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Peter Thiel Is Now Bidding on Gawker.com (reuters.com)
An anonymous reader writes:
Its official. "Venture capitalist Peter Thiel has made an offer for Gawker," reports Reuters, adding that the potential acquisition "would let him take down stories regarding his personal life that are still available on the website, and remove the scope for further litigation between him and Gawker." It was Thiel's 2016 lawsuit which bankrupted the site, prompting a Washington Post blogger to write that Thiel "killed Gawker once. Now it looks like he may kill it again."
Elsewhere the Washington Post argues the whole episode "highlighted the immense legal risk borne by news outlets already facing a precarious financial reality in the digital age." The Post's blogger describes Thiel as "a billionaire leveraging his wealth to obliterate a media outlet...as part of a personal vendetta."
Last month former Gawker staffers attempted to crowdfund the purchase and relaunch of Gawker.com as a nonprofit media organization. But their 1,496 backers only pledged $89,844, far short of the campaign's $500,000 target.
Elsewhere the Washington Post argues the whole episode "highlighted the immense legal risk borne by news outlets already facing a precarious financial reality in the digital age." The Post's blogger describes Thiel as "a billionaire leveraging his wealth to obliterate a media outlet...as part of a personal vendetta."
Last month former Gawker staffers attempted to crowdfund the purchase and relaunch of Gawker.com as a nonprofit media organization. But their 1,496 backers only pledged $89,844, far short of the campaign's $500,000 target.
Trump should take notice and buy all the fake news outlets...
Leftists are fond of saying how you're free to say what you want but you're not free from the consequences, you know, punch a nazi and all.
Yellow journos epic failure is not a bad thing.
Nick Denton.
And I don't mean in a metaphorical sense either. He'll have him serving drinks to Trump in a MAGA hat when Trump comes to visit.
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It was Thiel's 2016 lawsuit which bankrupted the site
No, it was the illegal activities which resulted in a rather large fine which bankrupted the site.
Hawaii suffers missile strike!
"The Post's blogger describes Thiel as "a billionaire leveraging his wealth to obliterate a media outlet...as part of a personal vendetta."
I forget - who OWNS the Washington Post again and what paper of note made fawning statements about Amazon just recently?
The people behind Gawker killed Gawker, but as usual in leftist circles, their own fuckups are always someone else's fault.
"highlighted the immense legal risk borne by news outlets already facing a precarious financial reality in the digital age."
No it highlights that contrary to what shithead blogposter thimk (gawker people are not what I would call journalist or even news) privacy protection DOES exists even in the US and the web is not a free post-it-all-for-money, there are consequences. Gawker be damned they earned their happenstance.
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Being a Republican is apparently a crime now.
How DARE a gay person wander off the Democrat thought plantation!
These overpaid bloggers should just learn to code.
Gawker refused to remove pictures of a woman being raped when asked to. There are limits to free speech: We do not allow revenge porn, we do not allow sites like Gawker which have no respect for people's privacy or feelings. Gawker was the site with a writer who ruined a woman for posting an insensitive but harmless joke on Twitter.
Good riddance to bad rubbish.
So, theoretically, what would I have to write about Peter Thiel, for him to offer to buy my blog for millions of dollars?
Annoying the rich could be a bigger cottage industry than bitcoin. It would certainly be more fun.
Whenever someone mentions Gawker I think of hipsters browsing the web on their Mac's with their ironic beards.
Soon the destruction of online "news" will be complete. Gossip rags that violate the law should be punished.
Next up social media. Their execs should be imprisoned.
Actually, Thiel will buy Gawker, reorganize the company to make himself king, extend a complete legal release to himself, take down all offensive content, and then... he will have Gawker start suing every former employee/board member/officer that had anything to do with the offensive content for a wide range of breaches of fiduciary duties.
relating to Peter Thiel on gawker....
Fuck Thiel right in his cunt face.
so here I go again defending Gawker. Gawker did a lot of real journalism and used the muck raking to pay for it. A tradition that's as old as journalism itself. Thiel didn't shut them down because he was outed as gay, he shut them down because they kept reporting on his shady business deals. And their mistake wasn't ignoring the court order. That gets done all the time in their line of work. Their mistake was not realizing that Hogan was backed by Thiel for the express purpose of shutting them down.
What we have here is a pretty scary precedent. We have a billionaire using his money and the legal system to shut down somebody critical of him. If anyone honestly believes that'll end well for us working stiffs then they haven't been paying attention to the last 300 years of labor relations...
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To be fair, Thiel was paying for it, so it was kind of his.
Not really. The case was decided on the actions of Gawker and Bollea, decided on the merits of the case. Thiel's funding does not change the underlying facts. That's why the case is Bollea's. All you can really argue is that Thiel allowed Bollea to have good representation and make a good case and see things to the end.
... but the case is always the selected person's, not the organization that funds it.
Having an agenda, shopping around looking for a person to make your case upon, that happens all the time. Environmental activists do it, civil rights activist do it,
Who is he? What is his goal? Where is he doing this stuff? Why is he so pissed-off? When did he learn of the offense? How is he intending to achieve his goals?
In a world of the blind, the one-eyed man is king--and the two-eyed man is a heretic.
Writers with gawker through the affiliated Jezebel regularly supported huge cash payouts for these sort of privacy invasions in the context of feminism. Among other things they wrote stories crowing over the huge multimillion dollar settlement some dizzy female sports reporter got from a hotel because a rogue employee recorded her. What's good for the goose....
I'm a conspiracy analyst.
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You'd like that wouldn't you?
As a generally progression to a free democracy, indentured servitude, debt slavery have all been abolished.
We'd all like it. But it wouldn't be a case of indentured servitude, it would be the courts ordering Denton lobotomized and then hit drooling husk would serve drinks for the pleasure of all he had wronged. That would be a just scenario for people like Nick Denton.
You may want to support people who love to publicize the rapes of others and revenge porn, but the rest of us have some degree of moral fiber.
I hope he simply deletes that shithole of a site in its entirety. Fuck Gawker, and fuck anyone who ever worked with those thieving motherfuckers in any capacity.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
However maloderous Gawker's demise was, I have a hard time feeling much sympathy for what was, in essence, a clickbait rag. Was Peter Thiel's actions justified? No. Is he a creepy scumbag? Assuredly. Is the world worse off without Gawker? Meh.
"Mostly" read by liberals, antifa, BLM, socialist, progressives...ie: the ones that think everything should be FREE...so, it's no wonder they didn't have any people funding a potential "relaunch". They are ok with spending OTHER peoples money, but NOT their own. "Last month former Gawker staffers attempted to crowdfund the purchase and relaunch of Gawker.com as a nonprofit media organization. But their 1,496 backers only pledged $89,844, far short of the campaign's $500,000 target."
that kind of brazenness is par for the course. The point of these lawsuits is for both parties to get some publicity. That's why 99% of the time they're settled out of court. It's more a less a game with both sides playing. The trouble is Gawker didn't realize Hogan wasn't the one playing, Thiel was, and Thiel wasn't playing the same game, he was out for blood.
Now, I suppose you could make the argument that our legal system shouldn't be used to this, but then again the public at large allows it because they find this kind of public theater intensely amusing; even if you and I find it stupid and wasteful. But again, that's missing the point. Gawker's real mistake was not seeing through Hogan to Thiel in time to save themselves.
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"If you're not doing anything wrong what have you got to fear?". Trust me, with several billion dollars you can put just about anyone away.
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