doesn't information yearn to be free?
Sure, and by performing blackmail you are stopping it from being free for your own gain
this post was submitted on 17 Nov 2025
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Excellent point
I think straight up releasing the info isn't illegal. but withholding it for payment is another thing. and if you have info on illegal activities and you choose not to release it for whatever reason, that might be a crime in itself.
I feel like that part (offering to withhold knowledge of criminal activities on the part of the blackmailee) should definitely be illegal and prosecutable altho it would be difficult by its very nature
The blackmailee is presumably going to do whatever is necessary to prevent that but it would be a satisfying turn of fate for the blackmailee to turn around and threaten to go to the cops if they can setup some kind of plea bargain but all that is way beyond my realm of competence
honestly, it's just a very shitty thing to do.
if they did a bad crime like pedophilia or embezzling from s charity, you should report that. if it's something harmless, then it's non of your business. if it's in between, then whatever. but letting a shitty person get away still horrible stuff because you got a cut? yhea, terrible. running an otherwise good person life because they did something they want hidden? yhea also not good.
So many shades of gray
I don't know about the legality of things, but morally, the problem is the coercion.
Because the moment you get money from it, you become complicit in the act. Also, even failure to report a crime is known as misprision of a felony and can also result in convictions, it's just much harder to prove. You can feign ignorance, but the moment you begin to threaten blackmail, it is clear that you knew, you are leaving a money trail, and that bribe proves you were a party to a crime. There are four parties to a crime:
- Principals in the first degree committed the crime.
- Principals in the second degree were present at the crime scene and assisted in the crime’s commission.
- Accessories before the fact were not present at the crime scene, but assisted in preparing for the crime’s commission.
- Accessories after the fact helped a party to the crime avoid detection and escape prosecution or conviction.
This is Google's law, so it's mostly what I've scrounged up on Google and is heavily based on law in the US. In different countries and even states the law can be different.