When Hulk Hogan's sex tape first surfaced online in 2012, it became instant fodder for late-night punchlines and tawdry internet gossip.
Five years and one very expensive lawsuit later, no one's laughing anymore.
Netflix's new documentary Nobody Speak: Trials of the Free Press looks at the chilling repercussions of that court case, at a time when the media looks especially vulnerable.
True, Terry "Hulk Hogan" Bollea didn't invent the fake news era. But when he – with financial help from billionaire PayPal founder Peter Thiel – successfully sued Gawker for publishing that video, Bollea helped pave the way for an all-out assault on the First Amendment rights of the press.
That's especially frightening now that the U.S. is under the leadership of Donald Trump, who's regularly tried to mislead and block the press, and threatened to "open up the libel laws" to make it easier to sue journalists and publications.
Meanwhile, outside the law, growing inequality means the rich hold more power than ever before. They can use their money to take publications to court, as Thiel did, or to buy out media organizations, as Sheldon Adelson did.
All of which makes Nobody Speak: Trials of the Free Press one of the scariest films you're bound to see this summer – and one of the most devastatingly important.
Nobody Speak: Trials of the Free Press, which had its world premiere at Sundance earlier this year, will hit Netflix June 23.
Topics Politics
