Gawker Files for Bankruptcy

[Soulflame]

I don't think Torinak's point is that it is bad Gawker got sued out of existence so much as it is worrying that one man had the power to do it. This time it was a deserving target. But what about next time?

A non-deserving target would presumably win in court.

A win in court can still be a loss, if defending yourself bankrupts you.  A billionaire can fund enough suits to simply destroy you, because you run out of money before he does.

Per reports, if this suit didn't work, Thiel was prepared to fund other suits.  For a personal vendetta.

Better hope his next target isn't something you like.

[Margalis]

A win in court can still be a loss, if defending yourself bankrupts you.  A billionaire can fund enough suits to simply destroy you, because you run out of money before he does.

I'll repeat this one more time since people in this forum (is this politics now?) seem incapable of understanding: Gawker has only gotten away with their shit for as long as they have because THEY have money.

THEY destroy people, and people can't sue them because their army of lawyers makes it too costly.

They are an asshole fish who ran into a bigger fish. This is the system working.

Trying to paint Gawker as victims of the monied is inane - Gawker has been abusing their own financial resources for years. If they didn't have an army of lawyers they would have been sued and lost multiple times already.

[Fabricated]

Gawker dug their own grave and jumped in it. Nothing else to see here.

[Evildrider]

If Hogan, who is a millionaire, needed financial help to go after Gawker.  That should tell you something right there.  You think the smaller people had a chance?  


Edit:  Also apparently Ziff Davis is buying Gawker.

[Khaldun]

Ziff Davis is setting the 'ground floor' for bids--it's not clear if they're actually strongly interested or just trying to help out by getting the bidding in motion.

[Goumindong]

I've seen too many legal uses of the legal system where someone with power just grinds down someone or something they don't like.

This is exactly what Gawker has done for years to dozens of people. You don't seem too concerned about that.

(and because they expect that the harassment will continue until they fold, making anything throwing good money after bad).

Yes, it's Gawker who are the poor victims of "harassment."

There are lots of shitty journals but its maybe too far to suggest that they should be destroyed because someone more wealthy than them wanted them gone.

Kind of like how guilty people going free is the price of having fewer innocent in prison shitty journalism is probably the price we have to pay for good journalism.

I don't think Torinak's point is that it is bad Gawker got sued out of existence so much as it is worrying that one man had the power to do it. This time it was a deserving target. But what about next time?

He only had the power to do it because Gawker was in the wrong.

Not necessarily true. Its probably better to say that Gawker lost because it did not understand how to work a jury.

The actual law of the case, prior to the verdict is pretty solidly on their side. Maybe we don't actually want it to be on their side(and i do think they should have lost this), but prior to this verdict its been exceedingly hard to sue news organizations as a public person. If gawkers new owners put up the cash to appeal they will probably win, if not on the facts of the case, on the reasonableness of the damages [No, Hogan did not suffer $115 million in actual damages as a result of the non-newsworthy portions of the tapes being released.].

And the law of the case is more likely to be won on appeal; both on grounds that the damages are unreasonable and on the law of the case.

[Fabricated]

Anyone want to start a fundraiser to buy Gawker and shut it down permanently?

[Goumindong]

Anyone want to start a fundraiser to buy Gawker and shut it down permanently?

Do you have $250m? Because that is the going rate.

[Margalis]

I love the idea that punishing people for crimes is going too far.

[Goumindong]

I love the idea that punishing people for crimes is going too far.

1) Not a crime. This is a civil matter and not a criminal matter. Though there can be overlap between the two (criminal actions can result in civil suits) there has been no allegations of criminal wrongdoing in this matter(well, not at Gawker at least). There were no criminal proceedings.

2) If it were then 8th amendment protections would apply and the damages would have been more reasonable and not bankrupted the company

3) Its hardly an unreasonable position to think maybe the 8th amendment might have some sort of application to civil suits [and while technically it doesn't the structure is essentially enshrined in the common law of torts]

[Venkman]

I think the Chapter 11 trick is interesting. Some may say "Gawker's done". But none of the people who did what Gawker has become known for will be personally affected.

Whether they emerge from some restructuring that merely ended any chance for Hogan to collect, or they get bought by ZD or someone else, chances are all of the people will keep doing exactly what they were doing, possibly behind the wall of an even bigger team of lawyers.

As many here have said, there's no "good side" here.

I get the idea that a billionaire can pick such a battle and what if his personal eye of sauron turns elsewhere oh noes! But the reality is that could happen at any point by any run of the mill billionaire, of which there are many. And the reality is this kind of lawsuit by proxy probably happens all the time and even against media companies and it just so happens we hear about the Gawker case.

And on the other side, Gawker picked one fight too many, and this is what them as going concern caused. But again, not the individual people. That may come someday (suing the individuals).

As an aside, this probably is a candidate thread for Politics.

[ezrast]

The revelation that billionaires get to do whatever they want, including ruin the lives of many, many other people if they so choose, is not remotely shocking. The only takeaway here is fuck Gawker, and may their particular brand of festering rot consume and destroy whatever other media corporation thinks it can make a few bucks by bankrolling their continued existence.

Also, kill all billionaires.

[Margalis]

1) Not a crime. This is a civil matter and not a criminal matter. Though there can be overlap between the two (criminal actions can result in civil suits) there has been no allegations of criminal wrongdoing in this matter(well, not at Gawker at least). There were no criminal proceedings.

2) If it were then 8th amendment protections would apply and the damages would have been more reasonable and not bankrupted the company

3) Its hardly an unreasonable position to think maybe the 8th amendment might have some sort of application to civil suits [and while technically it doesn't the structure is essentially enshrined in the common law of torts]

Zzzz. Don't you ever get board of reading wikipedia and pretending that lends you an expert opinion?

[angry.bob]

I love the idea that punishing people for crimes is going too far.

1) Not a crime. This is a civil matter and not a criminal matter. Though there can be overlap between the two (criminal actions can result in civil suits) there has been no allegations of criminal wrongdoing in this matter(well, not at Gawker at least). There were no criminal proceedings.

2) If it were then 8th amendment protections would apply and the damages would have been more reasonable and not bankrupted the company

3) Its hardly an unreasonable position to think maybe the 8th amendment might have some sort of application to civil suits [and while technically it doesn't the structure is essentially enshrined in the common law of torts]

Having been targeted by a copyright troll lawyer and looked for a way out of paying a 9 million dollar default judgement to a porn company, it's been long and well decided that the 8th amendment does fuckall nothing for you. The only way out other than appeal was chapter 9.

[Goumindong]

I love the idea that punishing people for crimes is going too far.

1) Not a crime. This is a civil matter and not a criminal matter. Though there can be overlap between the two (criminal actions can result in civil suits) there has been no allegations of criminal wrongdoing in this matter(well, not at Gawker at least). There were no criminal proceedings.

2) If it were then 8th amendment protections would apply and the damages would have been more reasonable and not bankrupted the company

3) Its hardly an unreasonable position to think maybe the 8th amendment might have some sort of application to civil suits [and while technically it doesn't the structure is essentially enshrined in the common law of torts]

Having been targeted by a copyright troll lawyer and looked for a way out of paying a 9 million dollar default judgement to a porn company, it's been long and well decided that the 8th amendment does fuckall nothing for you. The only way out other than appeal was chapter 9.

That was my point. If it were criminal then an 8th amendment issue could be brought. There are reasonableness on civil suits regarding punitive damages(which is kind of like an 8th amendment structure, but comes from the common law of punitive damages and not from the 8th) and compensatory are limited by the actual damage.

[Khaldun]

Aren't Denton and Daulerio on the hook personally?

[Ginaz]

I love the idea that punishing people for crimes is going too far.

1) Not a crime. This is a civil matter and not a criminal matter. Though there can be overlap between the two (criminal actions can result in civil suits) there has been no allegations of criminal wrongdoing in this matter(well, not at Gawker at least). There were no criminal proceedings.

2) If it were then 8th amendment protections would apply and the damages would have been more reasonable and not bankrupted the company

3) Its hardly an unreasonable position to think maybe the 8th amendment might have some sort of application to civil suits [and while technically it doesn't the structure is essentially enshrined in the common law of torts]

Having been targeted by a copyright troll lawyer and looked for a way out of paying a 9 million dollar default judgement to a porn company, it's been long and well decided that the 8th amendment does fuckall nothing for you. The only way out other than appeal was chapter 9.

That was my point. If it were criminal then an 8th amendment issue could be brought. There are reasonableness on civil suits regarding punitive damages(which is kind of like an 8th amendment structure, but comes from the common law of punitive damages and not from the 8th) and compensatory are limited by the actual damage.

You seriously need to pick your battles better.  Gawker and everyone associated with them is human trash and they reaped what they fucking sowed.  End of story.

[Abagadro]

was chapter 9.

Did you somehow become a municipality when no one was looking?

[penfold]

It's somewhat appalling because a billionaire sued a company out of existence because he was mad at a guy who worked there.

This.

It's not bad that Gawker got sued and that they lost, based on what coverage I've seen of the legal issues. I'm not at all comfortable with the very rich being able to use their money to crush journalists or media outlets. There are too many rich assholes out there who would love to suppress critical or contrarian voices, and the Gawker case may have been the "open season" call.

I'm sure there are animal welfare activists who were upset when they destroyed the last remaining samples of smallpox and sent it into extinction.

[Soulflame]

Aren't Denton and Daulerio on the hook personally?

Are they?  I had not heard that.  I don't see how they can be.  That's the whole point of incorporating, to shield yourself from this sort of problem.

[angry.bob]

was chapter 9.

Did you somehow become a municipality when no one was looking?

Yes. I am actually the collective consciousness of Detroit given form. Or I wrote the wrong one digit number. The one I was looking for is 7. Probably.

[Abagadro]

I know, I just found it funny.

[Jeff Kelly]

It's probably a bad precedent for freedom of press that a billionaire with an axe to grind can sink a whole Publisher with a single proxy lawsuit. It's also sad for all of the employees that will lose their jobs.

It's pretty hard to feel angry about it for me personally though because I'm glad that the shitstain that is Gawker and its two founders go under because of their self-righteous shit flinging.

[Khaldun]

Looked it up--Denton was hit for $10 million in personal damages, Daulerio for $100,000.

[Paelos]

Hogan's lawsuit had merit, but Thiel didn't fund it out of the goodness of his heart, he did so to get back at Denton.

Watching a billionaire fund lawsuits to destroy someone else's company isn't a good idea.  It's a recipe for less coverage of billionaires, if nothing else.

You're really downplaying the part where you're saying it "had merit." What they did to Hogan was ridiculous, and usually billionaires can get away with that shit because they can tie you up with cash in the legal departments. This time they got hammered by another billionaire. It doesn't happen if you're actually performing your job within journalistic lines in this country. We have a ton of leeway on that stuff.

[Khaldun]

You know, that is really not entirely true. Especially in the current economy--many newspapers or news organizations can't take a huge judgment and their legal staff would generally tell a reporter who had a valid story that might nevertheless inspire someone like Thiel to tie the organization up in court to either drop the story or modify it. There are already important stories that are underreported because of this kind of use of litigation as a tool of intimidation, and that's been true for a while. Small independent reporters who sometimes do really valuable work are even more litigation-averse, no matter how legitimate the work they're doing.

But for me this is just one more reason to resent Gawker: that precisely because they were playing at the edge, they owed *other journalists* more consideration and thought. That's ultimately the most obnoxious thing about them, that they didn't even recognize that they were taking risks and that the risks they were taking put other organizations and professionals at risk to boot.

[Paelos]

We have literally hundreds of sources to get news from now though. The lines of what does and doesn't constitute a journalist have been completely obliterated by the internet.

There's almost no reason for reputable news sources to take chances. Stories get out now in a variety of ways, and all they have to do is avoid the major stupid pitfalls once they do. The reason they DO take chances is because they get lazy or greedy or both, and they stop worrying about reporting news and start reporting inflammatory bullshit for clickbait.

[kaid]

The revelation that billionaires get to do whatever they want, including ruin the lives of many, many other people if they so choose, is not remotely shocking. The only takeaway here is fuck Gawker, and may their particular brand of festering rot consume and destroy whatever other media corporation thinks it can make a few bucks by bankrolling their continued existence.

Also, kill all billionaires.

Just look at trumps non payments of contractors. This is pretty common for large businesses because they can afford to take a lawsuite and let it languish for a decade where a small family business either has to take whatever tiny settlement is offered or go out of business before they ever see a dime.

[Khaldun]

We have literally hundreds of sources to get news from now though. The lines of what does and doesn't constitute a journalist have been completely obliterated by the internet.

There's almost no reason for reputable news sources to take chances. Stories get out now in a variety of ways, and all they have to do is avoid the major stupid pitfalls once they do. The reason they DO take chances is because they get lazy or greedy or both, and they stop worrying about reporting news and start reporting inflammatory bullshit for clickbait.

Honestly, this is why we have stuff like The First Amendment, which doesn't say, "If you're reasonable, you can say what you want". Or "A free press is like a bunch of X-Wings attacking the Death Star: one of them is bound to get through!"   Don't make arguments here that are bigger than they need to be. The only argument worth making that doesn't turn this into a free speech issue is that Gawker's people were such catastrophic assholes that they make it emotionally difficult to defend them in terms that they ought to be defended in.

[Merusk]

Not all speech is protected and not all of it needs to be. This isn't governmental oppression or suppression, it was libel. They fucked up, they got beat-down.

There's a line between us and China, or even us and the UK that we could stand to be a bit closer to without devolving into madness.

[Abagadro]

Theil is going after Gawker about a story detailing Trump's hair. Getting a bit ridiculous if you ask me.

[Khaldun]

He's not bothering being in the shadows on this any longer. He's going to bankroll every nuisance suit he can find.

The accusation in the Hulk Hogan case wasn't libel, by the way. It was invasion of privacy. He would have lost if he'd brought libel--didn't meet the standard.

[Torinak]

Theil is going after Gawker about a story detailing Trump's hair. Getting a bit ridiculous if you ask me.

Turns out Thiel is a pledged delegate for Trump, so it wouldn't be too surprising if he had to react to a perceived attack on the hair.