The case is prompting significant questions about how far First Amendment rights stretch in an era when the unregulated Internet is ripe for abuse by anyone with a computer.

In addition, testimony this week by Mr. Daulerio and other current and former members of Gawker’s staff has raised a curtain on the culture of the website and others like it that traffic in salacious fare in an effort to gain readers.

Asked whether sex sells, Mr. Daulerio replied, “I’m sure.”

In such a culture, he went on, it was “pretty standard operating procedure” to seize upon and publish photographs and videos of celebrities in compromising or intimate situations, regardless of whether the celebrity might object or be embarrassed. Mr. Daulerio conceded that no such consideration guided Gawker’s publication of lewd images of the former Green Bay Packers quarterback Brett Favre or of photographs of a topless Duchess of Cambridge.

Image The former wrestler Hulk Hogan is suing Gawker Media over a sex tape it published. Credit... Pool photo by Steve Nesius

“She’s a public figure, and those pictures were published elsewhere,” Mr. Daulerio said, referring to the duchess, the former Kate Middleton. He acknowledged that there had been no discussion in the Gawker newsroom at the time whether the publication of the pictures constituted an invasion of her privacy.

Similar thinking, Mr. Daulerio said, dictated the site’s handling of the video of Hulk Hogan, which he noted had been provided anonymously to him in the mail and for which no money had changed hands.

“I was very enthusiastic about writing about it,” Mr. Daulerio said. He explained that he had “enjoyed watching the video” and was eager to attach his commentary to it on the site.