:46pm
John, this would be a better write-up if you more fully explained the reasoning behind taking down the video but leaving the text. Not that I'm disagreeing with the decision, but this is obviously going to be the first reaction most people have when they view the article in question.
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  John Cookyandat
  4/25/13 5:54pm
  The order to remove the purely editorial work of a Gawker staffer describing what he had seen—no matter how frivolous or dumb or salacious—is plainly unconstitutional. The order to take down the video was mistaken, but it's a far different thing than barring a reporter from writing true things about what he'd watched.
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  yandatJohn Cook
  4/25/13 6:13pm
  Ok, I guess it's hedging bets to take down the video - but the only person Hulk Hogan should be able to prosecute for violating privacy is whoever secretly filmed and released the sex tape. The Apache helicopter video released by Wikileaks is a good example of this principle; the government can legally prosecute Bradley Manning for personally downloading and then leaking the video, however it cannot then prosecute every subsequent publication of that leaked video.
  
  The Hulk Hogan sex tape doesn't show crimes against humanity (well, uh, it's close) but the legal principle is the same.
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Graby SauceJohn Cook
4/25/13 5:42pm
Maybe just take it down because that would be the decent thing to do? If these people did not knowingly make or make public this sex act, and if this act isn't otherwise in the public interest, why should Gawker publish it? There is nothing fascinating about the tape; we don't learn anything new about sex with that tape. It only serves to embarrass and humiliate people who are not the worst people in the world and have done nothing to hurt Gawker. Gawker may be within their constitutional rights to publish it, but so what? Sometimes we refrain from doing things that are within our rights to do in order to avoid needlessly hurting people.
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  RaymondFoxGraby Sauce
  4/25/13 8:08pm
  Because the court has ordered it taken down and has willfully and outrageously overstepped its bounds by doing that, Gawker CAN'T back down at this point.
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  Graby SauceRaymondFox
  4/25/13 8:27pm
  They could have done it when he asked months ago.
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cuntybawsJohn Cook
4/25/13 8:14pm
I'm pleased only because it might become a landmark case and forever more, lawyers in fancy suits will be standing in futuristic court-rooms invoking "Gawker versus Hulk Hogan" and folks will call the archaic moving images up on their retina lenses and go "eeew".
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  actually...cuntybaws
  8/19/16 10:47am
  you are a true visionary.
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  cuntybawsactually...
  8/19/16 11:01am
  I warned em, I surely did, but did they listen?
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storiesfromthefireJohn Cook
4/25/13 6:02pm
As an avid Gawker reader, I read the piece in its entirety and also watched the edited video posted with the story. I can assure anyone who hasn't seen the video that the article was much, much funnier than the video, and A. J. pointed out tons of things that I wouldn't have even noticed if I hadn't read the piece first, and described some of what he edited out. He must have watched that thing 100 times. The video itself was boring, grainy, and uncomfortable to watch. But furthermore I'd like to thank Gawker for (almost) never backing down to this anti-1st-amendment pressure. I can remember a lot of times when every news organization EXCEPT Gawker took down some controversial video/picture. You guys rule.
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  storiesfromthefirestoriesfromthefire
  4/25/13 6:10pm
  And yeah this is by far not the most important 1st amendment fight out there, but #1 it's hilarious, and #2 any illegal curtailing of any right creates a precedent to curtail that right in the future. If the Westboro Baptist Church is protected by the 1st amendment so they can hold signs saying "GOD HATES DEAD SOLDIERS" and "GOD HATES FAGS" at soldiers' funerals, then AJ's article should stand. I can think of a lot more harmful uses of the 1st amendment out there than a description of a sex tape.
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  Jaggrstoriesfromthefire
  4/25/13 8:05pm
  My thought's exactly. I also think protecting even the smallest, silliest thing (such as this) makes a larger statement.
  
  Kinda reminds me of the Kate Middleton picture scandal. As an English person, and just generally someone with a sense of decency, I thought that climbing a tree to take a picture of her topless when she had a certain right to privacy was fucked up. However, that the palace was able to pressure English newspapers and magazines into not printing it was just a shitty example of how the law doesn't apply to certain cases or people just because they are famous (or royalty or whatever). Point is, until the people behind all those creepshots/those naked pics of ex-gf's can't hide behind the law, then why should Hulk Hogan?
  
  Also, seriously. Paris Hilton's was less dull.
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Brian Williams dreams of cat gifsJohn Cook
4/25/13 6:51pm
Unfortunately, refusing court ordered injunctions will give you a more difficult time should the injunction not be reversed and this go to appeals.

I admire Gawker Media's willingness to face the fines and charges that might be coming in the name of press freedom. It doesn't matter that it's over the Hulk Hogan sex tape, it's still just as important as an expose of top level government proceedings. Rights are rights and giving them up for something trivial is still giving them up.
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wensdazechyldJohn Cook
4/25/13 6:17pm
Sometimes things are worth fighting for. This isn't the right fight. Fighting in order to belittle someone who has shamed himself anyway is not a fight you should be willing to battle. That's not to say that the right to 'free speech' etc isn't worth defending - and I live in a country of massive censorship. But sometimes self-censorship is appropriate and it seems to me that this current fiasco is simply designed to grip readers whilst lowering the tone of Gawker. Who wins with this fight exactly? Hogan is obviously embarrassed. Gawker has fallen into the trap of nasty tabloid press. Hogans sex tape and transcript don't need to be published here - there are other outlets that are more appropriate in my mind, and as such I think Gawker were mistaken in putting the vid and transcript online and then made a second mistake by trying to defend it's right to do so. Sometimes it's not about whether we can do something, but whether we SHOULD. I personally believe this is a time for you to back down.
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  Frank_Elwayswensdazechyld
  4/25/13 7:12pm
  Living in a country with "massive censorship" has stunted your understanding of freedom of the press. Here, in the good ol' USA, the government is not supposed to be able to tell a news organization to take down its own reporter's editorial work. This is surely worth fighting for. So in answer to your question who wins with this fight, if Gawker does not continue against this crazy-ass judge and her clearly insane ruling, then the answer is government censorship wins. Please stay in whatever god forsaken freedom deprived third world country (Australia most likely) you live in. You don't get us.
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  RaymondFoxwensdazechyld
  4/25/13 8:06pm
  You never, ever, ever, ever back down when challenged by a court on something related to the First Amendment. Ever. You can make the argument that Gawker are a bunch of shitbags for not taking it down when Hulk asked nicely, but the only response to a court telling a media outlet to stop publishing something is: no.
  
  Also, the fact that this is despicable and sleazy is why it must be protected. We can't start deciding to not protect speech simply because it's distasteful. This, we can all agree, is distasteful — the next thing we may not all agree, and it will be too late.
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BeefBroccoliJohn Cook
4/26/13 11:03am
You cannot ever bend on the first Amendment. Ever. Okay, in real life yes. In court where precedent may be set, Never.

While, this is the stupidest, perhaps worst thing in the world to want to show to the people. A judge ordering you to take down, non-lible, non-slanderous, non-dangerous information is clearly in violation of the first amendment

As for the people saying, "Take it down, it's gross". You have the most valid argument. If a judge hadn't purposely infringed on Gawkers freedom of press/speech, they might be in a position to take it down out of sheer decency. Unfortunately, the judge has effectively made it impossible for them to do so.
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kingdom2000John Cook
4/25/13 8:35pm
I do believe the comments are a test case on just how education the citizens are not on the Constitution and especially the first. Ironic considering so many are willing to fight for the 2nd. 1st...eh only worth it if agree with the what fighting about.

The issue here is free speech. It doesn't matter if a sex tape, penis jokes, or a dissertation on some important event of the day. It should be protected. Libel and slander (aka defamation) assumes that a) lies are being told and b) told with intent to harm. By no stretch of the imagination does that apply here. People need to quit bringing up words they clearly do not understand.

As for why fights, its because US law hinges on precedent. Precedent is decided by how judges interpret the intent of a law and those that follow tend to agree with the precedent that is set (until they don't and overturns it creating a new precedent
).

If a circuit judges interprets free speech as only apply to words spoken out loud or only applying if the discussion is "valid", then we might as well shut down the internet, libraries, newspapers and magazines right now. Assuming the latter...who decides what is "valid". You? Me? Your local pastor? A politician? Only a judge? Only if it doesn't offend? Well I find most of the posts here saying "why bother fighting this" offensive. Does this mean I can go to a judge and get your Gawker posts pulled?

Nevermind how the precedent could be applied to everyone about anything. So today its don't publish words describing a sex act with a D-list celebrity. What about tomorrow? Can't talk about politician committing a sex act with someone not his wife? Or maybe that talk about corruption at city hall isn't "valid" enough and should not be published.

Would letting this go effect you and me on a daily basis? Not today or even tomorrow. But eventually it could. I would rather not found out how the powerful could use such a precedent to their advantage.
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