Gawker files for bankruptcy
June 10, 2016 10:58 AM Subscribe

Gawker Media has filed for bankruptcy and will be put up for sale: "Gawker Media filed for bankruptcy on Friday, after saying in Florida court that it cannot pay the $140.1 million awarded to actor Hulk Hogan in a case bankrolled by Silicon Valley billionaire Peter Thiel."

PC Mag publisher Ziff Davis is reported to have submitted an opening bid of $90 million to $100 million. Ziff Davis, which also runs IGN, Geek.com and AskMen.com, is owned by j2Global, "an internet services company with an assortment of internet fax, online phone, email marketing and other communications services."

Previously: Gawker founder Nick Denton and former editor Albert J. Daulerio take the stand in the Hulk Hogan trial. And billionaire libertarian Peter Thiel is revealed to be the money-man behind the Hogan trial.

posted by not_the_water (250 comments total) 22 users marked this as a favorite

Gawker report: This is the worst media news of the day.
posted by rorgy at 11:01 AM on June 10, 2016 [9 favorites]

as much as I couldn't stand nick denton I cannot stand silicon valley libertarians even more. this makes me grumpy.
posted by Annika Cicada at 11:03 AM on June 10, 2016 [100 favorites]

It's nice to see some good news every once in a while.
posted by Drinky Die at 11:04 AM on June 10, 2016 [11 favorites]

as much as I couldn't stand nick denton I cannot stand silicon valley libertarians even more

I dislike them both. As such, I don't feel I have to side with either of them.
posted by Dark Messiah at 11:05 AM on June 10, 2016 [9 favorites]

From the recode link: Memo: Here’s what Ziff Davis has to say about its plans to buy Gawker Media I wanted to share some news about a potential acquisition for Ziff Davis. Earlier today, Gawker Media Group (GMG) filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. As part of that process, GMG plans to sell its media properties Gizmodo, Lifehacker, Kotaku, Jalopnik, Deadspin, Jezebel and Gawker.

Ziff Davis has entered into an asset purchase agreement to acquire all of these properties (free of GMG's liabilities), subject to the outcome of a Court-supervised auction. Under the Chapter 11 process, the Bankruptcy Court will soon set a schedule for other potential bidders to enter the sale process. There will then be an auction, which will likely take place at the end of July.

posted by zarq at 11:05 AM on June 10, 2016 [1 favorite]

You know the vultures are circling when J2 of all companies has their eyes on you. Talk about bottom of the barrel.

This is horrible news and Thiel is an evil man, but fuck Gawker itself.
posted by Yowser at 11:06 AM on June 10, 2016 [2 favorites]

I mean, Gawker is scum, but I don't think I would call "whiny billionaire libertarian baby throws money tantrum to shut down journalistic outlet he doesn't like" 'good news', exactly.
posted by Itaxpica at 11:06 AM on June 10, 2016 [163 favorites]

Finally I'll be able to get Gizmodo via internet fax
posted by not_the_water at 11:06 AM on June 10, 2016 [12 favorites]

I like Gawker and I'm sorry to hear about this, although not surprised.
posted by Aubergine at 11:07 AM on June 10, 2016 [14 favorites]

There are a lot of shitty things about Gawker but I'll be sad to see Jalopnik and its related auto geek channels go.

Fuck Thiel and his entire attitude.
posted by a halcyon day at 11:07 AM on June 10, 2016 [10 favorites]

They didn't lose in court because "well, that angry rich guy paid a lot."
posted by Dark Messiah at 11:07 AM on June 10, 2016 [26 favorites]

BUT WHAT OF DEADSPIN???? I AM CONCERNED.
posted by joelhunt at 11:08 AM on June 10, 2016 [7 favorites]

They didn't lose in court because "well, that angry rich guy paid a lot."

Yeah, they did. There have already been several stories about how Hogan would have settled if his paid-for lawyer hadn't encouraged him to go to trial to 'punish' Gawker.
posted by graventy at 11:13 AM on June 10, 2016 [49 favorites]

Huh...Libertarian uses power of the state to destroy his enemies.
posted by rocket88 at 11:13 AM on June 10, 2016 [202 favorites]

Considering that Ziff-Davis is very unlikely to allow their employees to get the company blacklisted by major games publishers (given what we've seen on IGN vs Kotaku) I can only imagine that the Gamergaters are cackling with glee right now.

That said, it would be funny to see Bethesda, for example, just not do any games press anymore. After IGN and Kotaku there's Gamespot... and.. uh...
posted by selfnoise at 11:14 AM on June 10, 2016

They didn't lose in court because "well, that angry rich guy paid a lot."

Actually, they kind of did lose in court for that reason. There are several reports of Hogan's legal team acting in ways that only make sense if they were out to serve Thiel's agenda rather than their nominal client.

And on (failure to) preview, what Graventy said.
posted by Zonker at 11:14 AM on June 10, 2016 [19 favorites]

Oh boy, I bet Ziff-Davis is just the conglomerate to keep the worthwhile reporting Deadspin, Jezebel and Kotaku did while stripping out their assholish sensastionalist elements!

Fuck Thiel forever.

They didn't lose in court because "well, that angry rich guy paid a lot."

They lost because a jury wasn't told material facts and legal precedent, and the verdict almost certaintly would have been overturned (or at least vacated and remanded) on appeal. MeFi's own mightygodking goes into detail.
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 11:15 AM on June 10, 2016 [28 favorites]

Yeah, they did. There have already been several stories about how Hogan would have settled if his paid-for lawyer hadn't encouraged him to go to trial to 'punish' Gawker.

That's still not why they lost. That's why they went to trial.
posted by Fidel Cashflow at 11:15 AM on June 10, 2016 [9 favorites]

$140 million in damages seems pretty excessive.
posted by schmod at 11:15 AM on June 10, 2016 [6 favorites]

I could only celebrate this if both parties destroyed each other. Instead, rich assholes have again shown that they can absolutely ruin something if they are willing to back a temper tantrum with real money.
posted by maxsparber at 11:15 AM on June 10, 2016 [18 favorites]

You don't have to like Gawker to realize this is a terrifying amount of power for a pissed off rich guy to have.
posted by Mavri at 11:17 AM on June 10, 2016 [140 favorites]

Between this and Adelson's leash on the Vegas Review-Journal, everything's just coming up roses for conservative billionaires!
posted by rewil at 11:19 AM on June 10, 2016 [1 favorite]

I think when an LLC files bankruptcy, the assets are sold off to pay any creditors, so I think they would be using the ZD money to pay Hogan? Not 100% on that though.
posted by griphus at 11:19 AM on June 10, 2016

Instead, rich assholes have again shown that they can absolutely ruin something if they are willing to back a temper tantrum with real money.

I know, Hulk Hogan is such a big baby. Why is he so upset just because a very popular website profited off his sex tape without his consent? Someone should give him a timeout!
posted by Fidel Cashflow at 11:20 AM on June 10, 2016 [30 favorites]

If I could talk to Peter Thiel I'd tell him about how I think revenge is more like a hard narcotic than we typically imagine. It feels incredibly good in the moment - and his particular scope of revenge in this case must be something very akin to a heroin rush. But at the end of the day it just leaves you empty and needing more to get the high again.

I don't think he'd be able to hear me, but that's what I'd say. It's terrible what he's done, but I feel bad for him, frankly. He must be very unhappy.
posted by allkindsoftime at 11:20 AM on June 10, 2016 [5 favorites]

They are specifically not buying Gawker Media Group, the company that owns all the Gawker-branded sites and is on the hook for $140 million. They're buying Gawker.com, Deadspin.com, etc, etc from GMG, leaving that company owning nothing but money and a crap-ton of debt it will have to pay off with that money.
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 11:20 AM on June 10, 2016 [13 favorites]

Instead, rich assholes have again shown that they can absolutely ruin something if they are willing to back a temper tantrum with real money.

Rich assholes can and will ruin everything, and they'll come out looking like model citizens before they're done. I'm conflicted on this one, too, though I've never even visited Gawker as far as I know. Its reputation for being awful seems to be pretty well-earned...
posted by saulgoodman at 11:20 AM on June 10, 2016 [1 favorite]

If Charlie Jane Anders & Annalee Newitz started a kickstarter to buy io9, I would donate in a heartbeat.
posted by smirkette at 11:23 AM on June 10, 2016 [41 favorites]

That's still not why they lost. That's why they went to trial.

I believe it's why they have to sell the company; the suit was brought in such a way that insurance wouldn't cover it so that they have to declare bankruptcy instead of just paying Hulk Hogan a lot of money but not ALL the money, which is how the system generally works. That happened because of Thiel's influence with Hulk Hogan's lawyer. He pulled strings and manipulated the legal process to get this result. He's not the reason they lost the case (and I agree that publishing sex tapes without permission is absolutely horrible) but he is the reason they lost EVERYTHING.
posted by Mrs. Pterodactyl at 11:23 AM on June 10, 2016 [17 favorites]

It's terrible what he's done, but I feel bad for him, frankly. He must be very unhappy.

None of us can look into Thiel's mind (until Elon Musk invents something I guess) but knowing that Thiel is a hardcore objectivist type of dude, I think his logic on this would be that he has done the resoundingly moral thing here, and the fact that he can manipulate the court system to do this is just another testament to his perception of himself as a Great and Powerful Man.

I don't think we should ever depend on Thiel's troubled conscience being his just deserts.
posted by griphus at 11:24 AM on June 10, 2016 [27 favorites]

I know, Hulk Hogan is such a big baby.

Hulk Hogan is not the rich asshole in this story. Peter Thiel is, and his beef with Gawker wasn't that Hulk Hogan had his sex tape shown -- it's just one of a number of agressive lawsuits back by Thiel. No, the issue is personal, dating back to at least 2003, when Gawker wrote some awful things about Thiel.

I mean, I don't blame Thiel for hating Gawker. I hate Gawker. There are a lot of things I hate that I don't put massive resources into destroying.
posted by maxsparber at 11:26 AM on June 10, 2016 [35 favorites]

Just to be clear, Hogan is absolutely not the "rich asshole" anyone is accusing of throwing a temper tantrum, nor has anyone defended Gawker's actions regarding the private sex tapes of celebrities.

Criticizing Theil for spending gobs of money on Hogan's lawsuit in order to destroy a gossip rag that pissed him off is not the same thing as saying Hogan should not have sued in the first place.
posted by muddgirl at 11:26 AM on June 10, 2016 [14 favorites]

Reddit is overjoyed. Of course.
posted by splitpeasoup at 11:27 AM on June 10, 2016 [4 favorites]

If Thiel and his ilk can do this to Gawker, can they also use similar tactics to shut down other, more praiseworthy media outlets that might criticize silicon valley? I mean, sure, Gawker was particularly vulnerable because of the types of stories it runs, but couldn't a perfectly decent on-line media company or publication be shut down using a series of funded lawsuits even if those suits are totally bogus?
posted by Alluring Mouthbreather at 11:27 AM on June 10, 2016 [6 favorites]

Huh. I kinda like gawker.
posted by DynamiteToast at 11:28 AM on June 10, 2016 [10 favorites]

MeFi's own mightygodking had some points about the decision which I found informative.
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 11:30 AM on June 10, 2016 [17 favorites]

couldn't a perfectly decent on-line media company or publication be shut down using a series of funded lawsuits even if those suits are totally bogus?

Of course they can. So-called SLAPP lawsuits were long the Church of Scientology's biggest weapon against unflattering coverage. Lawsuits can be insanely expensive, and it's an effective way to drive a publication into bankruptcy, even if they do nothing wrong.
posted by maxsparber at 11:30 AM on June 10, 2016 [12 favorites]

dances with hamsters Filing Chapter 11 gives a company time to renegotiate its debts with its creditors. Most of the time creditors end up getting a fraction of what they were owed, sometimes pennies on the dollar. Who ever owns Gawker Media in the end will definitely not have a $140 million bill to take care of.
posted by not_the_water at 11:30 AM on June 10, 2016

I believe it's why they have to sell the company; the suit was brought in such a way that insurance wouldn't cover it so that they have to declare bankruptcy instead of just paying Hulk Hogan a lot of money but not ALL the money, which is how the system generally works. That happened because of Thiel's influence with Hulk Hogan's lawyer. He pulled strings and manipulated the legal process to get this result. He's not the reason they lost the case (and I agree that publishing sex tapes without permission is absolutely horrible) but he is the reason they lost EVERYTHING.

Gee, I wonder why he'd have a vendetta against a company that needlessly outed him for clicks. I wouldn't blame him if he did want to take Gawker down. Don't forget he wouldn't have succeeded if Nick Denton wasn't a total sleaze bag and editorially stepped in before the Hogan sex-tape was posted.
posted by Fidel Cashflow at 11:30 AM on June 10, 2016 [9 favorites]

I believe it's why they have to sell the company; the suit was brought in such a way that insurance wouldn't cover it so that they have to declare bankruptcy instead of just paying Hulk Hogan a lot of money but not ALL the money, which is how the system generally works.

Probably not in the exact same way Gawker was, because when you get right down to it most journalism outlets, even left completely to their own devices with no need to worry about whether they've pissed off a rich asshole, will not run a random sex tape or outing story just for kicks as Gawker has been fond of doing. The huge knockout-punch judgment here is anomalous, and I'd wager it will remain so. What you'll get instead is death by a thousand cuts -- many unsuccessful suits that nevertheless cost millions and millions to defend against -- e.g. this suit against Mother Jones.
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 11:31 AM on June 10, 2016 [8 favorites]

Hulk Hogan is not the rich asshole in this story. Peter Thiel is

I kind of thought the rich asshole in this story is Nick Denton, but that's just me.
posted by Fidel Cashflow at 11:34 AM on June 10, 2016 [7 favorites]

The huge knockout-punch judgment here is anomalous, and I'd wager it will remain so. What you'll get instead is death by a thousand cuts -- many unsuccessful suits that nevertheless cost millions and millions to defend against -- e.g. this suit against Mother Jones.

Yeah, that makes sense; I do wish there were penalties for nuisance lawsuits/DMCA notices/whatever, which this clearly isn't, and I absolutely think that both outing people without their permission and publishing sex tapes without consent are immensely, immensely horrible things to do and I'm not really sad these people can't do them anymore, but boy it also squicks me out that this rich guy (who is legitimately aggrieved even if he's an asshole) can, by dint of his resources, influence a legal proceeding in a way that shuts down a media organization, even one run by douchebags.
posted by Mrs. Pterodactyl at 11:35 AM on June 10, 2016 [8 favorites]

Gee, I wonder why he'd have a vendetta against a company that needlessly outed him for clicks.

Sidestepping the question of whether outing someone is moral under any circumstances, I will say that Denton, who is gay, and the author of the story which outed Thiel, who is also gay, seemed to have done it for political, rather than financial reasons.

Here's Denton defending the decision in late May:

“The story was actually saying Silicon Valley is a largely straight white male preserve,” he said. “Here is a figure who is known widely in Silicon Valley to be gay….an extremely successful talented venture capitalist. We should be celebrating…”

Quick jumped in: “That’s his choice, not yours.”

Denton countered, “How many people need to know in a city or in a society — is it hundreds or thousands or tens of thousands that need to know before you can actually say?”

Quick replied, “But I think you being gay doesn’t matter, it doesn’t give you the right to say.”

Denton vehemently disagreed. “If it doesn’t matter, then why on earth maintain this cone of silence around a gay public figure’s private life in a way you’d never do about a straight person?” he asked.

He said not revealing a powerful person’s sexual orientation is wrong.

“I think it’s actually prejudice that one would ask certain questions of a straight public figure and a gay public figure,” he said. “When Susan Sontag died, the New York Times did not even mention her relationship with Annie Leibovitz because somehow it was going to be an infringement — it was a fact that was widely known and it was a important feature of her life, for us, as journalists, to pretend that didn’t exist is kind of shameful.”
posted by pocketfullofrye at 11:37 AM on June 10, 2016 [8 favorites]

yay lets repeat the last thread on gawker comment-by-comment
posted by rorgy at 11:38 AM on June 10, 2016 [15 favorites]

Banana oil!

There, now it's not comment by comment anymore.
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 11:39 AM on June 10, 2016 [12 favorites]

Sidestepping the question of whether outing someone is moral under any circumstances, I will say that Denton, who is gay, and the author of the story which outed Thiel, who is also gay, seemed to have done it for political, rather than financial reasons.

Check again, the article is written by Owen Thomas, who was the editor of Valleywag as the time (Valleywag has since been closed and folded into the Gawker domain).
posted by Fidel Cashflow at 11:39 AM on June 10, 2016 [1 favorite]

I kind of thought the rich asshole in this story is Nick Denton, but that's just me.

This is not literature, where there is a protagonist and an antagonist. Stories can have multiple assholes. It's why in my first comment I wished they destroyed each other.

Instead, Thiel has not developed an effective way to legally destroy media that bypasses the legal constraints put on SLAPP lawsuits. Anyone with enough money can pursue this against any media they dislike.
posted by maxsparber at 11:40 AM on June 10, 2016 [13 favorites]

Hey, I might be able to give up hosting fees for gawkerblawker.com!
posted by cjorgensen at 11:40 AM on June 10, 2016

If Thiel and his ilk can do this to Gawker, can they also use similar tactics to shut down other, more praiseworthy media outlets that might criticize silicon valley?

The question isn't 'can they do it?' but 'what are they already doing?' The tech press is mostly supine, with only a few outlets -- coincidentally, ones with a notable British presence -- offering any substantial pushback against the toxic moneyed fucksticks of the Valley.

a company that needlessly outed him for clicks.

I believe Owen Thomas made it clear that Valleywag wasn't outing Thiel for clicks but to make a point about the Sand Hill Road VC community's unwillingness to support gay tech founders and gay-focused startups. (Note also that Grindr has never received a single brass cent in Bay Area VC funding.)
posted by holgate at 11:40 AM on June 10, 2016 [9 favorites]

You don't have to like Gawker to realize this is a terrifying amount of power for a pissed off rich guy to have.

It took this episode to make you realize that a pissed rich guy can yield a huge amount of power?

Nothing has really changed here. I think it's arguable that Gawker deserved to have been slapped hard over this, regardless of how deep Thiel's pockets are. This is just a reminder that things like justice and retribution are often a function of the ability to pay.
posted by 2N2222 at 11:40 AM on June 10, 2016 [5 favorites]

Jesse Brown and Stephen Marche talked about the suit on Canadaland earlier this week. It was a interesting conversation.
posted by Cuke at 11:40 AM on June 10, 2016

Check again, the article is written by Owen Thomas, who was the editor of Valleywag as the time (Valleywag has since been closed and folded into the Gawker domain).

Right -- the author, Owen Thomas, is gay, and the publisher, Nick Denton is gay.
posted by pocketfullofrye at 11:41 AM on June 10, 2016 [2 favorites]

All the people wringing their hands about how shitty Gawker is (which I agree with), and how they won't miss them, remember that this exact scenario almost destroyed Mother Jones after they published the Romney "47%" video. (Credit goes to Sarah Jeong for point this out.)

So, yeah, you want to talk dangerous precedent for multi-billionaires crushing journalists they don't like? Next time it won't be something you'll want to have a pox on both houses for.
posted by SansPoint at 11:46 AM on June 10, 2016 [108 favorites]

THe press release makes it sounds like they're going to continue fighting in court but really?: The protection afforded by the bankruptcy filing will allow GMG to exercise its rights to due process. The company is confident it will ultimately prevail in the Hogan lawsuit, but was not able today to obtain from the trial court even a brief stay without onerous conditions to seek relief from the appeals court.
posted by not_the_water at 11:46 AM on June 10, 2016

This one puts me in a quandary. I have a media and journalism background. I am a free speech advocate and have contributed to many a legal defense fund.

I despise Gawker. It's an irrational hatred, mixed with a few reasonable reasons.

I despise Denton.

I despise celebrity journalism. I think this story erred on the side of unethical journalism. (Unfortunately for Hogan and Thiel, unethical journalism is still protected speech (in my opinion) and Denton will probably win on appeal.)

I despise Hogan and leaked sex tapes.

People are mad that Thiel funded this, but who cares? Either Hogan had a case or he didn't.

What's the difference between him picking up the tab for a case he felt vested in or the ACLU or EFF doing the same?

I'm a SLAPP activist, and have spent quite a bit to defend people hit with these, but that's not really what was going on here.
posted by cjorgensen at 11:50 AM on June 10, 2016 [11 favorites]

It isn't the worst thing Gawker ever did, but when I wonder whether they're the good guys or not, I'm reminded of the 2008 CES where one of their journalists used a TV-B-Gone to shut off the displays of presenters on stage.
posted by zippy at 11:51 AM on June 10, 2016 [3 favorites]

cjorgensen: Thiel is funding the lawsuits out of a personal vendetta to destroy a journalism organization that extends far beyond tabloid gossip. What about the next billionaire who thinks that some story about his preferred political candidate is a bridge too far and tries to take down, say, HuffPo or FiveThirtyEight?
posted by SansPoint at 11:54 AM on June 10, 2016 [8 favorites]

Gawker (the company) is proposing to auction its assets in what is called a "363 sale" (for Section 363 of the Bankruptcy Code). Section 363 permits the buyer of those assets to buy them free and clear of all associated liabilities, and the cash that is paid by the buyer becomes the currency to satisfy, in whole or in part, the associated liabilities instead. 363 sales often have a "stalking horse" bidder -- someone who agrees in advance of the auction to bid at least a certain price, which becomes the place where the bidding starts. The stalking horse has the right participate in the auction if other bidders come at a higher price, and usually is entitled to a fee for having done the work necessary to support an initial floor bid and for reserving cash to pay for the floor bid. Creditors, including Hulk Hogan can participate in the sale bidding for the assets not with cash but with forgiveness of the debt they're owed. (This is called a "credit bid.") Other creditors will surely argue Hogan shouldn't be allowed to credit bid his verdict because it could be reduced or reversed on appeal. If they fail at that, it's entirely possible that Hogan might end up owning Gawker's properties if he successfully credit bids his verdict.

If the sale goes through for a cash bid, Gawker the company will consist of (a) the cash from the sales, (b) all of its debts, and (c) the right to appeal the Hulk Hogan verdict. Creditors other than Hulk Hogan will initially get that amount of cash they would be entitled to if the verdict was entirely upheld, and the rest of the cash goes into trust -- to be taken by Hulk Hogan if he wins his appeal in full, and to be split between Hulk Hogan and the other creditors to the extent the damage award is reduced by appeal or settlement. If the purchase price for the assets is high enough, or the verdict is reduced enough, to pay all the other creditors in full, than the shareholders of Gawker will get a distribution from the bankruptcy too.

The biggest challenge to other creditors is that they are going to argue that a considerable portion of the sale proceeds ought to be able to be spent on the appeal of the verdict, and Hogan will argue that this is already his money, decided by the jury, and the other creditors need to pay for that appeal out of pocket or buy an insurance policy (usually called a bond) that guarantees the full amount of the verdict be paid if upheld on appeal.
posted by MattD at 11:54 AM on June 10, 2016 [33 favorites]

This is not literature, where there is a protagonist or an antagonist. Stories can have multiple assholes.

Literature can have that too!
posted by FatherDagon at 11:55 AM on June 10, 2016 [12 favorites]

nstead, Thiel has not developed an effective way to legally destroy media that bypasses the legal constraints put on SLAPP lawsuits. Anyone with enough money can pursue this against any media they dislike.

Assuming you meant "now" in the first sentence, Thiel has already proven this is true, with a number of unrelated lawsuits, including on the behalf of a guy Gawker demonstrated quite thoroughly did not invent email, being brought by the guy Thiel brought on board on Hogan's behalf.

Thiel's also on the board of Palantir, who planned a campaign of falsifying information to discredit Glenn Greenwald and the Intercept for going after a partner of theirs, as well as trying to smear labor unions that disagree with his SV pals.

But sure , yeah, Thiel's legal problems with Gawker are really just about defending the little guy.
posted by zombieflanders at 11:55 AM on June 10, 2016 [32 favorites]

"Mr. Denton did not impede the video’s publication, although he advised his editor “not to put up the whole tape.” A video editor cut it to 1 minute 41 seconds, from roughly 30 minutes."

94 million tears works out to a bucket of tears per dollar. Testimony indicated that the Hulkster knew he was being recorded, but planned to give a copy to one of his buddies. After reading the argument I thought the Hulkster maybe was suing them for not showing the money shot.

This article strays from being about legal protection against invasion of privacy by any asshole with a recording device. Denton was out front when he said that he published what sells, without trying to work out what was right, wrong, or even true, about the piece. I got the idea that legality was measured against the likelihood of losing a lawsuit that would put revenue from the article into the red.

Or is this simply about a block of revenue changing billionaires? So, this is plan B, what happens when you fuck with someone who can generate high-dollar litigation, and how legal sharks can turn lemons into lemonade.

In sum, does anybody think this is about any particular principle of law that applies to we who inhabit the peanut gallery? How about my privacy?
posted by mule98J at 11:56 AM on June 10, 2016

What's the difference between him picking up the tab for a case he felt vested in or the ACLU or EFF doing the same?

Because he didn't just pick up a case. There are several others being filed by Hogan's attorney against Gawker, so it's a safe bet that Thiel is funding them. It's clear that he was going to bleed Gawker dry by a thousand cuts.
posted by NoxAeternum at 11:57 AM on June 10, 2016 [4 favorites]

Denton was out front when he said that he published what sells, without trying to work out what was right, wrong, or even true, about the piece.

Right/ wrong I'll give you, but has Gawker ever published something that wasn't true? They generally do a good job with the truth part.
posted by The Devil Tesla at 11:59 AM on June 10, 2016 [2 favorites]

If Thiel and his ilk can do this to Gawker, can they also use similar tactics to shut down other, more praiseworthy media outlets that might criticize Silicon Valley?

When the NYTimes reported on Thiel's connection to the lawsuit, they did not even mention why Thiel might want to stomp Gawker into the ground. The New York Times was too afraid of being next.

So yeah, it's happening right now.
posted by sideshow at 11:59 AM on June 10, 2016 [43 favorites]

THe press release makes it sounds like they're going to continue fighting in court but really?

Really. (On preview: MattD sums up the legal situation far better than I could.) Also, Denton is for better or worse the Felix Dennis of the online media generation.

For the nostalgists in the blue: Denton met Gawker's founding editor Elizabeth Spiers at a MeFi meetup in NYC. I also believe one or both of them met Choire Sicha at a meetup too. Gawker and MeFi have been it's-complicated from the very beginning.
posted by holgate at 12:01 PM on June 10, 2016 [26 favorites]

When the NYTimes reported on Thiel's connection to the lawsuit, they did not even mention why Thiel might want to stomp Gawker into the ground. The New York Times was too afraid of being next.

So yeah, it's happening right now.

Yeah, part of the problem is not only that this means that the very rich have the ability to shut down media outlets, it's that if media outlets know that very rich people have this power then it changes reporting and the information available to the public. This case is tricky and makes people fighty because there are so many assholes involved and also because Gawker clearly did a bad thing, but there are media outlets that are unable to defend themselves that are doing good things, or want to do good things, that are vulnerable, and plenty of media outlets that will just decide not to make trouble because there's no way to defend yourself if you've pissed off someone rich and I'm not super psyched about a media that is afraid to make rich people angry.
posted by Mrs. Pterodactyl at 12:06 PM on June 10, 2016 [29 favorites]

Thiel is funding the lawsuits out of a personal vendetta to destroy a journalism organization that extends far beyond tabloid gossip. What about the next billionaire who thinks that some story about his preferred political candidate is a bridge too far and tries to take down, say, HuffPo or FiveThirtyEight?

I get the ramifications.

But you have to divorce the actions from his motives. Vendetta, revenge, altruism. Doesn't much matter why someone funds a lawsuit.

Does the case have viability? Is there a party wth standing? That's what matters (in my mind).

Again, if Hogan has a case, I don't see why he shouldn't get to press it. (I disagree with the outcome of the ruling here, which is why I am in a quandary as to what to think.)

No one asks me if I am being a vindictive ass when I defend someone by contributing financially. Often I am doing it just because I want to be a prick to someone I see as being a bigger prick.

So if you stop non-interest parties from funding lawsuits, what about the next time some blogger needs defending?

As far as I can tell the ACLU and EFF don't feel the need to keep their participation in lawsuits secret.

So you can only financially contribute to a legal case if you are public about it? I can think of all kinds of reasons why that's a horrible idea. I've kicked in to defend a trans blogger from a religious snake oil salesman. While I don't mind having my name on that case, there were lots that we a bit more reluctant.
posted by cjorgensen at 12:09 PM on June 10, 2016 [9 favorites]

The self-righteousness of some of the hatred against Gawker disgusts me. There's no other word for it. I think Gawker earned this lawsuit, and I think they maybe even should have lost it, though they should be paying a fraction of what they're being asked to pay. But Gawker is also a media institution that's done some utterly fantastic reporting, done it on a consistent basis, and tackled issues left of what many media institutions are comfortable covering at all. It is also, yes, a media institution that's broken some despicable stories, and fairly recently at that, but that doesn't make it the scum-sucking facility that its detractors make it out to be.

It's earned a fair deal of hate, but the nature of that hate crosses over pretty often into being a kind of petty vindictiveness amongst the sorts of people who fancy themselves to be "fighting the good fight", by tweeting sarcastic things at corporations and hugging themselves. Gawker, the enterprise that was covering the shitty entitlement of Silicon Valley half a decade before anybody else bothered to, and that continues to report both on the ways in which the political Right organizes to achieve its terrifying objectives and on the self-described Left acting in disgusting and hypocritical ways, has done a tremendous amount of good for the country, and has done it by the same principles that have led it to make the occasional really fucked-up decision, such as the one that triggered this suit.

Their distaste for polite society has been responsible for some emptyheaded and vicious gossip, but has also led it to target a whole bunch of elephants in a whole bunch of rooms. There're a lot of people congratulating themselves for Gawker's imminent demise who've also congratulated themselves for the world's becoming less awful and more aware of a place, entirely because of Gawker and not at all because they did anything other than call themselves by a political orientation and declare themselves noble and just for having done so.

Gawker did a lot of dirty things and it did those things boldly. I'd argue its ratio of noble-to-despicable has been pretty damn good, all things considered. If I chose my targets in life as well as Gawker has, I'd feel pretty damn pleased with myself (and I know that I don't). But they operate on a scale at which their fuck-ups are as colossal as their successes—and the people who feel those successes would've occurred with or without Gawker's actions are smugly telling themselves how good it feels to watch its flawed enterprise crumble.
posted by rorgy at 12:10 PM on June 10, 2016 [94 favorites]

If I could talk to Peter Thiel

He might be too busy talking to white nationalists to have time for you.
posted by sparkletone at 12:11 PM on June 10, 2016 [12 favorites]

So, why does Gawker have to sell now rather than wait for the appeal?
posted by clockworkjoe at 12:13 PM on June 10, 2016 [1 favorite]

But you have to divorce the actions from his motives. Vendetta, revenge, altruism. Doesn't much matter why someone funds a lawsuit.

Why? The other vengeful plutocrats certainly aren't going to divorce Thiel's actions from his motives when they realize they can do this too so long as there's a legal hat to hang their vengeance on and follow suit.
posted by griphus at 12:14 PM on June 10, 2016 [17 favorites]

Does the case have viability? Is there a party wth standing? That's what matters (in my mind).

We're focusing exclusively on the Hogan case. Thiel has backed several lawsuits against Gawker. Almost any newspaper has several lawsuits they are dealing with, most of which go nowhere. If a billionaire rolls in and funds all of them, they are going to destroy the paper, whatever merits the individual lawsuits have.
posted by maxsparber at 12:15 PM on June 10, 2016 [8 favorites]

Because the judge denied their motion to extend the deadline to pay. I don't know if the timeline here gives them an opportunity to ask the appeals court to reverse that denial on their own.
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 12:15 PM on June 10, 2016

Nick bought me a beer once. I guess I won't wait for another.
posted by jonmc at 12:17 PM on June 10, 2016 [4 favorites]

Why? The other vengeful plutocrats certainly aren't going to divorce Thiel's actions from his motives when they realize they can do this too so long as there's a legal hat to hang their vengeance on and follow suit.

Because I guess I am more scared of a world where one has to show how your case is funded and prove the motivations of those who are doing so are true, than I am of one where anonymous billionaires use the courts to crush their enemies.
posted by cjorgensen at 12:20 PM on June 10, 2016 [5 favorites]

I am sorry to see this happen to Gawker, not least because it was one of the few new media companies whose staff was unionized. I believe Vice's is too, but Buzzfeed and Vox are not.
posted by pocketfullofrye at 12:20 PM on June 10, 2016 [22 favorites]

So, why does Gawker have to sell now rather than wait for the appeal?

According to Fortune Florida law requires defendants to put the award (or 50 million, whichever is less) into escrow before they can appeal. So it sounds like they needed to sell themselves in order to raise the capital to appeal the decision.
posted by papercrane at 12:23 PM on June 10, 2016 [3 favorites]

Gawker tends to be a garbage fire, although less so than any other news source that covers celebrities and the rich. Most of their subsidiaries, however, are fine sites, which I will mourn.

The fact that the trial was designed to kill Gawker as a company worries me. The lawsuit against Mother Jones was also targeted and Peter Zuckerman, who pissed off VanderSloot by showing how homophobic VanderSloot was (and eventually settled the case by stating that VanderSloot was not a bigot, no way, no how, despite putting full page advertisements in a paper stating that Peter's motive for reporting on molestation in the Boy Scouts was because he was gay.)

So we're batting 1 for 2 in terms of rich assholes shutting down news outlets that they don't like. But Thiel has a lot more money than VanderSloot and was able to finance multiple lawsuits. I hope this means that we aren't entering an era in which all media outlets need a billionaire owner (like Jeff Bezos) to be sure of survival.
posted by Hactar at 12:24 PM on June 10, 2016 [9 favorites]

I am Peter Thiel's hired hand
Fight for the rights of just rich men
posted by stevis23 at 12:24 PM on June 10, 2016 [4 favorites]

We're focusing exclusively on the Hogan case. Thiel has backed several lawsuits against Gawker.

It's ironic that a publication which spent so much time writing about people who miss the big picture of a shitty situation to nitpick its most immediately obvious aspects—and Gawker did a lot of that—gets this reaction in response to a billionaire using his vast wealth to crush them out of existence, attempting to hide the fact that he was doing so, and then sounding inordinately pleased with himself for "stopping bullies". And by "ironic" I mean "predictable in the kind of depressing, infuriating way that Gawker's sarcastic-but-earnest voice is so consistently amazing at addressing". Even as it's going down in flames, it feels like it's urgently needed in the world today.

(That link, if you're lazy, is to a Gawker Media piece on why it's fucked-up that the wealthy and powerful consider themselves to be bulliable. Written well before Thiel decided on "bullying" as his choice of word.)
posted by rorgy at 12:26 PM on June 10, 2016 [8 favorites]

I have zero issues with outing a billionaire who is heavily involved in right wing political causes . That's exactly the sort of public figure freedoms of the press should protect you from.

But then it all goes to show that any basic freedom or civil right is meaningless in the face of massive inequality. you can't be truly free unless you live in an egalitarian society.
posted by ennui.bz at 12:29 PM on June 10, 2016 [9 favorites]

How are "sex tapes" still a thing?
posted by Bob Regular at 12:30 PM on June 10, 2016

No, the issue is personal, dating back to at least 2003, when Gawker wrote some awful things about Thiel.

Well, specifically, Gawker outed Peter Thiel in a very self-righteous article. Whether outing an unwilling celebrity is awful depends, I think, a bit on your own personal feelings.
posted by Going To Maine at 12:32 PM on June 10, 2016 [3 favorites]

And nothing of value was lost.
posted by prepmonkey at 12:36 PM on June 10, 2016 [3 favorites]

Relatively short-term speaking, all of media (old and new) is fucked, most of Silicon Valley as we know it is fucked too, we might be due for a second banking crisis, and America is on the verge of electing an insane plutocrat with yet-to-be-seen consequences, so arguing little details about whether Gawker deserved it or Thiel has a legitimate grievance is like quibbling over two chess pieces before the whole board is wiped out.
posted by naju at 12:41 PM on June 10, 2016 [3 favorites]

prepmonkey: Except the possibility of a free press that can't be silenced by billionaires with grudges. Would you be so quick to dismiss this if Thiel bankrupted a publication you liked?
posted by SansPoint at 12:42 PM on June 10, 2016 [6 favorites]

I have zero issues with outing a billionaire who is heavily involved in right wing political causes.

You mean as gay? I do. If we don't offer such to even the hypocrites and the the assholes, then you can't really expect such to be extended to those you find worthy of protecting

If you mean as the backer of the lawsuit, well, I believe he outed himself, but even there I think people should have a right to anonymously fund whatever they like. The alternative is worse.

Where this breaks down for me, is this should have never made it to trial. It was shoddy unethical journalism, but it's still protected speech (my take). Obviously the court disagrees with my assessment, but I see this being overturned.
posted by cjorgensen at 12:43 PM on June 10, 2016 [3 favorites]

Only a matter of time that the same First Amendment principles that set up tech barons like Thiel to make billions of dollars would get knifed in a back alley by the same lot.
posted by a lungful of dragon at 12:45 PM on June 10, 2016 [4 favorites]

Excuse me if I missed it, I have read the whole thread so far, but what does this mean for the. Gawker owned media sights like io9 Kotaku, etc ?

Will they be sold as separate assets, or just shut down immediately?

Does thia meanall the staff writer for those sights just lost their jobs?
posted by Faintdreams at 12:46 PM on June 10, 2016

Paging the archive team…
@Felix Salmon: There’s a serious risk that Ziff Davis would unpublish/delete everything on Gawker.com, just to protect itself from Thiel.
posted by Going To Maine at 12:48 PM on June 10, 2016 [2 favorites]

Excuse me if I missed it, I have read the whole thread so far, but what does this mean for the. Gawker owned media sights like io9 Kotaku, etc ?

The Gawker-owned sites are what's being sold. Gawker Media Group, the overall company that owned io9, Kotaku, etc., will still exist but with no media outlets to its name.
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 12:48 PM on June 10, 2016

The assets are being prepared to be sold off (or whatever) but there's no way to tell what the new owner (whoever that ends up being) will do with them.

Probably a lot of resumes and clippings getting emailed out today though.
posted by griphus at 12:49 PM on June 10, 2016

It sounds like the most likely outcome would be that Ziff-Davis will buy all the properties. If you think about it, the way that the sites interact through Kinja would make it painful to separate them anyway.

That said, I wouldn't be at all surprised if ZD shut down Kotaku, unless they want two different gaming sites for some reason. I guess they serve different demos?
posted by selfnoise at 12:49 PM on June 10, 2016

Anyone who wants to celebrate the good news with me can rock to this 80s anthem!
posted by riruro at 12:52 PM on June 10, 2016

Kotaku is/was one of the few review sites that wasn't, like, decidedly in the pocket of the industry. At least all the way. I genuinely do not recall the last time IGN did anything resembling breaking a story, but that's probably a liability for ZD, not a benefit.
posted by griphus at 12:53 PM on June 10, 2016 [8 favorites]

. . . whether [Gawker] are the good guys or not . . .

Illinois Nazis. That is all.
posted by The Bellman at 12:54 PM on June 10, 2016 [2 favorites]

For instance, there does not seem to be a single hit on IGN front page (just forums and blogs) for the phrase "GamerGate." That's not the kind of, ahem, reporting they do. But it is very much the kind of reporting the industry prefers to see, rather than Kotaku's whole "actual journalism" thing.
posted by griphus at 12:55 PM on June 10, 2016 [16 favorites]

This is why ensuring that Gawker's insurance wouldn't apply by dropping some of the charges was such a strategically brilliant, yet pernicious, move. It's kind of fucked up, IMO, that Gawker is being forced into Bankruptcy before they can get an appeal on the merits heard.

I do understand the reasoning behind requiring an appeal bond, but in this particular case it's nearly as unconscionable as the (size of the) verdict itself. Denton is being denied any opportunity for justice here, it seems. Maybe he should ultimately lose, but if there are in fact reversible errors, he shouldn't be forced to lose any right of redress just because he's an asshole who doesn't have enough cash on hand to put up a $50 million bond.

Assholes deserve to get the full legal process thry are entitled to just as much as not-assholes. Note that if roles were reversed, Thiel would have no problem appealing. Or Hogan, with Thiel's money for that matter.
posted by wierdo at 12:59 PM on June 10, 2016 [8 favorites]

Gizmodo Isn't Going Anywhere
posted by gottabefunky at 1:00 PM on June 10, 2016 [1 favorite]

I don't know where else to post this, but I have to show it to somebody.

It seems to me that the Hulk Hogan case could form a bad precedent that would have implications for far more newsworthy things. (Gawker argued that it was newsworthy that Hogan's sexual prowess, as captured on video, may or may not differ from how he has boasted about his sexual prowess in the past.)

The fact that I disagree that this particular sex tape is newsworthy (and that, even if it were newsworthy, in this case it's not important enough to trump Hogan's inherent right to keep their own sex tape private) doesn't change the fact that I won't be shedding a tear for Hogan if this thing gets overturned on appeal. That's how poor this instance is at defending the general principle of publishing newsworthy things even if they make some people unhappy.

Hence I was reminded of something that Dennis Miller said about the 1990 obscenity trial of 2 Live Crew in Florida — they were acquitted, and that was the right call, but did we really have to go to the mat over 2 Live Crew? So I googled, and I found a New York Times article about the trial. This is something that the Broward County sheriff actually said in 1990:

Responding to critics who say fighting crime should take precedence in the sheriff's office, Mr. Navarro said in an interview last week that he was just doing his job.

''It's the law, and I'm the chief law enforcement officer,'' he said. ''I'm not anti-rap. Rap is rap, and if you like rap you can go and fill yourself with rap. I have a rap group in my department. It's called Hands Up. They go and talk to people about the dangers of drugs.''

posted by savetheclocktower at 1:05 PM on June 10, 2016 [5 favorites]

So, on June 1, NPR's On Point program was about this, and they had Marc Randazza, a First Amendment attorney on, and he mentioned two legal terms that I cannot find right now... Basically they stood for a legal process that used to be considered very Not Good, and I believe are considered to be illegal in a lot of other countries, but which in the US are largely ignored, and that is the practice of someone fighting a legal fight through a proxy.

That is exactly what happened here.

I think it's a terrible precedent to set, actually.
posted by hippybear at 1:29 PM on June 10, 2016 [4 favorites]

Yep, at the end of the day my sympathies lie with Gawker, and I hate Theil for that.

I'm always going to come down on the side of free speech. We don't need the government dictating what is proper journalism.

But man, this is horrible journalism. Let's pretend for a minute that it's possible to conduct good celebrity journalism, pretend for a moment the public's interest in a sex tape could possibly be something besides prurient, Gawker could have written the exact same article and only used excerpts from the tape, and their point would have been made, but they ran the full Hogan in all his unedited glory. From an ethical point, that's pretty much indefensible, but there's the rub. Unlike some others, I already decided Gawker was tabloid drivel, and in this country being bad at what you do isn't illegal.

To paraphrase a wise man, You can be right and still be an asshole.

I'm going to retreat my statement above about this not being a SLAPP case. I don't really have an informed opinion on that, nor do I want to do the research to see if it meets the requirements.
posted by cjorgensen at 1:29 PM on June 10, 2016 [3 favorites]

#GamerGate's primary subreddit is called /r/KotakuInAction, lest we forget. Because Kotaku was the games journalism enterprise that called them out on their shit from day 1.
posted by rorgy at 1:30 PM on June 10, 2016 [33 favorites]

‘Tech has been toying with media for many years now, but Peter Thiel’s recent multi-million dollar attack on Gawker is the clearest sign yet that Silicon Valley might be ready to unleash a cataclysmic assault on the fourth estate.’—The Disrapture: an article courtesy of the UK scandalmongers Popbitch.
posted by misteraitch at 1:33 PM on June 10, 2016 [4 favorites]

Gawker could have written the exact same article and only used excerpts from the tape, and their point would have been made, but they ran the full Hogan in all his unedited glory.

Actually, from what I saw (and yes, I watched it), the video they posted was only 5 minutes out of 35-40 minute total recording. It was highly edited. In fact there were issues during the trial when a full transcript of the voices in the tape were released wherein Hogan was referring to some guy using the n-word, which was not at all in the short video that I saw.
posted by hippybear at 1:33 PM on June 10, 2016

Here's What Gawker Media Does
posted by DynamiteToast at 1:35 PM on June 10, 2016 [8 favorites]

The whole Thiel situation does make sense of why Bubba The Love Sponge was not named as a co-defendant in the lawsuit, though. Since he's the one who set up the camera and invited Hulk to have sex with his wife to begin with. Still wondering why exactly he did that, really... Did Thiel pay Bubba to arrange the recording with the suggestion that he hand the tape over to Gawker?

There are layers to this that will probably never be known.
posted by hippybear at 1:36 PM on June 10, 2016

In conclusion, Gawker is (was?) a land of contrasts.
posted by ckape at 1:37 PM on June 10, 2016

In fact there were issues during the trial when a full transcript of the voices in the tape were released wherein Hogan was referring to some guy using the n-word, which was not at all in the short video that I saw.

Denton mentioned this in March:

Hogan did not sue us, as he has claimed, to recover damages from the emotional distress he purportedly experienced upon our revelation in 2012 of a sexual encounter with his best friend’s wife, Heather Cole (then Heather Clem). It turns out this case was never about the sex on the tape Gawker received, but about racist language on another, unpublished tape that threatened Hogan’s reputation and career.

As our lawyers argued in legal briefs that were kept secret by the trial judge from the public—and even from me—until an appeals court unsealed them on Friday, Hogan filed the claim because he was terrified that one of the other tapes, which memorialized his rant about his daughter dating “fucking niggers,” might emerge. As I have come to learn, Hogan himself put it in a text message to his best friend, the radio shock-jock Bubba Clem, days after we published our story: “We know there’s more than one tape out there and a one that has several racist slurs were told. I have a [pay-per-view special] and I am not waiting for anymore surprises….” I had suspicions, but it is now clear that Hogan’s lawsuit was a calculated attempt to prevent Gawker, or anyone else who might obtain evidence of his racism, from publishing a truth more interesting and more damaging than a revelation about his sex life.

Moreover, the basis of his claim that he had a reasonable expectation of privacy during his sexual encounters with Heather Cole, then Bubba’s wife, was that Hogan didn’t know he was being filmed. From the documents released by the appellate court, it is now clear that this is contradicted by multiple statements Bubba made to FBI agents asserting that Hogan knew full well that Bubba had wired his bedroom for video and was filming. We were barred from presenting that crucial evidence to the jury, or asking Bubba how much his most intimate friend knew about the couple’s sexual practices.

posted by zombieflanders at 1:38 PM on June 10, 2016 [6 favorites]

Doesn't much matter why someone funds a lawsuit.

Does the case have viability? Is there a party wth standing? That's what matters (in my mind).

Several people (including me) went to some length in describing the potential problems with what Thiel did in the last thread. Short form, what Thiel did would have been illegal in many jurisdictions, historically, because of the high potential for abuse. You might want to look at that before deciding that there's no problem here.
posted by praemunire at 1:38 PM on June 10, 2016 [12 favorites]

[..] was not at all in the short video that I saw.

My understanding it they puled the original, then made the one you saw. I could be wrong.
posted by cjorgensen at 1:45 PM on June 10, 2016

I won't dispute that. I saw a thing, it might not have been the original thing posted.
posted by hippybear at 1:47 PM on June 10, 2016 [1 favorite]

You mean as gay? I do. If we don't offer such to even the hypocrites and the the assholes, then you can't really expect such to be extended to those you find worthy of protecting

you don't get to be heavily involved in right wing causes in the US and have your homosexuality kept private out of courtesy.
posted by ennui.bz at 1:50 PM on June 10, 2016 [6 favorites]

Moreover, the basis of his claim that he had a reasonable expectation of privacy during his sexual encounters with Heather Cole, then Bubba’s wife, was that Hogan didn’t know he was being filmed. From the documents released by the appellate court, it is now clear that this is contradicted by multiple statements Bubba made to FBI agents asserting that Hogan knew full well that Bubba had wired his bedroom for video and was filming.

The problem with this argument is that Denton ignores that Bubba would have a very good reason to lie about Hogan knowing about the cameras to the FBI - namely that I doubt he'd want to confess to committing a crime to law enforcement.
posted by NoxAeternum at 1:51 PM on June 10, 2016 [1 favorite]

he mentioned two legal terms that I cannot find right now... Basically they stood for a legal process that used to be considered very Not Good, and I believe are considered to be illegal in a lot of other countries, but which in the US are largely ignored, and that is the practice of someone fighting a legal fight through a proxy.

Likely champerty and maintenance. See also barratry.

The US in fact has tighter restrictions on litigation financing than the UK. On the other hand, we don't have the English cost shifting rules.
posted by snuffleupagus at 1:57 PM on June 10, 2016 [4 favorites]

It's worth keeping in mind that Gawker Media Group (GMG) is more than just Gawker the blog/website. GMG owns several sites that I would be sad to see go -- Jalopnik, Deadspin, Kotaku, Lifehacker, Gizmodo, io9 (semi-RIP), Jezebel. GMG writers are also unionized, IMHO a good thing. Gawker the blog is too Us Weekly / National Enquirer / TMZ for my tastes, but GMG owns a lot of good properties that are getting caught in the blowback from Gawker.com.

I don't care one whit about Gawker.com but I spend way more time than healthy on the other sites.
posted by jwest at 1:57 PM on June 10, 2016 [12 favorites]

> I am Peter Thiel's hired hand
Fight for the rights of just rich men

I think "wealthy" works better metrically than "just rich".
posted by enjoymoreradio at 1:58 PM on June 10, 2016 [2 favorites]

Yes, was champerty and barratry. Thanks for knowing those words.
posted by hippybear at 1:59 PM on June 10, 2016

It's my job!

rattles tin cup
posted by snuffleupagus at 2:00 PM on June 10, 2016 [4 favorites]

I consider anything that brings public disdain and humiliation down upon the SportFraudsters of WWE to be a public service, although I'd never actually WATCH any of their sex tapes.

Well now where will the public go to see sextapes published without their participants' consent
Reddit. But only the sextapes of people Reddit doesn't like. And if you're a member of MetaFilter, you're on their list.

It seems to me that the Hulk Hogan case could form a bad precedent that would have implications for far more newsworthy things.
I went shopping at Target today (I double-dip their "Cartwheel" electronic coupons with paper coupons to buy selected items real cheap) and in the magazine section, there was a $14.95 TIME Magazine Special Edition: "Donald Trump: Rise of a Rule Breaker". Well, there's another so-called journalistic institution dead. Hey, TIME: here's some truth in labeling: "Donald Trump: Rise of a LAW Breaker". Oh, wait, you couldn't do this any more BECAUSE THEY KILLED GAWKER OVER HUMILIATING A FAKE WRESTLER.
posted by oneswellfoop at 2:00 PM on June 10, 2016 [4 favorites]

enjoymoreradio, I agree and heartily endorse that change. Let that be the earworm thus forth!
posted by stevis23 at 2:01 PM on June 10, 2016

Well now where will the public go to see sextapes published without their participants' consent

TMZ?
posted by listen, lady at 2:09 PM on June 10, 2016 [3 favorites]

Probably. Harvey's a well-connected lawyer and harder to pull this kind of shit on. On the other hand, TMZ is probably more susceptible to influence than Gawker was.
posted by snuffleupagus at 2:10 PM on June 10, 2016

We need an anonymously run VallyLeaks site, maybe on a .onion, to take over for Valleywag to keep annoying Peter Thiel. :)
posted by jeffburdges at 2:13 PM on June 10, 2016

The damages awarded amount to more than 1/2 of a Washington Post.

Since this case has yet not provided any useful bright-line precedent for future lawsuits (except possibly issued related specifically to sex tapes in the state of Florida) I don't see why this recipe couldn't be replicated over and over by other (or the same) powerful people for any number of issues.

If you don't care for even your crappiest nice things then you might not have any more nice things.
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 2:19 PM on June 10, 2016 [9 favorites]

RobotVoodooPower: "I don't see why this recipe couldn't be replicated over and over by other (or the same) powerful people for any number of issues."

I also wonder if we won't be seeing more and more of these kinds of billionaire vs. media company things in the future. I've been thinking that this kind of thing is similar to patent trolling -- i.e.: a structure that was mostly always technically legal and feasible but didn't really turn into a significant force until enough people recognized that it could be exploited. Of course, perhaps an even worse outcome would be if we didn't see more of these in the future because all the media companies have been warned by their lawyers to not poke the tycoons and barons too much.
posted by mhum at 2:30 PM on June 10, 2016

And so thousands of editors just got more conservative in their editorial choices.

That's the real shame of this. Editors at media outlets across the country, especially the small ones, are going to kill stories because of this, because they won't bother to read up on the specifics, but they'll be afraid to get sued. This one big company everyone has heard of got sued into bankruptcy because they wrote about the private life of someone rich and published something private that a celebrity did. Good luck getting your exposés published now. Speaking as someone who was an editor for 10 years, I can tell you that's all that many editors are going to take away from this. And so many of them were already afraid of everything to begin with, after years of downsizing and layoffs and ad losses and whatever. So say hello to more listings, more promoted and sponsored content, more puff pieces about the virtues of various things, no negativity.
posted by limeonaire at 2:30 PM on June 10, 2016 [18 favorites]

Who is Charles Foster Kane.
posted by clavdivs at 2:35 PM on June 10, 2016 [4 favorites]

Likely champerty and maintenance. See also barratry.

George Grellas has an informative post on HN about these topics.
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 2:35 PM on June 10, 2016

the SportFraudsters of WWE

How are you accessing Metafilter from 1977?
posted by Pope Guilty at 2:39 PM on June 10, 2016 [6 favorites]

There's also the small matter of Facebook (board member: Peter Thiel) wanting publishers to submit articles directly to its platform and feed its revenue stream, rather than have them share links out to their own websites. The Gawker case is more about monomaniacal revenge than business strategy, but with the tipping of power from publishers towards online platforms there's clearly the potential for something more coercive.
posted by holgate at 2:41 PM on June 10, 2016 [7 favorites]

And so thousands of editors just got more conservative in their editorial choices.

This right here... This is why I don't like this.
posted by hippybear at 2:41 PM on June 10, 2016 [7 favorites]

Who's Thiel's biggest rival in the valley? We need someone to pull a Jeff Bezos and buy up Gawker and keep things the way they are to maintain the balance of paparazzi power. We need a bizzaro world Peter Gregory to save them.
posted by Apocryphon at 2:46 PM on June 10, 2016 [3 favorites]

he mentioned two legal terms that I cannot find right now... Basically they stood for a legal process that used to be considered very Not Good, and I believe are considered to be illegal in a lot of other countries, but which in the US are largely ignored, and that is the practice of someone fighting a legal fight through a proxy.

Likely champerty and maintenance. See also barratry.

The US in fact has tighter restrictions on litigation financing than the UK. On the other hand, we don't have the English cost shifting rules.

The right to subsidize another's lawsuit is constitutionally protected as speech. Imagine your family could not help you pay for lawyers.
posted by Ironmouth at 2:50 PM on June 10, 2016 [2 favorites]

And so thousands of editors just got more conservative in their editorial choices.

What wonderful timing, given that Thiel is a Trump delegate.
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 2:52 PM on June 10, 2016 [8 favorites]

The right to subsidize another's lawsuit is constitutionally protected as speech. Imagine your family could not help you pay for lawyers.

Actually, according to Marc Randazza in that episode of On Point, the main thing holding back the barring of champerty and barratry in the US is the idea of suing on spec. Like, "we will sue for you and if we lose you don't pay anything, but if we win, we get a cut of the payout."
posted by hippybear at 2:54 PM on June 10, 2016 [1 favorite]

Luke O'Neil helpfully wrote an article so I didn't have to link to his tweets like I was going to earlier:

If You’re Happy About Gawker Going Under, This is the Company You Keep
posted by MCMikeNamara at 2:57 PM on June 10, 2016 [15 favorites]

Worthington's Law is supposed to be a Mr Show sketch, not the law of the land. Then again, the Supremes decided that money was speech, so now the richest get the loudest voice. It's the law!
posted by fifteen schnitzengruben is my limit at 2:58 PM on June 10, 2016

If You’re Happy About Gawker Going Under, This is the Company You Keep

lol gawker. I’m sorry to everyone losing their jobs, but as long as you can’t play games, I’m sure Polygon is hiring.
— Markus Persson (@notch) June 10, 2016

Why is it so surprising and disappointing to me that Notch turned out to be a piece of shit? I remember being surprised when he started saying all kinds of pro-GG bullshit on Twitter, and not totally understanding why. What about Minecraft suggested any kind of sensitivity or self-awareness on its developer's part?
posted by rorgy at 3:03 PM on June 10, 2016 [17 favorites]

If You’re Happy About Gawker Going Under, This is the Company You Keep

Gawker doesn’t have to be all one thing, in the same way that BuzzFeed isn’t all listicles and poorly-compensated Youtube-video makers, or The National Enquirer can publish a lot of steaming garbage as well as proof that John Edwards had been having an affair.

Incidentally, the staff at the Enquirer responsible for the occasional political exposes all left and went to InTouch. Which isn’t to say that InTouch is super hard hitting but rather that, from an article standpoint, the authors at Gawker you like can find new homes. The concern should always be the potential chilling effect, not the particular merits or demerits of Gawker as a publication.
posted by Going To Maine at 3:10 PM on June 10, 2016 [4 favorites]

The concern should always be the potential chilling effect

Just quoting that because, yeah.
posted by hippybear at 3:12 PM on June 10, 2016 [2 favorites]

If You’re Happy About Gawker Going Under, This is the Company You Keep
Well, if you look at that bunch of assholes, you'll find that most of them have been subjects of Gawker's BETTER journalism. I'm just sorry Gawker never got to make public the sex tapes of all of them.
posted by oneswellfoop at 3:14 PM on June 10, 2016 [1 favorite]

Why is it so surprising and disappointing to me that Notch turned out to be a piece of shit?

Now image Notch suing Polygon over GG. Imagine a voxelaed boot, stomping on your face, forever.
posted by Going To Maine at 3:17 PM on June 10, 2016 [1 favorite]

Much of the objection to Thiel's funding of this and other suits isn't merely of the funding, but the secrecy: he attempted to keep private and unknown to Gawker that he was, in fact, funding any of the lawsuits against him.

Not to mention the representation and conflict of interest issues. Remember, the choice was made throughout the process to forego multiple lucrative settlements favorable to Hogan, and even cancel a negligent infliction of emotional distress claim, in order to make sure Gawker suffers, and personally (such that their insurance payout wouldn't kick in.) The entire process was spearheaded by Thiel to destroy and bankrupt Gawker, not to benefit Hogan. It goes against client advocacy, ethics, and the principles of why they were in the courtroom in the first place.
posted by naju at 3:22 PM on June 10, 2016 [15 favorites]

The concern should always be the potential chilling effect, not the particular merits or demerits of Gawker as a publication.

So, the groups in that link like GamerGate were started and continue to exist to have a chilling effect on free speech through intimidation and stuff like frivolous lawsuits. I think that makes them 100% pertinent to the conversation.
posted by zombieflanders at 3:22 PM on June 10, 2016 [4 favorites]

Has GG filed any actual lawsuits? Or do they just threaten women with rape and death?
posted by hippybear at 3:24 PM on June 10, 2016

The Zoe Quinn lawsuit comes to mind.
posted by naju at 3:25 PM on June 10, 2016

I didn't know there was a lawsuit against Quinn. But then, I am not paying that close attention.
posted by hippybear at 3:26 PM on June 10, 2016

Oh, there isn't. But she was forced to drop her lawsuit after mountains of intimidation. That's not a frivolous lawsuit, but it's certainly a form of chilling free speech and working to achieve legal outcomes through intimidation; sorry, I may be misreading if this is not what's being talked about.
posted by naju at 3:30 PM on June 10, 2016 [2 favorites]

How are "sex tapes" still a thing?

Well for one thing, sites like Gawker keep them relevant.

Yeah. I'm torn. When the verdict first came down, I thought it was good that they were going to be punished--and it had to be bad enough to make them cry tears of blood, otherwise they wouldn't care and wouldn't change their behavior--but damn that seemed excessive.

I've wanted to see Gawker crash and burn for a while now, but only by virtue of its own shitty ethics and bad decisions. This has some flavor of that, but it's also a revenge-by-billionaire thing which really is chilling.
posted by scaryblackdeath at 3:42 PM on June 10, 2016

Here's What Gawker Media Does

It's really funny you link to that article, because I went to read it the other day thinking I'd like both sides of the story and this is what I saw.

So yeah, I'm on the side that says this is a terrible precedent, and I hope it gets overturned, and I hope laws are passed to make proxy suing illegal.

But I'm going to have a hard time shedding tears for the "Is This Chelsea Clinton's Real Father?" website.
posted by lumpenprole at 3:45 PM on June 10, 2016 [1 favorite]

Their "Is This Chelsea Clinton's Real Father?" article is a sarcastic takedown of the conspiracy theories surrounding that lumpy-faced dude, fyi.

The only conclusive finding: That lipstick does wonders for Bill’s complexion.

posted by rorgy at 3:48 PM on June 10, 2016 [4 favorites]

Gah! Really? I guess I'm the idiot, then.
posted by lumpenprole at 3:49 PM on June 10, 2016 [2 favorites]

If I could talk to Peter Thiel

He is at a four day meeting with fellow billionaires so you will have to wait.
posted by bukvich at 4:13 PM on June 10, 2016 [2 favorites]

Well, Gawker has been rather ham-fisted at making link-baity headlines... just one of its annoying charms.
posted by oneswellfoop at 4:18 PM on June 10, 2016

If I could talk to Peter Thiel
...
He might be too busy talking to white nationalists to have time for you.
...
He is at a four day meeting with fellow billionaires so you will have to wait.

Now that's a man-about-town.
posted by griphus at 4:32 PM on June 10, 2016 [5 favorites]

Speaking only for myself, after the last year or so, I certainly would never consider a lawsuit against a corrupt rich asshole--not that that will keep rich assholes from messing with you anyway.
posted by saulgoodman at 4:33 PM on June 10, 2016

"Well, specifically, Gawker outed Peter Thiel in a very self-righteous article."

Thiel was out in Silicon Valley but he didn't want to be outed in the media because he was afraid that Saudi investors and so on would have a problem with it.

I keep seeing people making categorical statements that both the Hogan post and the Thiel post were obviously wrong and unjustifiable when, in fact, they are both quite justifiable. It seems to me that somehow it's become conventional wisdom that Gawker is Awful and people don't actually need evidence of strong arguments for this, they just know that it's true. Meanwhile, a bunch of the subsites are excellent and, in particular, Kotaku has been ground zero in the resistance to the GamerGaters and, more generally, Gawker has overall often done some good, strong progressive journalism. They're a union shop! There is just something really weird about the reflexive Gawker hate, in my opinion. It's disproportionate. I can't help but think that there's some class and/or cultural capital stuff behind this where everyone knows that "gossip" sites are obviously terrible and tut-tutting Gawker's poor taste and supposedly shoddy ethics is some kind of social identity performance.
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 4:51 PM on June 10, 2016 [39 favorites]

The line between first amendment journalism and shoddy ethics is a difficult one to tread, but I will always lean toward the side of the first amendment even when I think the journalism is difficult from an ethics perspective. Otherwise, there is no first amendment.
posted by hippybear at 4:56 PM on June 10, 2016 [4 favorites]

Now I wanna see Thiel buy Gawker at this auction for purposes of salting the Earth.
posted by save alive nothing that breatheth at 5:27 PM on June 10, 2016

In my case, it's just ignorance and MeFi partisanship. "Gawker" for me just scans as "one of those other online communities that isn't MeFi that people complain about." Probably not much different for most people.

Is Gawker really a community? This is perhaps splitting hairs, but to me Gawker and its subsites remain tabloids/newspapers/op-eds that happen to have comment sections. I appreciate that there is probably a community of commenters of which I’m largely unaware, but it seems like Gawker has been defined by its writers, not those who responded to its articles.
posted by Going To Maine at 5:32 PM on June 10, 2016

I know quite a few people who are frequent commenters on the Gawker subsites who identify strongly as being part of a community. There is a lot of Gawker media content I'm really going to miss if it goes. I'm a regular reader at Jezebel myself.
posted by frumiousb at 5:37 PM on June 10, 2016 [7 favorites]

I think the subsites -- particularly Deadspin, Jalopnik, and Jezebel -- have much more cohesive commenter communities than the main Gawker site. In fact, I could swear that Jalopnik brought one of their commenters on as a full writer.
posted by mhum at 5:42 PM on June 10, 2016 [4 favorites]

I was once hanging out at a bar and a dude did not believe me when I told him my friends and I were not the Gawker meetup.

Deduce from that what you will.
posted by griphus at 5:42 PM on June 10, 2016 [8 favorites]

THERE IS SO MUCH TO UNPACK THERE I CANNOT EVEN WE NEED A NEW METAFILTER SUBSITE DEVOTED TO JUST DEDUCING THIS ONE EVENT
posted by hippybear at 5:43 PM on June 10, 2016 [7 favorites]

I can't help but think that there's some class and/or cultural capital stuff behind this where everyone knows that "gossip" sites are obviously terrible

Also consider which gender the stereotypical celebrity gossip fan is.
posted by Ralston McTodd at 5:44 PM on June 10, 2016 [6 favorites]

There is just something really weird about the reflexive Gawker hate, in my opinion. It's disproportionate. I can't help but think that there's some class and/or cultural capital stuff behind this where everyone knows that "gossip" sites are obviously terrible and tut-tutting Gawker's poor taste and supposedly shoddy ethics is some kind of social identity performance.

Oh man, this a dozen times over.

I touched upon this briefly in the last thread, but I hit my freshman year in college a couple of years after Twitter and Facebook blew up. The new tech boom had been underway for a while, but people were just starting to grasp that something of mammoth proportions was underway, and poised to blow the 90s tech revolution out of the water. The iPhone launched my senior year in high school, the App Store opened up just before I moved into my dorm, and Reddit had absorbed enough of Digg's old userbase that the new hip place to be, increasingly, was Hacker News, the YCombinator-operated Reddit clone where (it was explicitly made clear) the next wave of millionaire start-up founders would be plucked from.

Very few of the Hacker News socialites made it enormous. Quite a few of them, however, moved on to moderately-successful, press-blanketed enterprises, and many of those founders were best-known for writing blogs where they more-or-less gushed about how great the start-up life was, how brilliant the founders were, how great it was that we lived in a day and age wherein the best and the brightest could skip right ahead to their future lives of pleasure and bliss. (I applied to YCombinator my freshman year, and got a rare email from Paul Graham himself, explaining why I wasn't getting in and what I might do to apply again later. Enough changed over that year that I never did, but there was a period of time in which I couldn't escape my hellhole first college fast enough.)

And then there was Valleywag.

Valleywag which wrote about which budding co-founders were using their newfound fame to try and mack on models. Valleywag which wrote about every single instance of a CEO saying something inordinately racist. Valleywag covering every screwed-up internal Google memo, every instance of Apple fucking over its employees, every single Amazon warehouse nightmare. Valleywag portraying Silicon Valley, not as a shining group marching into the future, but as a group of socially-awkward people who were covering over their refusals to grow up with wealth and nerd-aimed essays at why nerds rule. Valleywag talking about what might happen if too many people grew too rich and too convinced of their innate superiority, and too determined to trample over government restrictions in order to get the disrupted society that they wanted.

Valleywag would write about members of Hacker News, who there were faceless and profileless, identified only by a lowercase handle, and suddenly those members' lofty, lengthy, condescending essays seemed more bratty than brilliant, more petty than perceptive. Valleywag would write about the success stories of every YC batch, and discuss the things which Graham and (Graham's favorite founder/YC's new CEO) Sam Altman never touched upon. Valleywag sneered. More, perhaps, than was strictly fair—I love a lot of things about the tech world, I really do—but Valleywag didn't need to be fair, not in an era where founders were learning to sell themselves as the face of the new millennium. (Now, in the era of Uber's Travis Kalanick and even Elon Musk, they've wildly succeeded.)

Gawker, meanwhile, was targeting New York City's youth-and-wealth-obsessed culture, with similar viciousness. They wrote about Tumblr founder David Karp, and about would-be literary wunderkind Keith Gessen, who founded n+1 (which later dedicated part of its What Was The Hipster? to excoriating the same NYC/Internet culture Gawker had accused them of fomenting half a decade prior). Wonkette was founded with the intent of doing the same thing to Washington, D.C. They founded Defamer for disenchanting Hollywood. The Consumerist, which is its own stand-alone publication now, originated as Gawker's blog about corporate abuse. They cast a wide net.

A lot of the time, what they published was gossippy and petty. Right from the start. It's only been in recent years that I've been able to bring myself to read Gawker daily; they were an ugly publication in a lot of ways for a long time. But they were ugly for a reason, and that reason was: they wanted to delve into the gunkworks. Early on, they were controversial for violating "off-the-record" spaces in which media members were known to talk more openly with their ostensibly journalist-targeted subjects. They regarded the existence of such spaces offensive. And in some places, they succeeded better than they did in others—Hollywood and D.C. are hard targets—but I think they definitely disillusioned a lot of their audience about New York and Silicon Valley. Lots of SV critique today is rooted in what Valleywag started.

The response from Hacker News, from the start, is exactly what Ivan Fyodorovich is getting at above. It wasn't that Valleywag was wrong. It was that they were gross and mean and beneath you. Who read Hacker News and Valleywag? Nobody, that's who. And only one of those two sites was offering to make you a millionaire.

Gawker was looped in with TMZ, another publication that's done Serious Journalism in the past and gets shat on for doing so, and even with Perez Hilton (whose existence I would never try to justify). When Pando Daily got founded—ostensibly to provide even harder-hitting pieces on Silicon Valley, but Valleywag immediately noted that it received major investments from prominent venture capitalists, and its early reporting was more pander than pando—it started feuding with Valleywag early on, using its voice as the wanna-be establishment paper to discredit Gawker even further. With some people it worked, and with other people it didn't. (That's not a judgment thing, by the way. I know I flip-flopped a lot between thinking Valleywag was telling me something desperately important, and thinking it was a spiteful piece of shit. And to be fair, it was frequently both.)

I think it's important to note that the anti-Gawker snobbery wasn't spontaneously formed of a bunch of middle-brow gossip rejection or what-have-you. In a lot of ways, it was deliberately fomented, by the people Gawker kept punching up at. And, being the "up" part of that, they had a handful of media empires of their own to punch right back down with. They had a lot of money, a lot of influence, and a generation of youngster wannabes ready to buy into their mythology if it meant riding their way into riches. Also, it seems, they had the patience to wage their wars for years. (Do you really think Thiel did this because Gawker outed him ten years ago? Gawker represents the antithesis of his entire worldview. And Thiel, remember, is going to be a Trump delegate at the RNC.)
posted by rorgy at 5:48 PM on June 10, 2016 [74 favorites]

Also consider which gender the stereotypical celebrity gossip fan is.

I think this largely depends on what the source of the celebrity gossip is coming from. There's a wide difference between who might be reading Cosmo celebrity gossip and Gawker celebrity gossip and probably is as widely varied across a large number of media sources. I mean, basement-dwelling neckbeards might be reading gossip about game developers who would never even consider reading People articles about Who Was Seen At The Beach Wearing That Outfit.

Celebrity gossip is as widely varied as its intended audiences, and even those audiences are not cut-in-the-wool dried-and-cut as far as who is reading.

Don't make these kinds of stereotypical (by your own admission) statements. The whole thing is a much broader genre than you have conceived of.
posted by hippybear at 5:49 PM on June 10, 2016

look, I'm just pissed when my reality looks anything remotely like Atlas Shrugged okay?
posted by Annika Cicada at 5:54 PM on June 10, 2016 [14 favorites]

I have some uh good news about the railroads then
posted by griphus at 5:55 PM on June 10, 2016 [15 favorites]

Stop it hahahahaha :-)
posted by Annika Cicada at 6:02 PM on June 10, 2016 [1 favorite]

mhum: "In fact, I could swear that Jalopnik brought one of their commenters on as a full writer."

I was thinking of Doug DeMuro. I don't know if they've "promoted" anyone else in the same way since though in that article they say they've done it before (under the previous commenting system, I think).
posted by mhum at 6:03 PM on June 10, 2016

rorgy's fantastic comment got me thinking about what might have happened if someone with Thiel's will-to-destroy had been around and rich when Suck.com was calling out the absurdities of the inflating dot-com bubble. Old-timers like myself tend to remember and highlight the sharp and clever satire and cultural criticism, but Suck was also often really rude and personal and abrasive. Owen Thomas was a Suck and WIRED alumnus, and he was channelling at least some of its spirit in Valleywag once it became clear that the mid-2000s bubble was going to keep inflating, along with the egos and net worths of a lucky select few, until it consumed everything.
posted by holgate at 6:32 PM on June 10, 2016 [10 favorites]

Some nostalgic cuss has made an email list called SuckAgain which sends out every day the Suck.com content of exactly 20 years ago. 1996... those were the days.
posted by oneswellfoop at 6:43 PM on June 10, 2016 [7 favorites]

Maybe someone can explain this to me as I am a few credits short of a business law degree (by nearly 100 percent) and don't fully grasp all the nuances of Chapter 11 protection. Even presuming that Gawker is worth the $100 million that Ziff-Davis is willing to pay for them, aren't they also assuming the responsibility of the $140 million dollar judgement? Or is their responsibility at least partially negated by the bankruptcy filing?

The relevant concept here is called "successor liability." It refers to whether the purchaser in a corporate transaction assumes the liabilities of the company it buys. According to an overview of the concept I found here,

Asset Purchaser is vicariously liable for the debts and liabilities (including environmental and product liability) of Seller if one or more of the following common law exceptions apply:

*Asset Purchaser expressly or impliedly agrees to assume the debts or liabilities of the Seller

*The transaction amounts to a de facto merger or consolidation

*Asset Purchaser is a mere continuation of the Seller

*The transaction is an effort to fraudulently avoid liability

I highly doubt any company would agree to buy Gawker if they had to fulfill Condition #1. Condition #2 is not fulfilled because the transaction is an acquisition, not a merger. Condition #3 is not fulfilled because Ziff-Davis or any other potential buyer is not a "continuation" of Gawker. And it's hard to argue that Condition #4 is fulfilled, because even if Gawker fraudulently tried to avoid liability, they did a very bad job of it.
posted by jonp72 at 6:55 PM on June 10, 2016 [1 favorite]

Depending on the nature of Thiel's deal with Hogan and Hogan's lawyers, Thiel could indeed end up owning several of the Gawker properties, maybe all of them.

Hogan doubtless owes Thiel a large portion of his ultimate recovery -- principal and interest if structured as a loan, or some equity percentage. Hogan (arguably) has the right to credit bid his judgment in the auction -- note that his judgement is MUCH larger than what Ziff Davis has proposed to pay, and in all likelihood Hogan doesn't want to own or run Gawker Media's property. So he buys them in the auction and gives some of them to Thiel as an in-kind payment, and sells the rest for cash. Or maybe he gives them all to Thiel and Thiel pays him the difference in cash.
posted by MattD at 6:55 PM on June 10, 2016

Put me down for Team Gawker. There's an excellent letter that came into Talking Points Memo about Thiel's days as a right-wing activist yelling homophobic slurs and how it might have served as an icebreaker with the same conservative businessmen who later made him a billionaire (link).

On the Gawker site, the most popular—I don’t say best--defense appears to be that “outing” Thiel was beyond the pale—so the suit accomplishes belated justice (that’s dubious in itself). Setting aside whether an outing actually happened or what prevailing ethical/journalistic standards are, I think Thiel’s time at Stanford (overlapping mine) bears renewed scrutiny.

Keeping it brief: Thiel essentially got his public start by founding the Stanford Review. That publication quickly, if not at its inception, was devoted mainly to “anti-PC” arguments, defending in particular fellow reviewer Keith Rabois, another future PayPal zillionare who, as a Stanford Law student was involved in "screaming 'Faggot! Hope you die of AIDS!' and 'Can't wait until you die, faggot,' in the direction of the resident fellow cottage of lecturer Dennis Matthies.”

According to a Stanford news release at the time: "first-year law student Keith Rabois ... sent a letter to the Stanford Daily confirming the allegations."

"Admittedly, the comments made were not very articulate, not very intellectual nor profound," Rabois wrote, according to the news release. "The intention was for the speech to be outrageous enough to provoke a thought of 'Wow, if he can say that, I guess I can say a little more than I thought.' "

Both Thiel and Rabois were/are gay.

This wasn’t just a youthful indiscretion. ... Thiel rode the incident to a book deal and publication in the Wall Street Journal. I assume his conservative bona fides, rooted here, played a serious role in his public profile and early business network? They also weren’t straightforwardly voicing some political/religious position: they were rather rancidly scapegoating other gay men as part of some closeted psychodynamic.

So Thiel’s high horse on speech about gay people runs rather contrary to his own actions (to the NYTimes: “Gawker has been a singularly terrible bully”?), which he has benefitted from—which he was only too happy to defend and promulgate on grounds of free speech/press. ... Don’t know why Gawker hasn’t called him out on this particularly: Thiel’s philosophical (come on) position hasn’t really diverged; while he’s now posing as a champion for liberal sensibilities about his sexuality and privacy he’s still happy to take positions against political correctness, immigrants, women’s suffrage and undermine the press he used as an exemplar of his own protections.

So, yeah, Peter Thiel... Fuck that guy.
posted by jonp72 at 7:23 PM on June 10, 2016 [26 favorites]

Terrible person does terrible thing to terrible company.

Naked News at 11.
posted by blue_beetle at 8:48 PM on June 10, 2016 [3 favorites]

I'm just sort of rocked by the fact that Hogan, after decades of steroids*, could even
be in a sex tape.

(* Allegedly. ALLEGEDLY!)
posted by Chitownfats at 9:33 PM on June 10, 2016 [1 favorite]

The right to subsidize another's lawsuit is constitutionally protected as speech. Imagine your family could not help you pay for lawyers

They can certainly give you money to pay for your lawyers. Professional rules come into play when the third party is paying the lawyer directly. The free speech argument is Thiel's position, and that of the burgeoning litigation financing industry. It's hardly settled law. A lawsuit isn't an election.
posted by snuffleupagus at 9:41 PM on June 10, 2016 [4 favorites]

Gawker has overall often done some good, strong progressive journalism.

I mean, one arm of Gawker was decrying the leaking of nude photos of celebrities while another arm of Gawker was still hosting Hogan's sex tape. It's not as if there's nothing they've ever done wrong. But the organization encompasses a lot of different stuff, some of it pretty good. (Also an old friend of mine works for one of their more niche sites and I hope he doesn't lose his job.)
posted by atoxyl at 10:23 PM on June 10, 2016 [1 favorite]

I have no real opinion of Gawker, since I don't ever read it, but I did think Hulk Hogan was treated badly even if he is apparently an awful person. When I heard about this lawsuit I was on the side of "well, they treated him really badly." Now, knowing that Peter Thiel was behind it, I'm just stunned.

I wish we weren't expected to pick sides in this, because frankly I think every side is gross. Someone sold a juicy celebrity sex tape for a bunch of money, it was published in violation of that celebrity's expectation of privacy, and he was worried because his repellant views might have messed up his career if they went public. The lawsuit to address that person's violation of rights turns out to have been someone else's personal mission to kill the publisher and send a chilling message to editors everywhere about the power of super-wealthy Randian assholes.

This is a terrible chain of events, and it's taken down a bunch of media outlets that people trust (fairly), which had nothing to do with any of this in the first place. At the very least, if what Gawker did was gross, what Thiel did was monstrous. We're living in one of those historical periods that kids will read about in history class and remember for how messed up it was, like the robber barons from 150 years ago.
posted by teponaztli at 10:29 PM on June 10, 2016 [4 favorites]

CBS News -- Report: Gawker considering lawsuit against Peter Thiel
posted by snuffleupagus at 11:28 PM on June 10, 2016 [2 favorites]

I got downvoted to Oblivion over at Reddit when I stated that this is actually bad news for free speech and that in a mostly liberal subreddit.

Oh well, my last hope for the US just went out the door. It'll be fun to see libel laws on the loose out there, when Trump wins.
posted by zouhair at 12:28 AM on June 11, 2016 [4 favorites]

Look on the bright side, zouhair; when Trumpian Libel Laws go into effect, the Clintons will be able to put most of the "Conservative Media" out of business.
posted by oneswellfoop at 12:39 AM on June 11, 2016 [3 favorites]

Hippiebear was referring to http://www.wbur.org/onpoint/2016/06/01/gawker-peter-thiel-hulk-hogan @ 21:00. Marc Randazza refers to barratry and champerty.
posted by saizai at 1:06 AM on June 11, 2016

Or Trump will start a nuclear war and then we'll all be too dead to worry about libel at all! There is always a silver lining.
posted by weretable and the undead chairs at 1:21 AM on June 11, 2016

Maybe I'm deeply in the wrong, but I am glad to see Gawker getting smacked. I say this as a former tech reporter/blogger who actually holds a journalism degree, and gives freely to the EFF and ACLU.

Free speech does not mean freedom from consequences. The flip side of "but billionaires can now punish publications they don't like" is a tacit acknowledgement that sites like Gawker are free to bully anybody who doesn't currently have millions to throw at a lawsuit. Lest we forget, Thiel is not the only person Gawker's gone after - how about outing the CFO of Conde Nast? (Published _after_ the sex tape trial had begun.)

Gawker/Jezebel's writers have argued "if it's true you publish." Fuck that. The public does not have a right to know everything about everyone all the time.

People speculating on the justification of Gawker outing Thiel because of his right-wing connections and such fail to note that the piece outing Thiel entirely failed to make that connection. Instead, it reads as a capricious "let's out someone because we can." (Sorry, but you don't get points for journalistic integrity and righteousness if you fail to actually weave the narrative that purportedly justifies your breach of trust in publishing a person's private details.)

Likewise, I fail to see the news value in publishing anyone's sex tape. (This is not the same, necessarily, as publishing the fact of the existence of a sex tape.)

I don't know how many conversations and arguments I've had over the years about what should or shouldn't be covered, always to be met with a bias towards "if we can publish it, we should publish it." If this means a site will hold a story outing an executive or publishing somebody's sex tape, well then hallelujah!

Gawker, as an individual publication and as an entity that includes Deadspin, Gizmodo, etc., is a mixed bag. It's done some good work, it's also been a shit show. But occasional brilliance is not a defense for throwing everything against the wall to see what sticks.

It'd be nice if there were a clear "good guy" to give Gawker its comeuppance, but I'm still glad to see them get whacked. My only real disappointment is that this is unlikely to have any real detrimental impact on Denton himself.
posted by jzb at 5:06 AM on June 11, 2016 [2 favorites]

I got downvoted to Oblivion over at Reddit when I stated that this is actually bad news for free speech and that in a mostly liberal subreddit.

Reddit has hated Gawker ever since Gawker outed violentacrez, who was a driving force behind many of the less savory subreddits and also, coincidentally, a close personal friend of multiple admins.
posted by Pope Guilty at 6:00 AM on June 11, 2016 [10 favorites]

The flip side of "but billionaires can now punish publications they don't like" is a tacit acknowledgement that sites like Gawker are free to bully anybody who doesn't currently have millions to throw at a lawsuit.

It's not supposed to be easy to to win a lawsuit over the publication of something that's true. It's supposed to be very, very difficult. That's not a bug, it's a critical, central feature of American life. The remedy for speech is more speech.

That doesn't mean the courts have no role to play. If someone's privacy is unduly invaded (and I'd tend to agree that publishing a tape of private, consensual sexual activity among adults would count), then they should answer in court. And you'd get the sort of result that would have happened here, if it hadn't been for Thiel: the case would be settled, the publisher would pay some reasonable amount in damages, and everyone would have gone on with their lives.

It's not a binary choice between "every newspaper exists at the sufferance of any billionaire" and "journalism has no restraint at all".
posted by Zonker at 6:01 AM on June 11, 2016 [10 favorites]

Gawker/Jezebel's writers have argued "if it's true you publish." Fuck that. The public does not have a right to know everything about everyone all the time.

If you believe that, then you should have an explicit right to privacy in the U.S. constitution, much like they do in several European constitutions. But if we had a right to privacy with teeth in this country, social conservatives would be significantly hampered in their ability to legislate the morality of others, and many online tech giants (such as Facebook) would have to redo their business model overnight. So, unless you're willing to contemplate doing that, I am very willing to stipulate that Gawker should have the right to publish anything it wants, as long as it is true. Numerous Internet companies treat my personal privacy like a joke. Why should I be sad if Gawker "violates" the privacy of some steroid-addled racist has-been wrestler or some hypocritical reactionary quasi-closeted tech billionaire?
posted by jonp72 at 6:28 AM on June 11, 2016 [2 favorites]

"If you believe that, then you should have an explicit right to privacy in the U.S. constitution"

Sorry, what? Are you saying my belief carries constitutional validity, (wow, awesome!) or that my ethics have to be backed up by a constitutional right or judicial findings that imply a constitutional right (sorry, no, that is not required)?

There is no part of the First Amendment that implies the public has a right to any particular information. It's a right to publish, it is not a right to be free of consequences after the fact if you are found to violate others' rights. If the only barrier to publication is that something is true, then everyone's personal lives are fair game for the front page of any site. That is not a world we should welcome.

"If we had a right to privacy with teeth"

Well, I'd be all for that, but I also think you're mixing issues significantly here. There's what Facebook, et al, do with data we willingly or accidentally hand them, and then a publication digging for or publishing the most damaging information about someone and publishing it for everyone to read. I'd support a right to privacy so I can tell Facebook or others what they can or can't do with my data, certainly. I'd also support shutting down social conservatives' attempts to legislate morality, so if that's a consequence of forbidding Gawker from outing anyone or publishing anyone's sex tapes without consent, that would be a triple-win!

The reason I side with Thiel and Hogan here is not because they're sympathetic characters, but because I believe that even they deserve a right to privacy from assholes like Denton who are happy to watch the world burn if it means a few additional clicks. They may be loathesome individuals, but saying that their personal lives are fair game means that yours and mine are too. I'm not really OK with that.
posted by jzb at 6:42 AM on June 11, 2016 [3 favorites]

I'm just sort of rocked by the fact that Hogan, after decades of steroids*, could even
be in a sex tape.

(* Allegedly. ALLEGEDLY!)

There's no "Allegedly". He's owned up to it and even testified about it in court.
posted by dances with hamsters at 6:44 AM on June 11, 2016 [1 favorite]

So, unless you're willing to contemplate doing that, I am very willing to stipulate that Gawker should have the right to publish anything it wants, as long as it is true.

brb doxxing everybody ever
posted by Sticherbeast at 6:56 AM on June 11, 2016 [4 favorites]

They may be loathesome individuals, but saying that their personal lives are fair game means that yours and mine are too.

They are public figures. I'm not, and I assume that you're not either. The rules are different, and for good reasons. And again, it's not an either/or choice: opposing what Thiel did here does not equate to open season on public figures, much less you and me.
posted by Zonker at 7:00 AM on June 11, 2016 [1 favorite]

Considering that Hogan will probably now get paid out far far less had he not dropped the claim that would have triggered Gawker's insurance, I wonder if he is going to regret letting Thiel take over his defence for his own purposes. Knowing Hogan I wouldn't be surprised if he sues his lawyers later on...
posted by PenDevil at 7:05 AM on June 11, 2016 [2 favorites]

I'm not going to argue about whether or not Gawker should or should not have published (part of) Borrea's sextape or whether or not it should have outed Thiel.

Fact of the matter is, Supreme Court jurisprudence is currently that if they are a public figure and whatever you publish is either true, is an opinion, or is not in reckless disregard of the facts, publishers can write whatever the fuck they want and a person's only remedy is more speech. Public figures don't get privacy, basically.

In light of that, I'm really fucking angry that Gawker is getting treated the way they are. It's been settled law for 30 years, yet Gawker somehow managed to be forced into Bankruptcy over a case that should have been tossed in the first place. If you can't rely on settled Supreme Court precedent, the law isn't much good, is it?
posted by wierdo at 7:25 AM on June 11, 2016 [7 favorites]

"They are public figures. I'm not, and I assume that you're not either."

Your assumption is wrong. For certain values of "public figure," I do qualify - and if you do anything slightly newsworthy, you are as well.

Unrelated: So now I know who beat me to my username here and on Gmail...
posted by jzb at 8:21 AM on June 11, 2016

As for reflexive Gawker hate online, do not underestimate the way reddit has indoctrinated several internet generations of people to hate Gawker, and the reason for that.

Prior to 2012 reddit didn't care about Gawker one way or the other.

Then in October of 2012 Gawker became reddit's designated symbol for all that was bad in the world.

What happened?

A scumbag who went by the nic ViolentAcrez and who was a long time reddit contributor had his real name published in a story by Adrian Chen on Gawker. ViolentAcrez, VA for short, was a prolific contributor to reddit's really ugly porn culture. Thanks to him /r/jailbait, /r/creepshots, /r/picturesofdeadkids (which is exactly what it sounds like), /r/beatingwomen (which is also exactly what it sounds like, video of domestic violence for misogynists to masturbate to), and any number of other ugly subreddits (including many racist subreddits).

Per reddit invading the privacy of thousands (literally) of women with /r/creepshots is perfectly fine. But releasing the actual name of the person facilitating the invasion of privacy of thousands of women was the worst thing ever.

Tribalism is the obvious explanation. The women and children VA was invading the privacy of were out group, VA was in group, so reddit cared about him but not his victims.

A multitude of high profile subreddits immediately banned any and all content from any Gawker owned company, and reddit began it's long crusade against Gawker. To this day many of the front page subreddits have an official policy banning Gawker links.

Today on reddit there are users who have never heard of VA, users who don't know the origin of reddit's obsessive hatred of Gawker, but nevertheless hate Gawker with a passion because they've learned to from reddit.

I'm sure that's not the only reason for a widespread hate of Gawker online, but reddit is influential and they've been pushing a hate of Gawker for about four years now.
posted by sotonohito at 8:25 AM on June 11, 2016 [14 favorites]

For certain values of "public figure," I do qualify - and if you do anything slightly newsworthy, you are as well.

The 'certain value' pertinent here is that identified by Gertz v. Robert Welch, Inc.:

Hypothetically, it may be possible for someone to become a public figure through no purposeful action of his own, but the instances of truly involuntary public figures must be exceedingly rare. For the most part, those who attain this status have assumed roles of especial prominence in the affairs of society. Some occupy positions of such persuasive power and influence that they are deemed public figures for all purposes. More commonly, those classed as public figures have thrust themselves to the forefront of particular public controversies in order to influence the resolution of the issues involved. In either event, they invite attention and comment.

posted by snuffleupagus at 8:26 AM on June 11, 2016 [2 favorites]

"If you can't rely on settled Supreme Court precedent, the law isn't much good, is it?"

Um. Do you really want the Supreme Court's precedents to be settled law for eternity? Because that seems like a really bad idea. Also, unrealistic. Many, many cases have been settled law only to be overturned years later. For one thing, I'd really love to see the Citizens United decision overturned. I think we're probably all happy that Plessy v. Ferguson was.
posted by jzb at 8:27 AM on June 11, 2016

I completely forgot that Adrian Chen outed Violentacrez. Christ. What a wretched man (and what a wretched reaction from Reddit at his outing).

Having used Reddit when VA was still active, I'll say: good riddance to his smug, gloating, pedophile* ass.

* and racist, and misogynist, and all other kinds of -ist we don't encounter enough to have common vernacular for.
posted by rorgy at 9:07 AM on June 11, 2016 [7 favorites]

Fact of the matter is, Supreme Court jurisprudence is currently that if they are a public figure and whatever you publish is either true, is an opinion, or is not in reckless disregard of the facts, publishers can write whatever the fuck they want and a person's only remedy is more speech. Public figures don't get privacy, basically.

This is not even remotely true. If you doubt that, try posting celebrity toiletcams.
posted by Sticherbeast at 9:30 AM on June 11, 2016

A celebrity taking a shit might not be newsworthy, but one repeatedly using racial slurs, and specifically the same ones for which he was later fired from the WWE for, certainly is.
posted by zombieflanders at 9:48 AM on June 11, 2016 [2 favorites]

Reporting that he said them would be fine. Perhaps that recording itself could be okay. The accompanying sex, demonstrably not so much.
posted by Sticherbeast at 9:56 AM on June 11, 2016 [1 favorite]

The Gawker/Valleywag writer who wrote the original "Peter Theil is gay" story (and has since gone to the San Francisco Chronicle) tells his side of the story.
posted by oneswellfoop at 9:58 AM on June 11, 2016 [4 favorites]

...I am glad to see Gawker getting smacked. I say this as a former tech reporter/blogger who actually holds a journalism degree

See, I think that's J-school speaking, and American J-school inculcates the po-faced 'shape of earth: views differ' mode characteristic of most American journalism, where you're not allowed to call a liar a liar without circumlocution, and being uncivil outside of the op-ed section is the greatest of sins. Gawker was mostly found guilty of irreverence, and fuck me but the Valley's moneyed elite get offended if they're not revered on top of their wealth.

As Elizabeth Spiers noted today, the question is whether a media outlet can be summarily executed. The New York Times hasn't been dragged through the courts for selling the Iraq war from its position at the top of the establishment media hierarchy. Judith Miller wasn't sued into penury for laundering bullshit that keeps on killing people even today. Is the way to avoid court-ordered assassination to be huge or supine or 'nice', or a combination of all three? Perhaps that can go on the J-school syllabus.
posted by holgate at 10:52 AM on June 11, 2016 [10 favorites]

I'm unclear as to how this is a First Amendment issue. The First Ammendment says the government can't pass laws restricting speech. It doesn't protect anyone from the consequences of that speech, which could conceivably include being sued for damages caused by that speech. And choosing not to say something is itself a kind of speech - one that is often protected by law. If I have chosen not to publicize my sexuality and someone else makes it public, both are speech acts, so why is it that the speech act by the party who publicized it gets preferential treatment?

Caveat: I don't politically agree with Theil, or journalistically care for Gawker.
posted by eustacescrubb at 11:30 AM on June 11, 2016 [2 favorites]

I'll add also that I really doubt so many people would be expressing sympathy if, for example, Jennifer Lawrence and the other women victimized by reddit during the fappening had banded together to ruin reddit with a legal DDoS.

Hulk Hogan's sex tape, apparently, is sacrosanct because he's a man and his sexual privacy is valuable. All the myriad women who have had their sexual privacy violated by numerous media outlets, well, they're just women so they had it coming.
posted by sotonohito at 11:32 AM on June 11, 2016 [3 favorites]

"See, I think that's J-school speaking"

The opposite, actually. I don't subscribe to the "view from nowhere" school, for example. I do, however, subscribe to the idea that publications should (in the words of the SPJ's code of ethics) "avoid pandering to lurid curiosity" and "balance the public's need for information against potential harm or discomfort."

None of the coverage in question here is "need to know" by the public. Neither Thiel's sexuality nor the Hogan sex tape provided any information the public legitimately needed. We've gone far too far in the direction of "if it's true print it" when it comes to the private lives of celebrities - and not far enough in actually covering what the public needs to know.

None of the examples you give justify Gawker's behavior, they just illustrate other publications that need to improve. If the NYT had been taken down for its part in selling the Iraq war, I wouldn't shed any tears.
posted by jzb at 11:34 AM on June 11, 2016 [3 favorites]

Hulk Hogan's sex tape, apparently, is sacrosanct because he's a man and his sexual privacy is valuable. All the myriad women who have had their sexual privacy violated by numerous media outlets, well, they're just women so they had it coming.

Beuh? Who here is defending the Fappening? Which, by the way, has its own $100 million lawsuit against Google, FBI investigation, criminal conviction, etc.
posted by Sticherbeast at 11:37 AM on June 11, 2016 [5 favorites]

Neither Thiel's sexuality nor the Hogan sex tape provided any information the public legitimately needed.

And there we have the passive voice's implied authority where an "I believe" might have been appropriate. Perhaps that was entirely unconscious.

There is clearly a spectrum between "public interest" and "interesting to the public". I think the Thiel story had public interest, given the context of SF vs Sand Hill Road, and that the Hogan story was frivolous and would have been settled out of court had Borrea not been sponsored by a grudgeful billionaire.

But to reiterate: does a media outlet deserve to be bankrupted for instances of 'lurid curiosity' if someone's prepared to throw enough money at lawyers?

Denton, being British, comes from a journalistic tradition that includes both Felix Dennis (as I mentioned upthread) and Private Eye. The Eye is often puerile and scurrilous and can be very wrong, such as with MMR. It has had run-ins with English libel law throughout its existence, sometimes with people it has wronged, but often with wealthy people who simply wanted it gone. It's survived the best efforts of some of the worst people, and it remains a vital source for anyone interested in how the British establishment actually functions as opposed to how it presents itself to the public.

So in my opinion, it still boils down to a tone argument: that Gawker failed to conform to the prescribed roles in American journalism. Not po-faced enough to be Serious Journalism, not lowbrow enough to be Tabloid Bullshit, not stenographic and deferential enough* to be Celebrity Fluff. And if you think that having Gawker ruined for 'lurid curiosity' will encourage public-interest journalism that challenges and upsets people with power and money, you are as high as a kite.

* The treatment of Kotaku shows which category the goobergubbers think videogame journalism should fall under.
posted by holgate at 12:45 PM on June 11, 2016 [12 favorites]

Not here, I meant in general. I see a **LOT** of people who were indifferent to, or supportive of ("lol bewbz!") the fappening, but who are outraged -- outraged they say -- that someone would dare to put up Hogan's sex tape.

There were also a lot of people who (correctly) derided the Fappening as nasty, wrongful business, people who made sure that major websites would stop hosting those images. Were there many articles lamenting 4chan being punished for its "irreverence", or that the civil and criminal consequences of the Fappening would have a chilling effect on free speech? Any people saying that public figures have no right to privacy, or that boasts about one's sexuality would make leaked nudes inherently "newsworthy" in a legal sense? If Jennifer Lawrence had indirectly helped to bankrupt Reddit as a result, would we be all that upset? Is anybody claiming now that the lawsuit against Google is a SLAPP, or a form of what had once been called barratry?

I'm not happy about Gawker/Hulk/Thiel - it's just that it's silly to not see how Gawker did something wrong, willfully so, recklessly so, and even if they ultimately prevail on appeal, this was still a grave that they helped dig.
posted by Sticherbeast at 1:23 PM on June 11, 2016 [4 favorites]

Not here, I meant in general. I see a **LOT** of people who were indifferent to, or supportive of ("lol bewbz!") the fappening, but who are outraged -- outraged they say -- that someone would dare to put up Hogan's sex tape.

Reddit creeps are loving this because it makes Gawker's criticism of them look opportunistic and hypocritical, not because anybody actually likes Hulk Hogan.

(I already said what I wanted to say about Gawker in the end which is that it's a mixed bag but on balance I don't want to see them go.)
posted by atoxyl at 3:52 PM on June 11, 2016 [1 favorite]

As regards the outing of Thiel, there's a decent argument to be made that he is a limited-purpose public figure. Business scandals, anything involving the Valley or related political activity? Fire away. Sexual preferences? Maybe not.

His sexual preferences are relevant, because he was a campus right-wing activist who yelled homophobic slurs at a grad student, even though he was in the closet in the time. His preferences are also relevant, because it is an "open secret" in Silicon Valley, but Thiel does not like to talk about it in front of his venture capitalist investors. And why is that? Because the venture capitalist investors in Silicon Valley are much less liberal and tolerant (being a very culturally homogeneous group of straight white guys) than the cosmopolitan reputation of Silicon Valley would suggest. For women, gays, minorities, and other groups who have found it difficult to get venture capital allocated to them in a meritocratic way, Thiel's sexuality is very much a public matter indeed.
posted by jonp72 at 6:32 PM on June 11, 2016 [4 favorites]

The Gawker/Valleywag writer who wrote the original "Peter Theil is gay" story (and has since gone to the San Francisco Chronicle) tells his side of the story.

The following quote from the above mentioned article is a juicy one.

And then there’s the much-cited 2007 post I wrote about the puzzling reaction of Silicon Valley’s elite to any discussion of Peter Thiel’s sexuality. By then, friends and others in Thiel’s circle had known he was gay for years. He was not in any kind of closet. I was aware that he had concerns about the idea of my writing a story on the subject, but those concerns, as far as I’d been able to determine, were purely professional, not personal — he was worried that it might place him at a disadvantage when raising money for a new Clarium Capital hedge fund in the Middle East.

Thiel was less concerned about his privacy being violated than with Valleywag hurting his ability to raise petrodollars from Saudi oil oligarchs. That's more tasteless than anything Gawker did.
posted by jonp72 at 6:37 PM on June 11, 2016 [5 favorites]

Peter Thiel, Gawker and why all of this could matter during a Trump presidency

Peter Thiel, Trump and the press: Remember the Silicon Valley billionaire’s backing the candidate who wants to curb the media.
posted by homunculus at 6:58 PM on June 11, 2016 [3 favorites]

"His sexual preferences are relevant, because he was a campus right-wing activist who yelled homophobic slurs at a grad student, even though he was in the closet in the time. His preferences are also relevant, because it is an "open secret" in Silicon Valley, but Thiel does not like to talk about it in front of his venture capitalist investors."

Was that point actually, you know, made in the piece that outed him? If not, your argument is invalid.

If you are going to claim public interest for the reasons you lay out here, you actually have to make that case in the story. IIRC, they did not. Therefore, for the piece in question, it was _not_ relevant because it was not even mentioned.
posted by jzb at 7:45 PM on June 11, 2016 [1 favorite]

Gawker posted what was probably a video of a woman getting raped and then refused to take it down when she asked them. (Scroll down for the section on that, and in particular note the way Gawker management discussed it and the way they talked to the woman when she contacted them- IMO, it's a prime example of what rape culture looks like.) They did take it down in the end, but I’m pretty sure they never ran an apology, let alone did the kind of penance something like that really would warrant.

Suffice it to say, for that reason alone (along with a number of others, like this article, which basically treats domestic violence as hilarious fun, though what the GQ story describes is the worst I know of), I very strongly disagree with the view of Gawker as some sort of force for social justice, and I’m pretty dismayed by the trend in this thread towards seeing them that way. I do think Thiel is a sinister figure, and it’s possible this will lead to bad precedents in the future- there certainly are valid concerns there, but when it comes to Gawker themselves, they are really not a company that should be defended from a progressive standpoint, IMO. May whatever positive qualities they had be taken up by a group that actually has a conscience.
posted by a louis wain cat at 8:14 PM on June 11, 2016 [3 favorites]

His sexual preferences are relevant, because he was a campus right-wing activist who yelled homophobic slurs at a grad student, even though he was in the closet in the time.

Jesus save me from people justifying doing things to me 20 years later based on how I acted in college.
posted by Etrigan at 8:37 PM on June 11, 2016 [6 favorites]

I very strongly disagree with the view of Gawker as some sort of force for social justice, and I’m pretty dismayed by the trend in this thread towards seeing them that way

I don't see Gawker as a force for social justice. But I do see surreptitious legal attacks on them as attacks on our fundamental rights. Those attacks corrode the principles of social justice in their own ugly way. The defense of those attacks is as corrosive for our rights. If Gawker can't defend themselves from predatory lawsuits, whatever chances the rest of us have are minimized even further, when and where it really counts.
posted by a lungful of dragon at 11:29 PM on June 11, 2016 [3 favorites]

Um. Do you really want the Supreme Court's precedents to be settled law for eternity?

Not necessarily. I do have a problem with people being punished for something that is reasonably clearly within the bounds of the law at the time they do it. Especially when the punishment is as severe as it is in this case, and doubly so when punitive damages are applied.

If the outcome had been an injunction requiring Gawker to cease hosting the sex tape and a minor narrowing of what can be published about celebrities, I would be much less concerned. I'd be perfectly OK if the new rule was "you can't post sex tapes without consent, but you can report on their existence."

BTW, I seriously doubt (or did, prior to the Gawker verdict) someone would win a suit alleging some sort of tort if someone published an audio recording of a celebrity taking a shit. Given that toilet cams are actually illegal in many jurisdictions, I suspect they would win in that case. Generally speaking, if you can't see it from a public place, you can't record it. (Gawker didn't record the sex tape, so that line of reasoning doesn't apply to the instant case)

FWIW, I do think that celebrities deserve more privacy than they are currently allowed by the law. My problem here is what amounts to an ex post facto law being applied, the grossly oversized actual damages award, and that punitive damages were awarded at all given previous case law.

My other (minor) problem with it is that it seems rather sleazy that he claimed such large economic damages from the sex tape when those damages were actually caused by his racist comments, the publishing of which is very plainly protected speech, since he did in fact say those things. Perhaps it is classist of me, but I have a hard time believing that wrestling fans would avoid watching his PPV because he made a sex tape. If anything, I would expect it to improve sales!
posted by wierdo at 12:18 AM on June 12, 2016 [2 favorites]

My other (minor) problem with it is that it seems rather sleazy that he claimed such large economic damages from the sex tape when those damages were actually caused by his racist comments, the publishing of which is very plainly protected speech, since he did in fact say those things.

Gawker didn't break that story. The Enquirer did, two and a half years after Gawker published the first excerpt of the sex tape and well after the lawsuit was going on.
posted by Etrigan at 3:44 AM on June 12, 2016

Text messages he sent to Bubba Clem shortly after the sex tape broke but withheld from the jury per an order from the trial judge show (allegedly, I haven't gone through 1,000 pages of documents myself because there's a limit to how much I'll obsess over a case I'm not being paid to cover) that Hogan was not concerned about the sex portion going public in itself, only that it would lead to a release of the racial-slurs recording.
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 5:23 AM on June 12, 2016 [2 favorites]

Was that point actually, you know, made in the piece that outed him? If not, your argument is invalid.

Unless somebody appointed you head of the ombudsman office, I'd suggest your argument is invalid.
posted by jonp72 at 8:09 AM on June 12, 2016 [1 favorite]

Perhaps it is classist of me, but I have a hard time believing that wrestling fans would avoid watching his PPV because he made a sex tape. If anything, I would expect it to improve sales!

It certainly didn't harm the career of Triple H. He's had multiple sex tapes released about him.
posted by jonp72 at 8:11 AM on June 12, 2016

Jesus save me from people justifying doing things to me 20 years later based on how I acted in college.

It is if yourown self-hatred in yelling homophobic slurs at a fellow student got you an "anti-political correctness" book deal that got you access to the same conservative white guys who funded your first start-ups and made you a billionaire.

Once more with feeling... Peter Thiel, fuck that guy.
posted by jonp72 at 8:14 AM on June 12, 2016 [1 favorite]

If Thiel's sex life is fair game because being hypocritical about his sexuality allowed him to socialize with conservative elements that might have otherwise shunned him, and he then went on to make money via those connections, that rule must apply to exposure of any and every other closeted queer or kinky person working in a prominent position in a conservative business climate, who keeps their sexuality private to avoid employment impact. There's no assholes-only test here.

Is that the society you want?
posted by snuffleupagus at 8:27 AM on June 12, 2016 [2 favorites]

Is that the society you want?

I'd rather have a society where ENDA has been passed and people who feel their employment is threatened because of their sexuality had legal recourse on a Federal level to fight against the assholes who want to discriminate against them because of what they do with their fiddly bits.
posted by hippybear at 8:38 AM on June 12, 2016 [1 favorite]

As someone who came out in 1990 as a fairly militant queer in a town with literally no gay subculture, who was kicked out of the church he was VERY involved with on many levels during that process, and who was estranged from his family for basically a decade because of deciding to come out as gay... I really don't give a shit about people who try to hide their sexuality in order to gain business or political influence.

YMMV.
posted by hippybear at 9:11 AM on June 12, 2016 [7 favorites]

That'd be great. But we're not talking about that, we're talking about whether people who conceal their sexuality for professional reasons in the here and now should be subject to exposure as public figures once they attain a certain level of prominence or influence.

That's intrinsically a political question, not a legal question. Whether it is ethical or politically wise to out someone, people should have the option to do that without being sued into oblivion.
posted by jonp72 at 11:08 AM on June 12, 2016

It's a legal question insofar as the privacy tort and First Amendment analysis is concerned, i.e. the context of this thread.

If anything, the idea that there is a general public interest in who someone prominent is fucking and in what manner that is strong enough to recognize a blanket right 'to out someone' is the political opinion here.

I really don't give a shit about people who try to hide their sexuality in order to gain business or political influence.

What about people who do so for their personal safety? Should they be outed, because they escape abuse that others do not?

What about those rancid homophobes who would exploit such a speech rule to protect their own initiatives to out LGBT people in conservative communities, and harass them online, etc?

When you propose a rule like this, you have to consider its misuses.
posted by snuffleupagus at 12:16 PM on June 12, 2016 [2 favorites]

What about those rancid homophobes who would exploit such a speech rule to protect their own initiatives to out LGBT people in conservative communities, and harass them online, etc?

Well, to bring this to reality rather than a thought exercise, since Peter Thiel has a history of happily throwing his lot in with organizations that do just that, I'm happy to out him and anyone who does so.

For a lot of us, this is an actual lived experience and not some hypothetical what-if. We've long ago weighed the ins and outs and pros and cons and nuts and bolts of outing somebody and see doing so as a step in LITERALLY saving lives, and if I never hear another "but what about the oppressed people" hypothetical when we're talking about powerful people in the current power structure, it will be too soon.
posted by MCMikeNamara at 1:54 PM on June 12, 2016 [3 favorites]

When you propose a rule like this

I haven't proposed any rule, actually. I have had mixed feelings about people being outed since the days of Michael Signorile and OutWeek in the 80s.

I could have easily stayed in the closet instead of come out. I've been chased through parking lots by groups of men with baseball bats. I've had bottles thrown at me from moving vehicles because I walked out of That Bar. If you want to discuss personal safety and the context of coming out, we can do that, but this isn't what this matter is about.

I'm not advocating for outing people. I honestly don't care. People who hide their sexuality because it more expedient to them in their business or political milieu disgust me, but I'm not going around announcing anything about anyone. I've lived as an out gay male for 26 years now, and only in the past not-even-decade has there been anything resembling acceptance from the greater culture. And there still isn't even that, really. Marriage equality is great, but it's not acceptance of simply existing.

Honestly on a day like today, with the news I woke up to this morning, I lack any more fucks to give this conversation. You win by default.
posted by hippybear at 1:57 PM on June 12, 2016 [5 favorites]

The right to subsidize another's lawsuit is constitutionally protected as speech. Imagine your family could not help you pay for lawyers.

Actually, according to Marc Randazza in that episode of On Point, the main thing holding back the barring of champerty and barratry in the US is the idea of suing on spec. Like, "we will sue for you and if we lose you don't pay anything, but if we win, we get a cut of the payout."

See Button v. NAACP.
posted by Ironmouth at 1:05 PM on June 13, 2016 [2 favorites]

Sam Biddle hired by The Intercept
posted by jeffburdges at 2:32 PM on June 13, 2016

Sam Biddle hired by The Intercept

The Intercept has wandered a tight line between substance and sass. Apparently they’ve decided to fully commit to jumping into the void.
posted by Going To Maine at 9:50 PM on June 13, 2016

Sam Biddle hired by The Intercept

The comments on that article from gamergaters. Sheesh.
posted by defenestration at 10:27 AM on June 14, 2016

JK Trotter: Now Peter Thiel's Lawyer Wants to Silence Reporting on Trump's Hair

[I]f you were under the impression that praise-worthy journalism is somehow inoculated against campaigns like Thiel’s, you’d be mistaken. Last week, Thiel’s lawyer-for-hire, Charles J. Harder, sent Gawker a letter on behalf of Ivari International’s owner and namesake, Edward Ivari, in which Harder claims that Feinberg’s story was “false and defamatory,” invaded Ivari’s privacy, intentionally inflicted emotional distress, and committed “tortious interference” with Ivari’s business relations. Harder enumerates 19 different purportedly defamatory statements—almost all of which were drawn from several publicly available lawsuits filed against Ivari.

Harder’s demands included the immediate removal of the story from Gawker, a public apology, the preservation of “all physical and electronic documents, materials and data in your possession” related to the story, and, notably, that we reveal our sources.
[We specifically demand that Gawker Media and its employees] immediately provide us with the name and all contact information for the unnamed “tipster” of the Story, so that we can serve that person with an immediate cease and desist letter to stop the spread of the false Story.
Harder goes on to threaten legal action over the story: “Your actions expose you to substantial monetary damages and punitive damages.”

These claims are, on their face, ridiculous. For instance, one of the “defamatory” statements Gawker published, according to Harder, is this: “What’s more, Ivari’s New York location is inside Trump Tower—on the private floor reserved for Donald Trump’s own office.” Harder omits, of course, the sources on which this assertion was based: Ivari’s own brochure, an archived version of his web site, and multiple advertisements Ivari placed in New York Magazine, all of which specified his New York address as being on the 25th floor of the Trump Tower in Manhattan. Furthermore, he didn’t even quote the article correctly. Here’s what Feinberg actually wrote (emphasis mine): “What’s more, Ivari’s New York location was inside Trump Tower—on the private floor reserved for Donald Trump’s own office.”
[...]
Ordinarily, we would publish the entirety of Harder’s letter, so readers can judge its merits themselves. (Gawker Media’s response can be read here.) But Harder claims, on the fifth page, that the document is “protected by applicable Copyright law and therefore may not be copied, published, disseminated or used by any person or for any purpose, other than internally at your company and its outside legal representatives.” Given Harder’s propensity to launch groundless lawsuits against us, we have decided not to invite distracting litigation over whether such publication is covered by the Fair Use doctrine, even though it plainly is. But the absurdity of Harder’s threats should not distract from the underlying mission of the man who pays him: To intimidate Gawker and its reporters from publishing true things about public figures.

posted by zombieflanders at 1:19 PM on June 14, 2016 [7 favorites]

In fairness, reporting that someone is associated with Donald Trump is prima facie inflicting emotional distress.
posted by Etrigan at 1:21 PM on June 14, 2016

Came here to post that, of course zombieflanders got the drop on me. I don't know how anyone can defend Thiel, this is absolutely insane.
posted by DynamiteToast at 1:34 PM on June 14, 2016

Given the latest Trumped up lawyering, I'm with Gawker on this (words I never thought I'd say, but here we are).
posted by zippy at 12:08 PM on June 15, 2016

If I had a legitimate claim against a news agency, I'm pretty sure I wouldn't be able to press a case without significant backing, much less defend against it. The money issues goes both ways, and bad actors with bad motives with truck loads of money can exist on both sides. As a starting point, either we trust the courts to sift through the claims, or we don't. If we do, then great. If we don't trust the courts, that's a legitimate issue as well, but then it's a fundamentally more serious issue than how funding happens. We can try to fix a fundamental problem by controlling money, but I'm not sure that's ever going to work. If we try to start somewhere, it's probably by taking a close look at places that are insulated by money before people who are empowered by it.
posted by SpacemanStix at 8:14 PM on June 15, 2016

Silicon Valley’s Scapegoat Complex
posted by the man of twists and turns at 10:01 AM on June 16, 2016 [5 favorites]

The right to subsidize another's lawsuit is constitutionally protected as speech...Imagine your family could not help you pay for lawyers.

See Button v. NAACP.

Button did not establish the bright line rule you seem to be suggesting and to cite it in that manner is misleading.
posted by snuffleupagus at 8:30 AM on June 24, 2016 [1 favorite]

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