Slashdot Mirror
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
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.
You can't, though. If the case had not been valid, it would not have bankrupted them.
They also had the option to obey the court's orders, which they elected not to do.
They have only themselves to blame here. Inasmuch as this is chilling to those who would steal sex tapes and set up a revenge porn site... good riddance. I could justify considering revenge porn obscene, which would strip all first amendment and copyright protections from that specific speech.
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!"
Gawker has made a long business of vile personal attacks. You seem to think that's OK as long as they attack someone you don't like. That's what's destroying America: anything's OK if it hurts the "other side". That sort of thinking leaves only rubble at the end.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.