The R. Kelly ‘cult’ story and the ‘Gawker Effect’

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&#x27;s pretty disgusting to hear WaPo hand-wring over rape culture without addressing the fact that Gawker&#x27;s non-consensual posting of two people&#x27;s sex act is the very definition of rape culture. Peter Thiel is an unlikeable human for many reasons, but let&#x27;s not forget that Gawker also outed him as gay without his permission. WaPo skips over that too.<p>It sounds like the outcome of Hogan v. Gawker is that news media - and especially the ream of online-only &quot;news&quot; 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.

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

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.<p>This is <i>not</i> the point. Hulk Hogan is entirely moot to the issue at hand.<p>Hogan&#x27;s case was just a vehicle for Thiel&#x27;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&#x27;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].<p>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&#x27;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.<p>Thiel&#x27;s behavior shows this works and that most people seem okay with it. That&#x27;s the problem.<p>[1]<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.nytimes.com&#x2F;2016&#x2F;08&#x2F;02&#x2F;business&#x2F;media&#x2F;nick-denton-gawker-bankruptcy.html" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.nytimes.com&#x2F;2016&#x2F;08&#x2F;02&#x2F;business&#x2F;media&#x2F;nick-dento...</a>

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&#x27;t think the Hogan or Kelly stories should have been printed. They&#x27;re gossip about someone&#x27;s private life. Even if they&#x27;re in the public eye, I think they do deserve privacy, and media publications should avoid reporting on what happens in bedrooms.

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&#x27;s statutory rape. He didn&#x27;t report this story on a whim. One way or the other, it would have gotten out, and it would have gotten attention.<p>Not only that, but it&#x27;s possible the story would have been better, or at least sharper: Buzzfeed&#x27;s lawyers cut back the allegations.

Author complaining about chilling effect after venomous &#x27;journalists&#x27; that have outed someone as gay before, publish a sex tape without consent.<p>I honestly can&#x27;t feel sorry. And the fact that this journo from wapo is only victim blaming doesn&#x27;t surprise me one bit.

Gawker didn&#x27;t have to defy a judge and leave the sex tape up. Why is the author blaming the victim here?

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?<p>News Media has really lost its way, it needs shook up bigtime.

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.

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

<i>&gt; Peter Thiel is an unlikeable human for many reasons...</i><p>Care to elaborate? I always thought he was just a startup investor, albeit a very successful one.

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.

I&#x27;ll be honest, the only R. Kelly cult story I care about is Trapped in the Closet - seriously, even if that&#x27;s not your scene, watch it, you won&#x27;t regret it.<p>I think currently it stands at about 3-4 hours of comedy gold, whether it&#x27;s intended to be or not is another subject entirely...