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Gawker Files For Bankruptcy After Hulk Hogan Lawsuit (usatoday.com)
Gawker has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. The move comes after the media house was ordered to pay up $140M to Hulk Hogan for publishing his sex tape. Gawker, which is known for its irreverent voice, is currently facing multiple lawsuits, backed by billionaire Peter Thiel, one of the people that Gawker has extensively reported on. USA Today reports: In its filing with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York, Gawker is seeking to reorganize under the bankruptcy protection and there's no indication, as of yet, that it will cease publication. Gawker listed estimated assets of $50 million to $100 million and liabilities of $100 million to $500 million. [...] Thiel's funding triggered concerns about the possibility of First Amendment rights being quashed by wealthy individuals' funding of third-party legal claims against media organizations.According to a separate report, Ziff Davis is interested in purchasing Gawker and various properties that it owns. Gawker media also runs Gizmodo, LifeHacker, and Deadspin among other popular publications.
I don't care one bit about some paparazzi revenge porn site going out of business. Yes, it is troublesome that this may have revenge for some semi valid journalism, but the real blight on the WWW are sites like this that exist to do nothing but make money off celebrity mishaps. It will be good for these parasites to get a real job.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
Nobody gets up from the leg drop, they should have known that.
Justice may be blind, but she sure is greedy. Not that I'm a huge gawker fan, but clearly having a billion dollars lets you have your way in the courts. Had they posted a sex tape of some average Joe and/or not somehow pissed off Thiel, Mr. Average Joe would just have to live with it because he wouldn't have the money to fight it in court.
On the one hand I have no sympathy for Gawker and really don't mind seeing them go. On the other hand, it is deeply concerning that we may be in a situation where a billionaire can essentially destroy a company by funding lawsuits from other people. In the Hogan case it isn't clear to me if the jury knew that the lawsuit was being funded by Thiel at all, and this would be something that they should know. As a general rule, it seems like this sort of thing is a victory for the very powerful. After this, all media are going to think very carefully before doing any reporting on the very wealthy and be especially wary of reporting on anything Peter Thiel is doing. There's a clear chilling effect here.
WTF has the First Amendment got to do with this? The First only stops the government from censoring you. I, or any other private individual or company, can still tell you to shut up.
Drill baby drill - on Mars
At a high level, sure, money shouldn't give you the ability to completely shut down voices you don't like.
But at the trial, Gawker seemed to both not take the trial seriously (the infamous 4 year old line) and simply treated it like another story they'd post to get clicks. Denton and Daulerio seemed to think they were above the entire fray until the judgment, at which point they turned the entire other way and started trying to rouse sympathy from their readership. They mishandled their own defense to the point of comedy and made the jury entirely unsympathetic. It's hard for me to think they didn't bring this on themselves.
I hope Deadspin and Jalopnik find new homes, there are some good writers for those two sites.
The Gawker site itself is trash. However, Gawker Media owns two of my favorite sites: Jalopnik and Gizmodo. I've noticed their content quality has been going down recently, I hope they keep going.
One of our competitors trademarked the term "hypothesis". From now on, we will call them "boneheaded ideas".
... and nothing of value was lost.
Actually, they're all horrible people that should be launched into the Sun.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
You could murder someone and get off for a fraction of that.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Crushing a media organization under the power of one's wallet is NOT standing up for free speech. Even if it's a shitty company that was actually just used as a pawn for other rich people.I'm torn between celebrating this as a great victory and mourning it as a blow to an important pillar of society. Gawker wasn't just shitty for its hypocrisy on a variety of topics but for some seriously evil acts, not the least of which are directly related to the lawsuits at hand. In the end all I can say is I'm glad it's over and the world has a moment's rest before a "crowd funded" Totally-Not-Gawker picks up the pieces and starts spewing vileness again.
If video games influenced behavior the Pac Man generation would be eating pills and running away from their problems.
Gawker's entire defense, as I understand it, was that posting the sex tape was in the public interest because the subject was no average Joe.
When the AI revolution hits full swing, we're going to here the elite AI dissing everything old school with the comment as the vapid mutterings of some stupid regex. Even the computers will soon know how little comprehension goes into this kind of knee jerk retort.
Plus, no one is even going to watch the "average Joe" sex tape unless "average" Joe has a ginormous schlong (in truth, porn is fueled in equal measure by lust and envy, when it's not just about leering disgrace).
In summary, if your grandmother had wings, she'd be an airplane.
Thanks to Hulk/Thiel's victory, however, all of us average Joes are a little safer from media's prying eyes. And, given the government's history of buying from commercial suppliers the data, which it is not allowed to collect itself, from the government too.
And, should some other gav-gavker find our sex-life worthy of publication, it would be easier for us to find a lawyer willing to work on contingency. The world really did become a (slightly) better place thanks to this case.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
It's a fine line. There's a public interest defence on Gawkers reporting on Thiel, IIRC a closet homosexual who publicly opposed homosexuality?
There was no public interest defence of the Hogan story and this kind of muck-spreading will not be missed.
At a high level, sure, money shouldn't give you the ability to completely shut down voices you don't like.
My GOD MAN thats UNAMERICAN!
But at the trial, Gawker seemed to both not take the trial seriously (the infamous 4 year old line) and simply treated it like another story they'd post to get clicks. Denton and Daulerio seemed to think they were above the entire fray until the judgment, at which point they turned the entire other way and started trying to rouse sympathy from their readership. They mishandled their own defense to the point of comedy and made the jury entirely unsympathetic. It's hard for me to think they didn't bring this on themselves.
They probably didn't pay their lawyers enough either, thats a surefire way to make the American courts come down like a ton of bricks on your head! Lawyers gotta get their cash.
In the free world the media isn't government run; the government is media run.
Gawker did more than tabloid journalism. If you read the rest of the posts you'll see that's what actually got them in trouble. They've been calling out the shady practices of a member of the 1%. The entire lawsuit was a hit piece called out them. It's chilling. The worst thing is how Gawker didn't take the case seriously. That was because they didn't know there were under attack. They probably though the whole thing was a publicity stunt from Hogan...
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
Nick Denton and Gawker Media were found guilty in a Court of Law of invasion of privacy and intentional infliction of emotional distress. Things they appear to have done many times before to many people. Most of the times they did these things, they got away with their terrible actions for various reasons. Mostly, they picked on people who could not afford to fight them. In these cases, it was Gawker who was harnessing the power of the wallet in, or out of the Courtroom.
Please don't cry about how unfair it was that Theil could bring down Gawker with his money. It was Gawker that has been playing that game all along.
"The ferrets, they're every where I tell you!"
The dude used his wealth to abuse the already overloaded court system to even up a personal grudge.
Or do you think Thiel would have backed the Hulkmeister's suit out of civic duty if Gawker hadn't outed him as a hypocrite?
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
The First Amendment doesn't enumerate a right to say whatever the hell one wants. There is a lot of speech that is not covered by the First Amendment, such as libel, slander, defamation of character, obscenity, dangerous or inciteful speech, and speech with the sole intent to deprive others of a right.
So much this... the First Amendment certainly does not protect video that was neither legally recorded or aquired unless that video is so important that the courts decide that it is in the publics best interest for it to be seen. That in no way applies here.
Is that law? It seems to me like that would only matter if they were asking for legal fees, not damages, but IANAL.
Unless the funding for the claimant is directly tied to the defendant (possible fraud or insurance scam) then there is no reason the funding for the lawyers ever has to be know. Who pays for something should be irrelevant to the case and the judgement that is rendered, including damages.
If Thiel was directly paying Hogan to going forward with the lawsuit then that would be relevant as it would go towards damages Hogan sustained due to Gawkers actions (direct damages would be loss of earnings minus any amounts paid to him by Thiel) but no one is saying that happened, merely that Thiel paid for the legal expenses.
Of course that's just my opinion...... you could be wrong!
A Judge Told Us to Take Down Our Hulk Hogan Sex Tape Post. We Won't.
Especially, don't brag online how you're going to ignore the judge.
No do-overs. This ain't kindergarten.
They probably didn't pay their lawyers enough either, thats a surefire way to make the American courts come down like a ton of bricks on your head! Lawyers gotta get their cash.
The courts don't particularly care how, when, or where you pay your lawyers. They're overworked enough as it is, do you think the judge cared about the details of the financial agreement with the lawyers?
What they did care about was whether the videos Gawker violated Hogan's rights.
And you'd better believe they cared a lot when Gawker ignored court orders. They tend to come down hard on people who do that.
Gawker dug its own grave.
Now how does this court case make "average Joes" a little safer?
You are welcome on my lawn.
...Well, bye.
"Gawker has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. " :) :(
"there's no indication, as of yet, that it will cease publication"
this is not a first amendment issue gwaker and there carelessness caused hogan to lose a huge contract and forever be flagged from doing the job he did all his life. thats the damages he was awarded for.
I am not a lawyer, clearly, but it seems to me that Gawker isn't entitled to bankruptcy protection in this case just to dodge the court judgement since the court judgement is the ONLY REASON THAT THEY ARE INSOLVENT as a company.
Thiel and Hogan's legal team will have a filing before the bankruptcy court on Monday to throw out Gawker's petition and to stop the sale.
The appropriate filing would be for Chapter 7 Liquidation and a court appointed Receiver put in charge of Gawker (thus firing the management) for the purpose of preserving assets needed to pay the judgement.
Corporatism != Free Market
I defend the first amendment just as I do the second amendment. Those rights are sacrosanct....
But there are "polite society" limits.
I don't condone outing someone's personal life just as I don't condone showing or displaying a firearm in public. It may be your right....but you probably shouldn't do it.
Just because you can - does not mean you should.
If you think Kotaku / io9 / Gizmodo and the rest of that trash are actually 'high quality', I have to conclude that you were a late arrival to the web.
/. IDs]
[Compares
No, in that case I hope you get over your recent head trauma.
I take no joy in the demise of a business - because, the poor schmoes at the frontline end up having to find work in a country that is at least...unsympathetic to the unemployed. However with the demise of Gawker I feel safe to say: "And nothing of value was lost".
[Re-lurks]
Those assholes should have been out of business back when they stole that iPhone prototype and tried to destroy the career of the engineer they stole it from. Peter Thiel has performed a great public service.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
People are acting like there was only one case of this type, and that the objective was to win the case on principle.
The entire point is that were talking about people with so much money that they can fund multiple case after case until the defendant runs out of money, regardless of what the defendant actually did. It is accidental that the defendant in this case actually lost.
Mother Jones won the suit filed by Frank VanderSloot, but was financially damaged: http://www.motherjones.com/kev...
How many "losses" like that would Frank VanderSloot have to suffer before Mother Jones was run out of business?
Now how does this court case make "average Joes" a little safer?
You don't know what 'precedent' means,do you?
I'm a minority race. Save your vitriol for white people.