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The Media

Peter Thiel Is Now Bidding on Gawker.com (reuters.com) 132

Posted by EditorDavid from the bids-from-billionaires dept.
An anonymous reader writes: Its official. "Venture capitalist Peter Thiel has made an offer for Gawker," reports Reuters, adding that the potential acquisition "would let him take down stories regarding his personal life that are still available on the website, and remove the scope for further litigation between him and Gawker." It was Thiel's 2016 lawsuit which bankrupted the site, prompting a Washington Post blogger to write that Thiel "killed Gawker once. Now it looks like he may kill it again."

Elsewhere the Washington Post argues the whole episode "highlighted the immense legal risk borne by news outlets already facing a precarious financial reality in the digital age." The Post's blogger describes Thiel as "a billionaire leveraging his wealth to obliterate a media outlet...as part of a personal vendetta."
Last month former Gawker staffers attempted to crowdfund the purchase and relaunch of Gawker.com as a nonprofit media organization. But their 1,496 backers only pledged $89,844, far short of the campaign's $500,000 target.
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Peter Thiel Is Now Bidding on Gawker.com More

Peter Thiel Is Now Bidding on Gawker.com

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  • Maybe... (Score:1, Troll)

    by lloy0076 ( 624338 )

    Trump should take notice and buy all the fake news outlets...

    • Re:Maybe... (Score:4, Funny)

      by serviscope_minor ( 664417 ) on Saturday January 13, 2018 @03:29PM (#55922623) Journal

      Trump should take notice and buy all the fake news outlets...

      Breitbart and Fox?

    • Trump should take notice and buy all the fake news outlets...

      Gawker wasn't fake news. In fact, Thiel sued them because they were too real.

      • Gawker wasn't fake news. In fact, Thiel sued them because they were too real.

        Gawker is garbage. 99% of the posts on their entire network are bullshit clickbait ad-whoring. They can't die soon enough.

        • Gawker is garbage.

          That is correct, but don't forget the stories they were sued over were completely and 100% true.

          • That is correct, but don't forget the stories they were sued over were completely and 100% true.

            They could have got away with the Thiel thing. But posting those other pieces of media was completely and 100% a shit idea, and in one case it was clearly illegal.

            • But posting those other pieces of media was completely and 100% a shit idea,

              Again, you are correct. It was a shit idea, though 100% true. Gawker could be called a lot of things, but "fake news" is not one of them.

              • Gawker could be called a lot of things, but "fake news" is not one of them.

                Fox News occasionally kicks out a real story about real things and says real things about them, but it's still fake news. Ditto Gawker.

  • Nick Denton.

    And I don't mean in a metaphorical sense either. He'll have him serving drinks to Trump in a MAGA hat when Trump comes to visit.

    • And I don't mean in a metaphorical sense either. He'll have him serving drinks to Trump in a MAGA hat when Trump comes to visit.

      You'd like that wouldn't you?

      As a generally progression to a free democracy, indentured servitude, debt slavery have all been abolished. What's amazing is the number of people who seem to want to destroy the principles that they society they claim to revere is based on.

      Fortunately for now Nick Denton could alwas plead the 13th.

      • Peter Thiel is an agent of the God Emperor, a Gandalf to Trump's Eru Ilúvatar.

        In this analogy Nick Denton would be Saruman type figure.

        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

        Patrick Curry says Tolkien is "hostile to industrialism", linking this to the widespread urban development that took place in the West Midlands where Tolkien grew up in the first decades of the 20th century. He identifies Saruman as one of the key examples given in the book of the evil effects of industrialization, and by extension imperialism. Shippey notes that Saruman's name repeats this view of technology: in the Mercian dialect of Anglo-Saxon used by Tolkien to represent the Language of Rohan in the book, the root word searu means "clever", "skillful" or "ingenious" and has associations with both technology and treachery that are fitting for Tolkien's portrayal of Saruman, the "cunning man". He also writes of Saruman's distinctively modern association with Communism in the way the Shire is run under his control: goods are taken "for fair distribution" which, since they are mainly never seen again, Shippey terms an unusually modern piece of hypocrisy in the way evil presents itself in Middle-earth.

        It seems to me that Denton, as Democrat and city dweller has much on common with Saruman.

        Also if you read Emily Gould's piece it's striking how the Gawker people all seem to betray their friends.

        https://www.theguardian.com/me... [theguardian.com]

        Not surprisingly Gould has often found herself alienating the people who are closest to her. A former boyfriend went public in the New York Post, penning a critical piece about the way she published details of their relationship on her secret(ish) blog, Heartbreak Soup. After her memoir, And the Heart Says Whatever, was published in 2010, her family, stung by the way she characterised her parents' relationship, stopped talking to her for a time. Even her best friend, Ruth Curry, took umbrage at the depiction of Bev, one of the two central characters in her recently published debut novel, Friendship (they are still close, but Gould says that Curry trusts her less).

        Emily Gould was the Gawker Orcer who was sent out to explain the indefensible Gawker Stalker on Jimmy Kimme

        • I.e. all these NYC leftists seem to hate each other. It's this sort lack of lack of discipline and team solidarity

          Or, you know, the other explanation is that there is no global conspiracy of leftists and the "team" is entirely in your mind.

          • I just assumed you guys were better organised. Personally I have a phone conference every day for the Vast Righwing Conspiracy. So Vladimir Putin gives a report on his international electoral outreach operations. Whoever is in charge of Fox News that week explains how they're reforming that narrative. The Koch Brothers explain how they're funding right wing think tanks. James O'Keefe talks about how he sows mistrust in the public mind when it comes CNN/WashPo/NYT etc. We all have a chat about talking points

      • Not about indentured servitude (Score:1)

        by Anonymous Coward

        You'd like that wouldn't you?

        As a generally progression to a free democracy, indentured servitude, debt slavery have all been abolished.

        We'd all like it. But it wouldn't be a case of indentured servitude, it would be the courts ordering Denton lobotomized and then hit drooling husk would serve drinks for the pleasure of all he had wronged. That would be a just scenario for people like Nick Denton.

        You may want to support people who love to publicize the rapes of others and revenge porn, but the rest of u

      • Funny I remember you absolutely stark fucking raving over the fappening leaks but when people you like post leaked pornography of a famous man suddenly it's the end of democracy as we know it when they face consequences for their actions. Once again Serviscope you prove yourself a hypocritical sexist.

        • Funny I remember you absolutely stark fucking raving over the fappening leaks but when people you like post leaked pornography of a famous man suddenly it's the end of democracy as we know it when they face consequences for their actions.

          Huh, OK so you have come out and stated you do support the repeal of the 13th amendment. That is the only logical conclusion given the post of mine that you responded to.

          nce again Serviscope you prove yourself a hypocritical sexist.

          You know "sexist" is a word that means so

          • Sorry what was that? I couldn't hear you over the sound of you once again loudly proving that in reality you and feminism stand for the exact opposite of all the values you loudly claim to stand for and are really just a hypocritical sexist bigot hiding behind rhetoric about "equality".

  • Nope. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by aepervius ( 535155 ) on Saturday January 13, 2018 @03:11PM (#55922563)
    "highlighted the immense legal risk borne by news outlets already facing a precarious financial reality in the digital age."
    No it highlights that contrary to what shithead blogposter thimk (gawker people are not what I would call journalist or even news) privacy protection DOES exists even in the US and the web is not a free post-it-all-for-money, there are consequences. Gawker be damned they earned their happenstance.

    • I've got Karma to burn (Score:5, Insightful)

      by rsilvergun ( 571051 ) on Saturday January 13, 2018 @06:48PM (#55923549)
      so here I go again defending Gawker. Gawker did a lot of real journalism and used the muck raking to pay for it. A tradition that's as old as journalism itself. Thiel didn't shut them down because he was outed as gay, he shut them down because they kept reporting on his shady business deals. And their mistake wasn't ignoring the court order. That gets done all the time in their line of work. Their mistake was not realizing that Hogan was backed by Thiel for the express purpose of shutting them down.

      What we have here is a pretty scary precedent. We have a billionaire using his money and the legal system to shut down somebody critical of him. If anyone honestly believes that'll end well for us working stiffs then they haven't been paying attention to the last 300 years of labor relations...

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Anonymous Coward

        Precisely.

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by The Cynical Critic ( 1294574 )

        Thiel didn't shut them down because he was outed as gay, he shut them down because they kept reporting on his shady business deals.

        I see the tin foil hat brigade has arrived... In all seriousness, what really sparked Thiel's animosity towards Gawker was how they outed Thiel when they knew he was working with investors from countries with a less-than-positive view of gay people (Saudi Arabia even has the death sentence for gay people) and did so after Thiel had personally asked Nick Denton to not out him as gay. It's hard to figure out a more legitimate reason for someone to hold a grudge.

        However what really killed Gawker was how the

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

        Bingo. In a fair system everyone would have equal redress against bad journalism. In practice rich people can afford to destroy organizations giving them bad press or exposing their misdeeds.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by RedK ( 112790 )

          In practice rich people can afford to destroy organizations giving them bad press or exposing their misdeeds.

          Pretty homophobic of you saying "being gay" is a "misdeed". Because that's what Gawker exposed about Thiel. But I guess homophobia is OK if it's against conservatives right ?

          The fact is, and you and the "anti-anything-conservative" crowd might not like it, Gawker destroyed Gawker. It was a shitty blog, like Buzzfeed "news" is. There was no journalism there, it was a clickbait farm out to get ad revenue by using naive leftists wanting confirmation bias, and "Conservative takedowns". And it was working u

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by rtb61 ( 674572 )

        Only in the USA and other countries with third world legal systems. In other countries where loser pays ie the loser in a civil suit pays the winners court costs based upon recognised rates (no legal fee inflation). So far less likely to play games with lawyers and courts. Of course the US legal system is also really corrupt, where by certain cases are tried in certain locations, where judges have a known bias and also in location where they are elected by campaign donations from companies likely to trigger

      • The billionaire can't shutdown someone who isn't doing something to violate the laws. Regardless of how you paint this as a David and Golliath issue, the fact is that David left himself open as heck. Just because someone is a celebrity doesn't mean the entire world is entitled to a breach of their privacy. That is what got them, not the fact that the other person was a billionaire.

        Just because muck raking is tradition doesn't mean it should continue, and doesn't mean it should be exempt from laws. And based

        • "If you're not doing anything wrong what have you got to fear?". Trust me, with several billion dollars you can put just about anyone away.

          • Yes that is exactly what I just wrote. It is basically the fundamental principle of a "justice" system. Or do you think Hulk Hogan would have extracted a large settlement out of Gawker for NOT publishing a sex tape and NOT violating his right to privacy?

            Let me turn this around: It shouldn't be up to billionaires to hold people accountable. You should be able to be bankrupt and bring down those who violate your rights just as easily as Theil did (and the fuckwits working at Gawker really did make this very e

  • Gawk would not remove pictures of a rape (Score:1, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Gawker refused to remove pictures of a woman being raped when asked to [nypost.com]. There are limits to free speech: We do not allow revenge porn, we do not allow sites like Gawker which have no respect for people's privacy or feelings. Gawker was the site with a writer who ruined a woman for posting an insensitive but harmless joke on Twitter [nytimes.com].

    Good riddance to bad rubbish.

    • Re:Gawk would not remove pictures of a rape (Score:5, Informative)

      by Hal_Porter ( 817932 ) on Saturday January 13, 2018 @03:49PM (#55922715)

      https://nypost.com/2016/03/11/... [nypost.com]

      Jurors at Hulk Hogan's invasion-of-privacy trial heard Friday how former top Gawker editor Albert "A.J." Daulerio - who put the infamous Hogan sex tape online - also posted video of the young woman engaged in sex in a bathroom stall at a Bloomington, Ind., sports bar in May 2010.

      Days later, the woman wrote Gawker, begging that the video be taken down from its sports-themed Deadspin Website, according to e-mails read in court by Hogan lawyer Shane Vogt.

      "I am the girl in it and it was stolen from me and put up without my permission," the unidentified woman wrote on May 11, 2010.

      Gawker's complaint department forwarded the message to Daulerio, along with a note saying, "Blah, blah, blah," Vogt said.

      Daulerio then e-mailed the woman and told her to "not make a big deal out of this," adding: "I'm sure it's embarrassing but these things do pass, keep your head up."

      Then-company lawyer Gaby Darbyshire also e-mailed the woman, defending the video as "completely newsworthy" and scolding her about how "one's actions can have unintended consequences."

      But Gawker reversed itself the next day and removed the entire posting, with Daulerio later admitting to GQ magazine he had regrets because the video "wasn't funny" and "was possibly rape."

      Three women and one man on the six-member jury scribbled notes about the e-mail exchanges, with the man sternly peering over his glasses at Daulerio, 41, a co-defendant in the Hogan case.

      An expert witness appearing for Hogan also testified that Gawker boosted its corporate value as much as $15.5 million by posting the hidden-camera sex recording of the pro wrestling legend.

      Jeff Anderson, director of valuation and analytics at Consor Intellectual Asset Management, said 5.4 million people viewed the Hogan tape at Gawker between October 2012 and April 2013, resulting in a 28.5 percent spike in traffic to the site.

      Awful people. And look at Daulerio's expression in the picture - he knows both he and his employer are screwed.

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by GameboyRMH ( 1153867 )

      Gawker was the site with a writer who ruined a woman for posting an insensitive but harmless joke on Twitter [nytimes.com].

      Gawker is a trash rag but none of their writers made that woman write a racist joke through an account tied to her real name. She deserved any consequences she happened to attract.

      • Gawker is a trash rag but none of their writers made that woman write a racist joke through an account tied to her real name. She deserved any consequences she happened to attract.

        That's right, anytime anyone makes a single mistake, they definitely deserve to have their lives ruined. Second chances? Benefit of the doubt? Nah, signaling your virtue to the world by calling out a stupid tweet is true justice! /s

        I'm not defending racism (or that tweet, which I don't think is racist but is certainly borderline), but the idea that we can (and should) ruin someone's life over a single stupid and harmless thing they said or did is really, really stupid, and really, really shortsighted (unle

  • Whenever someone mentions Gawker I think of hipsters browsing the web on their Mac's with their ironic beards.

  • Who is he? What is his goal? Where is he doing this stuff? Why is he so pissed-off? When did he learn of the offense? How is he intending to achieve his goals?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by arth1 ( 260657 )

      Who is he? What is his goal? Where is he doing this stuff? Why is he so pissed-off? When did he learn of the offense? How is he intending to achieve his goals?

      He's scum. But compared to Gawker, he's cream.
      What I want to know is whether he has a donation site where I can donate to the good cause of getting rid of the site that makes 4chan look good and reddit outright saintly.

      • He's scum. But compared to Gawker, he's cream.
        What I want to know is whether he has a donation site where I can donate to the good cause of getting rid of the site that makes 4chan look good and reddit outright saintly.

        Worse than 4chan? How is that even possible?

  • Writers with gawker through the affiliated Jezebel regularly supported huge cash payouts for these sort of privacy invasions in the context of feminism. Among other things they wrote stories crowing over the huge multimillion dollar settlement some dizzy female sports reporter got from a hotel because a rogue employee recorded her. What's good for the goose....
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • "Mostly" read by liberals, antifa, BLM, socialist, progressives...ie: the ones that think everything should be FREE...so, it's no wonder they didn't have any people funding a potential "relaunch". They are ok with spending OTHER peoples money, but NOT their own. "Last month former Gawker staffers attempted to crowdfund the purchase and relaunch of Gawker.com as a nonprofit media organization. But their 1,496 backers only pledged $89,844, far short of the campaign's $500,000 target."

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      go on.... (popcorn bag opening). I'd also like to hear your enlightened opinion of the following "news" sites while you're at it
      - daily called
      - townhall
      - gateway pundit
      - fox "news"
      - brietbart
      I'm sure you'll give us a "fair and balanced" (not the phrase - it's not fairly unbalanced ... common mistake!) opinion of these sites too.

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