Gawker alumni are crowdfunding to outbid Peter Thiel for control of Gawker's assets

[anon50609448]

@churba

Yeah, it works differently. They don’t just consider the bid, they consider who it would be best for it to go to. So, a higher bid from someone aiming to, say, shut the whole thing down, as well as take control of a bunch of outstanding possible suits or appeals against them that could be pursued by people who bought it later, might lose to a lower bid from another party who intends to keep an archive up, and relaunch the site as a non-profit journalistic enterprise in the style of ProPublica.

I thought this was probably the case since otherwise the whole thing didn’t make sense. The kickstarter doesn’t say exactly what they’ll do with the money if they don’t win the auction, but they do acknowledge that possibility and say they have another plan. I’d want details on that plan, but the flip side of that is that I realize it might not be wise for them to share details of a backup plan right now.

I should probably be less cynical about this, I do actually believe that the people doing it are motivated by a desire to preserve the archive of gawker articles and to move forward with independent journalism. I don’t think it’s just a crass scam.