Yeah...in most jurisdictions blackmail and extortion are synonymous, or blackmail is a form of extortion. That is not true in the UK, which I think makes more sense. Blackmail implies that true revelations are involved (and known to the perpetrator but not others, which I think is an interesting twist), which has to be weighed as a factor. If the revelations are valuable to the press, they might be in the public's interest to know. It is *closer* to defamation than property crime, IMO. That's why motivations and other things have to come into play to assess the problem accurately. It's a complicated issue like whistleblowing.
Blackmail didn't exist as a crime in 1867, and I doubt this met the definition for extortion at the time. So I doubt it was actually a legal issue--most people considered it an issue of taste, I'd say--that everyone involved had shown bad taste. "Sketchy" about sums it up. But some of the press framed it as a serious moral issue for political purposes. Thanks for reading!
Yeah...in most jurisdictions blackmail and extortion are synonymous, or blackmail is a form of extortion. That is not true in the UK, which I think makes more sense. Blackmail implies that true revelations are involved (and known to the perpetrator but not others, which I think is an interesting twist), which has to be weighed as a factor. If the revelations are valuable to the press, they might be in the public's interest to know. It is *closer* to defamation than property crime, IMO. That's why motivations and other things have to come into play to assess the problem accurately. It's a complicated issue like whistleblowing.
Blackmail didn't exist as a crime in 1867, and I doubt this met the definition for extortion at the time. So I doubt it was actually a legal issue--most people considered it an issue of taste, I'd say--that everyone involved had shown bad taste. "Sketchy" about sums it up. But some of the press framed it as a serious moral issue for political purposes. Thanks for reading!