The First Amendment and the Gawker Problem

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The standard for libel and defamation in this country is extremely high. You have to show sort of actual malice. And so I think Gawker realized like, look, if there is a halfway decent journalistic explanation for this, we're probably covered by the First Amendment. The site was big enough by 2011-2012 that they had the ability to move their market.

Author Ryan Holiday discusses his book, Conspiracy, with EconTalk host Russ Roberts. This is a crazy episode about a crazy book about a crazy set of events--the Hulk Hogan lawsuit against the website Gawker, a lawsuit that was secretly funded by Peter Thiel. Holiday explains how this happened and the lessons for all of us related to conspiracies, patience, strategy, and revenge. Along the way, Holiday discusses his techniques for reading and lessons for how to grab someone's attention when looking for a job or opportunity.