The lawyer who killed Gawker goes after TechDirt

What's happening in your world? Discuss it here.
Forum rules
Play nice. We will be watching

Re: The lawyer who killed Gawker goes after TechDirt

Postby Tesseracts » Tue Apr 25, 2017 10:14 pm

Guys, Gawker broke the law. In a really bad and obvious way. Rich people don't have the power to shut down a news source for no reason.
  • 12

User avatar
Tesseracts
Big Brother
Big Brother
 
Posts: 9653
Joined: Sat Apr 13, 2013 5:31 am
Show rep
Title: Social Media Expert

Re: The lawyer who killed Gawker goes after TechDirt

Postby cmsellers » Tue Apr 25, 2017 10:42 pm

Tesseracts wrote:Guys, Gawker broke the law. In a really bad and obvious way. Rich people don't have the power to shut down a news source for no reason.

We'll see about that. And keep in mind that California has a really strong anti-SLAPP statute, something many states don't have.
  • 4

User avatar
cmsellers
Back-End Admin
Back-End Admin
 
Posts: 9316
Joined: Sun Apr 14, 2013 7:20 pm
Location: Not *that* Bay Area
Show rep
Title: Broken Record Player

Re: The lawyer who killed Gawker goes after TechDirt

Postby Tesseracts » Tue Apr 25, 2017 11:18 pm

cmsellers wrote:
Tesseracts wrote:Guys, Gawker broke the law. In a really bad and obvious way. Rich people don't have the power to shut down a news source for no reason.

We'll see about that. And keep in mind that California has a really strong anti-SLAPP statute, something many states don't have.

I can see your concern about TechDirt, I was mostly responding to Bleh's claim that they can put NPR out of business.
  • 4

User avatar
Tesseracts
Big Brother
Big Brother
 
Posts: 9653
Joined: Sat Apr 13, 2013 5:31 am
Show rep
Title: Social Media Expert

Re: The lawyer who killed Gawker goes after TechDirt

Postby blehblah » Wed Apr 26, 2017 4:35 pm

Indeed, NPR is a hyperbolic example. Yet, while they can't be sued into submission, their funding can be cut, though they aren't entirely dependent on public funds.

http://www.npr.org/about-npr/178660742/ ... o-finances

Trump's budget proposal would cut their federal funding to zero.

http://www.npr.org/2017/03/16/520401246 ... blic-media

Funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting would be cut to zero under the proposal, and the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities would be eliminated entirely, the first time any president has proposed such a measure.

[...]

CPB received $445 million in federal funding in the last fiscal year; the NEA and NEH got about $148 million each — a tiny portion of the roughly $4 trillion federal budget.

In a statement, CPB President and CEO Patricia Harrison said, "There is no viable substitute for federal funding that ensures Americans have universal access to public media's education and informational programming and services." She called public media "one of America's best investments," costing "approximately $1.35 per citizen per year."

Most CPB funds go directly to local radio and TV stations. NPR's funding sources include the program fees those stations pay, and the network receives less than 2 percent of its budget directly from CPB.


The same deep pockets which can fund lawsuits can also influence politicians. But, again, it was a hyperbolic example. Thiel, specifically, seems to have a strong dislike of certain media outlets - or at least, Gawker - and he seized the opportunity to break them. We don't know if he is or isn't behind this TechDirt lawsuit.

As Tess points-out, one must also have something to sue about, and public broadcasters tend to be a lot more careful than the likes of Gawker, The Daily Mail (same lawyer, btw), or some blogger in Maryland.

Also, you need someone who you can say suffered a significant loss (from what I can see, Hogan got $55 million for economic injuries, and $60 for emotional injury, though the whole thing was eventually settled for $31 million). As much as it pains me to say, if someone totally defamed the good name of one, BlehBlah, the damages would be worth one, or possibly two, shiny nickels. Without the threat of legal fees, my meek fist-waving wouldn't be much of a threat.

Heck, even a relatively high-profile case, like the USDA official fired thanks to Brietbart, isn't enough to sink an outfit that size. Or this one about a guy who was fired from ACORN thanks to Breitbart and won all of $100K, and at the time of the Atlantic story four years ago, the original Breitbart article was still up, unchanged.

Hogan's settlement was bigly numbers because he can, at least with a straight face, claim that he stood to lose meellions. This email guy probably can't hope to hit the same numbers, though a $15 meellion settlement could very well be enough to stick a fork in TechDirt. I really have no idea what their revenue looks like, but articles about this imply it will have trouble paying the legal fees. Even Gawker had trouble paying those bills since their insurance coverage was tapped-out part way through the lawsuit.

Back to the specific case, the SLAPP laws may not help.

http://fortune.com/2017/01/11/techdirt-libel-lawsuit/

Many states, including Massachusetts, have so-called anti-SLAPP statutes, which offer a quick and cost-efficient means to defeat frivolous lawsuits intended to censor or intimidate defendants. But the anti-SLAPP law will likely be of no avail to TechDirt because the statute is largely restricted to cases involving the government, and because the law may not apply in federal court.


The case is taking-place in Massachusetts, while TechDirt is California-based.
  • 3

A quantum state of signature may or may not be here... you just ruined it.
User avatar
blehblah
TCS Junkie
TCS Junkie
 
Posts: 3895
Joined: Sun Apr 14, 2013 9:16 pm
Show rep
Title: Error General, Panic Colonel

Re: The lawyer who killed Gawker goes after TechDirt

Postby cmsellers » Wed Aug 02, 2017 8:46 pm

So a few updates on this.

First, Mike Masnick published a really moving video on the case, which can be found here:

Y'all should watch it. He's not quite as entertaining as John Oliver, but he explains things every bit as clearly, and without brushing over important points for the sake of a joke.

Second, Ars Technica did a great piece on Dr. Shiva and it's ... not exactly favorable. Yet weirdly, he apparently gave them a lengthy interview. When he's done with TechDirt, I imagine he's coming after Ars Technica next. Apparently, he believes there's a giant conspiracy to silence his accomplishments, and Noam Chomsky has apparently supported him in this, if you needed any more reasons why Noam Chomsky is nowhere near as smart as he pretends to be.

Third, Ars Technica mentions that he's running for the Senate against Elizabeth Warren as the Real Indian against the Fake Indian. He's also a huge Trump supporter (a lawsuit-happy used asswipe is a Trump supporter? Gee, who'd have thunkit?) who during the election made a Twitter poll which showed Trump ahead by 50 points and tweeted it as proof-positive that the real polls were lying, because the man who claims to have invented email doesn't understand how selection bias works. In his run for Senate he had and then lost the endorsement of conservative Red Sox Pitcher and fellow asshat Curt Schilling.

(Fortunately, in this climate I cannot imagine Dr. Shiva winning the general election; I don't think he even has a shot of winning the GOP primary. But I'm so glad that his hypothetical general election opponent isn't Martha Coakley, because that would be a true Sophie's Choice. Do you want the woman who abuses her power to keep innocent people in jail and cops who burn their own daughter's vagina out of it or the man who abuses the court system in an attempt to shut down independent media companies and rewrite history?)

Finally, you notice how I'm still not commenting on the factuality of his claim to write email? Remember how I joke about him suing Tess if I did that. It's not a joke any longer, he actually sued an obscure social network for posts on it saying he didn't invent email. On the bright side, and and Tess both live in the Boston area, so if he did sue her, it would be slightly easier for her to fight than most of his victims.
  • 1

User avatar
cmsellers
Back-End Admin
Back-End Admin
 
Posts: 9316
Joined: Sun Apr 14, 2013 7:20 pm
Location: Not *that* Bay Area
Show rep
Title: Broken Record Player

Re: The lawyer who killed Gawker goes after TechDirt

Postby NathanLoiselle » Thu Aug 03, 2017 2:27 am

I can't believe that we're actually scared about saying who invented email because of this twat. Wait, should I call him twat? Do you think he'll sue us if I call him a twat? Could I call him a twat any more?
  • 1

User avatar
NathanLoiselle
TCS Junkie
TCS Junkie
 
Posts: 4484
Joined: Wed Jul 09, 2014 3:49 am
Location: You'll Never Know!
Show rep

Re: The lawyer who killed Gawker goes after TechDirt

Postby cmsellers » Thu Aug 03, 2017 2:59 am

As far as I can tell, he doesn't sue people for saying mean things about him unless one of those mean things is that he didn't invent email.

So "Dr. Shiva is as much the inventor of email as he is a serial rapist of disabled orphans," theoretically should be perfectly fine, but adding "and he's never raped an orphan in his life" would be severely problematic.
  • 5

User avatar
cmsellers
Back-End Admin
Back-End Admin
 
Posts: 9316
Joined: Sun Apr 14, 2013 7:20 pm
Location: Not *that* Bay Area
Show rep
Title: Broken Record Player

Re: The lawyer who killed Gawker goes after TechDirt

Postby SandTea » Thu Aug 03, 2017 4:54 am

For totally being the best at actually, real life inventing email I present him the trophy of 'equivalent achievement'
Image
  • 3

"Draw me not without reason; sheath me not without honor."
User avatar
SandTea
Time Waster
Time Waster
 
Posts: 1257
Joined: Sun Mar 15, 2015 5:01 pm
Show rep
Title: 3rdAeolus

Re: The lawyer who killed Gawker goes after TechDirt

Postby JamishT » Thu Aug 03, 2017 5:22 am

SandTea wrote:For totally being the best at actually, real life inventing email I present him the trophy of 'equivalent achievement'
Spoiler: show
Image


Image

SHIVAAAAAKAMINI SOMAKANDAKRAAAAAAAAAAM!
  • 3

JamishT was a heck of a guy,
With a devilish twinkle in his eye.
With his hand-picked flowers,
And his feel-good powers,
He made all the girls blush and sigh.
User avatar
JamishT
TCS ModerBlobber
TCS ModerBlobber
 
Posts: 5579
Joined: Tue Apr 16, 2013 4:31 pm
Location: KC, MO, AMERICA
Show rep
Title: The Wannabe Adult

Re: The lawyer who killed Gawker goes after TechDirt

Postby cmsellers » Mon Apr 02, 2018 1:52 am

So the good news is, the case was thrown out, and it looks like it got thrown out before the really expensive part of the case would have begun.

The bad news is that the judge in the First Circuit refused to apply California's anti-SLAPP statute, which means that TechDirt has to pay their own defense costs, despite Shiva bringing an entirely meritless SLAPP case.
  • 0

User avatar
cmsellers
Back-End Admin
Back-End Admin
 
Posts: 9316
Joined: Sun Apr 14, 2013 7:20 pm
Location: Not *that* Bay Area
Show rep
Title: Broken Record Player

Previous

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 18 guests

cron