陳韋廷譯
The trial involving Gawker and Terry Bollea, better known as Hulk Hogan, over the publication of a sex video raised timeless legal questions about privacy and freedom of the press. The result, with the jury awarding Bollea $115 million in compensatory damages, could threaten Gawker's existence.
But in many ways, the Gawker that posted the video — an aggressive and unpredictable news and gossip site — has already passed into memory. So, too, has an era of the web in which Gawker thrived.
Gawker與泰瑞.波利亞關於性愛影片公開一事的審判,引發了有關隱私權與新聞自由的永恆法律問題。而陪審團裁定波利亞獲得1.15億美元的賠償的結果,則可能危及Gawker的生存。波利亞更為人們熟知的名字是浩克.霍肯。
但從許多方面來說,張貼影片的Gawker已成為記憶,一如讓Gawker蓬勃發展的那個網路時代。Gawker是個具攻擊性且不可預測的新聞與八卦網站。
In the last few years, digital news sites with ambition — even the ones, like Gawker, that had originally hailed themselves as being anti-establishment — have undergone something of a self-correction. Vivid videos of random bedroom romps are out; a little bit of privacy is in.
Readers, empowered by social media, have reshaped publications directly, by collective will. And they seem to realize that the photos and videos captured on their smartphones or elsewhere could just as easily be used against them as anyone else, including a celebrity.
野心勃勃的數位新聞網站,即便是像Gawker這樣原本以反體制自詡的網站,這幾年都做過一些自我糾正。無端的兩性性愛生動影片已經出局,對隱私略有尊重。
讀者已在社交媒體加持下,藉由集體意志直接重塑了出版物的樣貌。他們似乎意識到,他們從自己的智慧手機或其他地方獲得的照片和影片,可被輕易用來對付他們自己,一如用來對付任何其他人,包括名人。
"Now that 'everyone' has a 'sex tape' — and everyone is at risk of having their sex tape published online," the publication of celebrity sex tapes is less justified in the eyes of readers, said Max Read, a former editor of Gawker.
The online world in which these sites operate, even compared with 2012 when Gawker posted the video of Bollea, is no longer the same. Visitors increasingly arrive from social platforms — mainly Facebook — and those readers have far more control of how a story is received.
Gawker前主編麥斯.里德說:「現在『每個人』都有一卷『性愛錄影帶』,且每個人都有著性愛錄影帶被公開在網路上的風險」,公開名人性愛錄影帶在讀者看來正當性降低了。
即便與Gawker張貼波利亞影片的2012年相比,這些網站目前運作的網路世界也已不再相同。來自於社交平台的訪客愈來愈多,主要是臉書,而這些讀者對取得故事的方式擁有更大控制權。
Pleasing stories can be shared and cheered on those social platforms. Behavior deemed bad can now be shunned with immediate results.
The change was evident as the verdict came down on Friday.
令人高興的故事可在這些社交平台上分享並贏得喝采。被視為不良的行為如今可用立即的結果予以避開。
當法院周五做成判決時,上述變化是顯而易見的。
On Twitter and elsewhere, fans of Bollea and critics — including many journalists — enthusiastically cheered the potential death of Gawker. Some others, shocked at the size of the award, declared it a chilling moment for the press. (Legal experts suggest that the real influence of the case, in the event that this decision is upheld, would be narrow.)
But in 2012, the vast majority of Twitter posts that linked to Gawker's video were lighthearted jokes — about Bollea's physique, about the humiliation of a childhood idol, about fame-seeking.
在推特和其他地方,波利亞的粉絲跟包含許多記者在內的批評人士,均對Gawker恐將倒閉大聲叫好。而對裁定賠償金額之大感到震驚的另一些人則聲稱,這是個讓新聞界不寒而慄的時刻。(法律專家認為,這項判決若成為定局,本案的實質影響並不大。)
不過,2012年時與Gawker影片有關的推特貼文,絕大多數是輕鬆的笑話,像是有關波利亞的體格、侮辱兒時偶像,以及追求名聲的笑話。