Read More: Hulk Hogan Wins $115M in Sex Tape Lawsuit, Internet Weighs In In an era when digital networks have reshaped culture, raising tough questions about sharing and prying in society, the jury got to hear two weeks of testimony in a first-of-its-kind sex tape case where discussions of newsworthiness and decency dominated. Daulerio about celebrity sex and a vivid play-by-play of the encounter between Hogan and Cole. Gawker's posting of the Hogan sex tape was accompanied by an essay from then–editor-in-chief A.J. The sex tape was sensational, showing Hogan - whose real name is Terry Bollea - engaged in sexual intercourse with Heather Cole, the then-wife of his best friend, Tampa-area radio shock jock Bubba the Love Sponge (real name: Todd Alan Clem). Hogan brought the case three years ago after Gawker, a 13-year-old digital news site founded by Nick Denton, an entrepreneur with an allergy to celebrity privacy, published a video the wrestler claimed was secretly recorded. He also noted that since Gawker published the clip in 2012, the world has “changed” and the celebrity sex tapes now seem like “artifacts from an earlier and more licentious Internet era.Weighing free speech against privacy, a Florida jury has decided to uphold the sanctity of the latter by turning in a $115 million verdict against Gawker over its 2012 posting of a Hulk Hogan sex tape. The media executive’s lengthy blog post characterizes how Bollea’s attorneys vilified his company to the jury, casting Gawker editors in the role of “deviant” bloggers peddling “Internet pornography” as their client was a victim. We want to be free to express ourselves, but are less enthusiastic when that freedom is exercised by others with whom we disagree. Freedom of expression will always be more popular in principle than in practice. It is specifically designed to protect minority opinion from majority outrage. “So constitutional issues aside, we now know that the trial was a sham from the start,” Denton said. “There is a reason why judges typically hew to the First Amendment and protect free speech from the censorious impulses of juries. Denton didn’t address that fact in his memo, but he claimed that Bollea knew he was being filmed and alleged that documents released by the appellate court - which were never seen by the jury - prove that. He said the jury was never privy to evidence proving this, but last summer, excerpts of Bollea’s racist rant were uncovered by The National Enquirer.Īny juror with a television or Internet connection could easily have learned about that, though, and the fallout that ensued for Bollea. Petersburg jury’s ruling, Denton said the whole case was waged against his company, not to “recover damages from emotional distress,” but to hide “racist language” found on another unpublished tape that threatened his career. He noted that the judges in those courts agreed with Gawker on the public’s fascination with sex tapes, which he claimed justified the newsworthy quality of the tape. (However, neither of those were jury trials.) Petersburg jury failed to hear key evidence and pointed to the fact that a state appeals court and federal judge both sided with Gawker and ruled against Bollea. The executive laid out his lawyers’ much-repeated allegation that the St. Emotion was permitted to trump the law, and key evidence and witnesses were kept from the jury.”Ģ022 Qixi Campaigns from Luxury and Fashion Brands “The plaintiff’s lawyers, with the occasional assist from our witnesses, successfully painted Gawker as representative of an untrammeled Internet that good and decent people should find frightening and distasteful. “The enormous size of the verdict is chilling to Gawker Media and other publishers with a tabloid streak, but it is also a flag to higher courts that this case went wildly off the rails,” Denton said, going on to defend the Web site’s contention that the case was a key battle in protecting media’s First Amendment rights. Petersburg, Fla., jury awarding Terry Bollea, aka Hulk Hogan, a total of $140.1 million, after the wrestler’s attorneys argued that Gawker violated their client’s privacy rights when it posted a clip of a leaked sex tape.ĭenton called the reward “extraordinary” in size, noting that it was a “huge payday for an indiscretion that would have been quickly forgotten, one among many in the professional wrestler’s personal life.” Embattled Gawker Media founder Nick Denton took to - where else? - the Internet on Tuesday to voice his outrage over a St.
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