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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.
Yeah, it turns out running this story was not a good idea
http://gawker.com/a-judge-told...
Who'd have thought that contempt of court could turn the judiciary against you and get you nailed for crippling damages when someone whose privacy your tabloid bullshit has violated sues you?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
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"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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Trump should take notice and buy all the fake news outlets...
Breitbart and Fox?
SJW n. One who posts facts.
Gawker violated a court order. That was the cause of their downfall. Gawker outed Thiel as a homosexual and claimed the Hogan sex tape was public interest. Meanwhile they claimed viewing photos of Jennifer Lawrence nude was the equivalent of sexual assault. The head of Gawker told a jude he would publish nude photos of a four year old if it was in the public interest. Gawker deserved everything they brought upon themselves.
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
https://nypost.com/2016/03/11/...
Jurors at Hulk Hogan's invasion-of-privacy trial heard Friday how former top Gawker editor Albert "A.J." Daulerio - who put the infamous Hogan sex tape online - also posted video of the young woman engaged in sex in a bathroom stall at a Bloomington, Ind., sports bar in May 2010.
Days later, the woman wrote Gawker, begging that the video be taken down from its sports-themed Deadspin Website, according to e-mails read in court by Hogan lawyer Shane Vogt.
"I am the girl in it and it was stolen from me and put up without my permission," the unidentified woman wrote on May 11, 2010.
Gawker's complaint department forwarded the message to Daulerio, along with a note saying, "Blah, blah, blah," Vogt said.
Daulerio then e-mailed the woman and told her to "not make a big deal out of this," adding: "I'm sure it's embarrassing but these things do pass, keep your head up."
Then-company lawyer Gaby Darbyshire also e-mailed the woman, defending the video as "completely newsworthy" and scolding her about how "one's actions can have unintended consequences."
But Gawker reversed itself the next day and removed the entire posting, with Daulerio later admitting to GQ magazine he had regrets because the video "wasn't funny" and "was possibly rape."
Three women and one man on the six-member jury scribbled notes about the e-mail exchanges, with the man sternly peering over his glasses at Daulerio, 41, a co-defendant in the Hogan case.
An expert witness appearing for Hogan also testified that Gawker boosted its corporate value as much as $15.5 million by posting the hidden-camera sex recording of the pro wrestling legend.
Jeff Anderson, director of valuation and analytics at Consor Intellectual Asset Management, said 5.4 million people viewed the Hogan tape at Gawker between October 2012 and April 2013, resulting in a 28.5 percent spike in traffic to the site.
Awful people. And look at Daulerio's expression in the picture - he knows both he and his employer are screwed.
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That was paid for entirely by Thiel. What's your point?
Correct:
From TFA:
Venture capitalist Peter Thiel has made an offer for Gawker, hoping to overcome legal hurdles and rival bidders for the online news site the billionaire helped shutter by funding litigation against it , people familiar with the matter said on Thursday.
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
If you were paying the ACLU and EFF most of the costs of pursuing specific lawsuits at your request, I'd say they're kind of your lawsuits.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
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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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.
I would argue that Thiel's patronage altered the proceedings of the case, turning down settlements and dragging out the trial as long as possible to bleed Gawker dry.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
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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