Good riddance. They took a gamble and lost. That's business. That's life.
they took a gamble and lost, that's business != good riddance
Gawker Files for Bankruptcy, Will Be Put Up for Auction
441–450 of 566 posts
Re: Gawker Files for Bankruptcy, Will Be Put Up for Auction
#442A few thoughts: 1. The pressure point here was a court ruling declining to stay enforcement of the $140M judgment pending appeal. This left Gawker having to post a $50M bond in order to avoid enforcement proceedings by which its assets could have been seized and its business literally dismantled. Gawker may or may not ultimately prove to have a successful basis upon which to get this judgment reversed but, without a…
(3) is proof positive the absence or presence of funds has too much influence on the outcome of court cases. If all that stands between a judgment one way or the other is a pile of cash then effectively there is no such thing as justice and this means that more often than not the party with the smallest bank account will lose. I'm fine with the concept of 'maintenance' but at the same time I feel that there is such a…
[deleted]
Re: Gawker Files for Bankruptcy, Will Be Put Up for Auction
#443Libel and slander have no place in a functioning democracy. By building an entire business model around such practices, Gawker is not only spreading disinformation, it is also crowding out more reputable news sources that could have better helped inform the public. The only criticism I can give in this entire tale, is that it shouldn't take a billionaire to sue and win judgement against slanderous publishers. Such re…
> Libel and slander have no place in a functioning democracy One man's libel/slander is another man's investigate journalism ("muckraking" in the US). In this particular case, Gawker wasn't guilty of either libel or slander because they didn't publish anything about Hogan that was false. > it shouldn't take a billionaire to sue and win judgement against slanderous publishers It's actually much harder to win a libel/s…
| Gawker wasn't guilty of either libel or slander because they didn't publish anything about Hogan that was false.
...not to mention, Hogan's public persona and living he has earned has been by posing as a larger than life clownish character; I don't even see that he was harmed. Ask yourself, do you think less of Hogan now? (and not because it turns out that he has less impressive sounding real name)
I'd have more sympathy for a "normal" person.
Re: Gawker Files for Bankruptcy, Will Be Put Up for Auction
#444Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Especially given Thiel's motive that "they outed me" - come on, Thiel's sexuality was probably the worst kept secret in the Valley. When you pose shirtless on a gay cruise, I think it's fairly safe the rest of the world didn't need Valleywag to tell them of your homosexuality. Does all that evidence matter? Shouldn't it be up to Theil when and where he outs himself instead of blog like Valleywag doing it for him?
People keep saying things like that. But I keep wondering if they have considered the flip side of that, which is are we really comfortable saying that the personal relationships of rich and famous people shouldn't be in the media? When I go to the supermarket I see 500 headlines about famous people dating and breaking up and cheating on their partners, etc. Sure it's a little lowbrow but do we really feel that rumor…
I don't feel that celebrity dating life is ok to publish, actually. It's very seedy and not in the public interest in the average case. Celebrites are fairly open about their disgust for the constant filming of their private life. I would relish it if Brad Pitt or someone else got a similar judgement from the courts.
Re: Gawker Files for Bankruptcy, Will Be Put Up for Auction
#445Earlier quoted context omitted.
> A lot of questionable things are becoming illegal to publish lately. Come on. What goes on in a slaughterhouse affects all meat-eaters. It's a matter of public interest. But what happens in Hulk Hogan's bedroom between 2 consenting adults? And something that we all expect to keep private (except the exhibitionist types)? Not in the public interest at all. Would you call upskirt photos in the public interest? Or spy…
So we destroy an entire news outlet conglomeration? That strikes me as overreach. There's clearly a privacy question here, but the video is real, the words are real, and the events actually happened. I've never seen the video. I don't care. Hogan's sex life is not interesting to me. People already masterbate to him. I'm struggling to understand how a large amount of damage was dealt.
They weren't destroyed because they did it. It happened because after the fact they refused to admit their fault and make up for it, and instead continued insisting they were in the right.
Re: Gawker Files for Bankruptcy, Will Be Put Up for Auction
#446A few thoughts: 1. The pressure point here was a court ruling declining to stay enforcement of the $140M judgment pending appeal. This left Gawker having to post a $50M bond in order to avoid enforcement proceedings by which its assets could have been seized and its business literally dismantled. Gawker may or may not ultimately prove to have a successful basis upon which to get this judgment reversed but, without a…
You're the expert, but I don't see the harm of "maintenance". If Boella was wronged legally, he should be made whole. Whether he uses his own money to make his case doesn't change the correctness of the ruling. People use the courts to get payback all the time, in a variety of ways. It's not about what's right, its about what's allowed. People with a lot of money have a big advantage in that regard. If we try to chan…
> You're the expert, but I don't see the harm of "maintenance".
> The key rule that Gawker broke here was "Don't make powerful enemies"
This seems like a terrible basis for a justice system. Do you not see the harm this could lead to?
Re: Gawker Files for Bankruptcy, Will Be Put Up for Auction
#447A few thoughts: 1. The pressure point here was a court ruling declining to stay enforcement of the $140M judgment pending appeal. This left Gawker having to post a $50M bond in order to avoid enforcement proceedings by which its assets could have been seized and its business literally dismantled. Gawker may or may not ultimately prove to have a successful basis upon which to get this judgment reversed but, without a…
(3) is proof positive the absence or presence of funds has too much influence on the outcome of court cases. If all that stands between a judgment one way or the other is a pile of cash then effectively there is no such thing as justice and this means that more often than not the party with the smallest bank account will lose. I'm fine with the concept of 'maintenance' but at the same time I feel that there is such a…
(3) is more a statement that "you need a certain amount of money to successfully fund a lawsuit" than "more often than not the party with the [bigger] bank account will [win]." Two slightly different concepts.
Beyond that: the "merits" of a case is unknowable. Courts don't have the "merits" in front of them. They have the evidence and arguments developed by the parties. Consider the Gawker case: did Gawker publish the video recklessly or maliciously? The "yes" or "no" answer doesn't exist in reality. It's an abstraction. The only thing that exists in reality is, e.g., various emails and communications and meetings that can lead to one conclusion or the other.
Developing that evidence--particularly within the context of a process where everyone has a strong incentive to lie and fabricate--is what makes litigation expensive. But it takes a certain amount of money to develop the evidence. Spending a lot more money than that isn't going to get you a much better result.
Re: Gawker Files for Bankruptcy, Will Be Put Up for Auction
#448Earlier quoted context omitted.
Except Thiel arguably has "connection with the merits of the dispute". He feels that Gawker violated his privacy as well as Hogan's, and he wants Gawker to be punished and/or discouraged from further similar behavior. Just like the EFF or ACLU.
Or if he doesn't do it personally, he can certainly create the Privacy Protection League in order to fight for privacy rights. And guess what the first case the new PPL might take on. I'm not sure how you distinguish that from a legitimate organization like the EFF or ACLU.
Perhaps in how they fundraise, take on volunteers, how many cases they focus on (do they dissolve after Gawker?), etc. My guess is after the fact you could prove intention with a wide variety of events, just like you can't create a non-profit to buy houses for people just so you can buy yourself a house tax free.
Re: Gawker Files for Bankruptcy, Will Be Put Up for Auction
#449A few thoughts: 1. The pressure point here was a court ruling declining to stay enforcement of the $140M judgment pending appeal. This left Gawker having to post a $50M bond in order to avoid enforcement proceedings by which its assets could have been seized and its business literally dismantled. Gawker may or may not ultimately prove to have a successful basis upon which to get this judgment reversed but, without a…
>parties also routinely will make serious efforts to settle any high-stakes litigation at various critical points but here it was all scorched-earth all the way to the bitter end with no prospect of the parties achieving a reasonable settlement along the way.
Here in FL where the case went to trial we have the proposal for settlement rule and an Offer of Judgment Statute.
Obviously Gawker couldn't have forced a settlement but if they really wanted to settle it, Gawker could have potentially recouped their legal fees for the continued litigation. Alternatively, they could have simply accepted liability/default judgment and moved to the damages phase, saving themselves untold legal fees in defending the case. Of course it is easy to Monday morning quarterback these things after you have availed yourself to all potential legal defenses and still not happy with the result.
Re: Gawker Files for Bankruptcy, Will Be Put Up for Auction
#450Libel and slander have no place in a functioning democracy. By building an entire business model around such practices, Gawker is not only spreading disinformation, it is also crowding out more reputable news sources that could have better helped inform the public. The only criticism I can give in this entire tale, is that it shouldn't take a billionaire to sue and win judgement against slanderous publishers. Such re…
And engadget and kotaku and most of the other tech related websites you probably read. Also its a good lesson to other sites to police content to ensure no one says anything bad about billionaires. Thank god for thiel protecting us from horrible things like censorship!
If you like the kind of journalism you currently get from Engadget, Kotaku, Valleywag, et al., you'll still be able to get it even if they're shut down. It's not as though the terms of the decision include the slaughter en masse of the editorial staff and reporters, after all; they'll find jobs elsewhere and continue to get published. Life goes on.