Do you feel sympathy for Gawker knowing that a rich billionaire used Hogan as a tool to hurt them?

[JosephDredd]

I don't. Fuck them. More like a rich billionaire gave Hogan the resources he needed to seek justice. But everyone in the media is up in arms defending Gawker's shittiness.

Backstory: Gawker publishes sex tape of Hogam, complete with rants against blacks and gays. Hogan sued and won an unbelievable amount, $140 000 000. Now Gawker is appealling the verdict, but is fighting off certain ruin in the meantime. They just had to file for bankruptcy protection to prevent Hogan from taking over the company.

Gawker filed for bankruptcy protection in response to a Friday court order by the Florida trial judge, Pamela A.M. Campbell, which paved the way for Bollea and Team Thiel to collect on the ruinous $140.1 million judgment.

In a Friday morning hearing in Campbell’s St. Petersburg, Fla., courtroom, Gawker defense attorney Michael Berry requested a stay of the payments, pending appeal, but offered pledges of the Gawker Media shares owned by defendants Denton (around 45 million shares) and former Gawker editor in chief A.J. Daulerio (around 6,000) as security.

The Tampa Bay Times reported that Berry told the judge that his clients would suffer “certain financial ruin” if required to ante up, but could pledge their shares as collateral.

“We’re willing to pledge it all,” Berry declared.

But Judge Campbell—one of the more frequently overturned jurists in Florida, who has consistently ruled against Gawker in the case—said she would only grant the stay if Gawker agreed to turn over control of its bank account and business operations to Bollea.

Berry declined the offer, and the judge directed Gawker to pay up, which prompted the media company to seek emergency relief in federal bankruptcy court, and put Gawker media up for sale.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articl...y-to-stop-hulk-hogan-from-taking-it-over.html

However, what's coming out is that Hogan (and many, many lawsuits over the past decade) have been financed by Peter Thiel, a tech billionaire that Gawker outed as gay ten years ago.

The German-born Thiel, 48, a wildly successful venture capitalist and hedge fund manager and co-founder of PayPal, has nursed a bitter grudge against Gawker and Denton for nearly a decade, ever since the Gawker Media’s now-defunct tech industry site, Valleywag, reported what was widely known to Thiel’s friends and business partners—that he, like Denton, is gay.

Late last month, after much speculation that Bollea’s lawsuit was being financed by a secret, deep-pocketed backer, Thiel revealed to The New York Times that he has been secretly funding the litigation.

The admission was applauded by some who objected to Gawker’s often mean-spirited journalism, and decried by others who saw Thiel’s backing of Bollea’s suit—and several others filed in recent months against Gawker—as a petty act of vengeance and a disturbing attack on the First Amendment.

Hogan, financed by Tiel, had to bring a lawsuit three times until it found a court favourable to it.

Convincing one jury might not have been enough, though. The wider threat in the model of vengeful litigation finance is that a person with enough resources could push a media company into oblivion, even without convincing a jury that his enemy had broken the law. All he has to do is keep bringing new lawsuits and draining the company’s bank account. It took several tries for Hogan's legal team to find a court receptive to its case.

Gawker depicts this legal fight—and other ones Thiel is funding—as a threat to freedom of speech. Practically the entire media industry has lined up behind Gawker, including Jeff Bezos, another tech billionaire and publisher of the Washington Post.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...hat-a-billionaire-funded-hulk-hogan-s-lawsuit


Where do you stand on this? I say fuck Gawker. They can't bitch that freedom of speech is under attack when it all could have been avoided if they tried to be real journalists. Their whining that they should be above paying punitive damages is drawing attention away from real journalists who are fighting real oppressive tactics. I think Gawker can be punished without the enitre system crashing down.

 

[STEVEN SEAGOLD]

Gawker didn't do anything wrong. Hogan is the racist bigot in this scenario, so why isn't he getting punished? The world is ass backwards these days. And as far as Peter Thiel? If he financially supports someone like Hulk... Then he should be economically reprimanded. It's 2016

 

[Cid]

I don't feel sympathy for gawker no matter the circumstances.

Maybe if the gay guy shot up the place killing people but only a maybe.

 

[elmo_1968]

Gawker didn't do anything wrong. Hogan is the racist bigot in this scenario, so why isn't he getting punished? The world is ass backwards these days. And as far as Peter Thiel? If he financially supports someone like Hulk... Then he should be economically reprimanded. It's 2016

Hogan isn't being punished b/c he didn't break the law.

 

[Fedorable]

Hogan isn't being punished b/c he didn't break the law.

he needs to be held accountable for suburban commando and 3 ninjas: high noon at Mega Mountain.

 

[STEVEN SEAGOLD]

Hogan isn't being punished b/c he didn't break the law.

Ever hear about this thing called Civil Rights? Lol

 

[EL CORINTHIAN]

Hahahahah! Omg I fully support this happening to Gawker. What they did was essentially ruin Hogans image to society through a recorded private phone call. This is one of the rare cases where they got exactly what they deserved.

 

[Krallang]

Umm hogan was punished. The wwe basically wiped his career from the record books.

Hogan is in the right on the fact that Gawker basically ruined his legacy without his permission which is a crime.

How do I feel about the wealthy using battalions of lawyers to drain an opponent of its ability to defend, well two words The Rainmaker and one person Matt motherfucking Damon.

 

[Bald1]

Gawker didn't do anything wrong. Hogan is the racist bigot in this scenario, so why isn't he getting punished? The world is ass backwards these days. And as far as Peter Thiel? If he financially supports someone like Hulk... Then he should be economically reprimanded. It's 2016

Your gimic has been done better many times over. Try something else.

 

[elmo_1968]

Ever hear about this thing called Civil Rights? Lol

If you're implying he violated someone's civil rights, can you elaborate beyond "Lol"?

 

[Count Zero]

I'm honestly not well-versed enough in the laws covering all these topics, but I can't help but have a "fuck yeah" reaction for this guy getting his revenge a decade later.

 

[rearnakedchoke]

Gawker didn't do anything wrong. Hogan is the racist bigot in this scenario, so why isn't he getting punished? The world is ass backwards these days. And as far as Peter Thiel? If he financially supports someone like Hulk... Then he should be economically reprimanded. It's 2016

What would hogan get punished for?

 

[Fawlty]

Hard to feel sorry for a tabloid.

 

[HereticBD]

Not in the least. This sort of tabloid journalism, while entertaining, needs to stop. It's making us all dumber.

 

[VulcanNervPinch]

Do I feel sorry for Gawker?
No

Am I unhappy about how wealth leads to unequal resources and outcomes in the legal system?
Yes

 

[sangreporsangre]

Fuck Gawker. I don't care how Hulkster's lawsuit was funded.

 

[Jack V Savage]

I don't feel sympathy for Gawker on an emotional level. They are terrible, etc. But this is not a good development for our democracy. Even good news organizations face exposure to potential lawsuits (even if they're in the right), and a vengeful billionaire who doesn't like a media source shouldn't be able to shut it down.

 

[elmo_1968]

I don't feel sympathy for Gawker on an emotional level. They are terrible, etc. But this is not a good development for our democracy. Even good news organizations face exposure to potential lawsuits (even if they're in the right), and a vengeful billionaire who doesn't like a media source shouldn't be able to shut it down.

I feel like the case ought to stand or fall on its own merits. The fact that an enemy they gratuitously made underwrote the case doesn't trouble me.

 

[Mr Holmes]

Ever hear about this thing called Civil Rights? Lol

Ever hear about this thing called right of privacy? Lol.

 

[Jack V Savage]

I feel like the case ought to stand or fall on its own merits. The fact that an enemy they gratuitously made underwrote the case doesn't trouble me.

That particular case maybe (though the award seems absurd), but even a company (especially a small one) that didn't cross the legal line could get shut down from lawsuits that aren't quite frivolous. This used to be more widely recognized: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Champerty_and_maintenance.