If the best of all possible outcomes occurs, then yes, in retrospect one could argue it was a net positive.
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well, YMMV, of course. i don’t find the coverage here even comparable, tbh.
Thankfully/sadly are there really any fulltime employee writers to be found or are they all freelancers that can be reallocated more dynamically to other, less tawdry content networks?
yeah, that’s a good point. i don’t know. : \
I take that optimistically in that even with Denton’s follies that the good writers and “soul” of the subsites can find other homes.
YMMV…
i don’t find the coverage here even comparable, tbh.
Well, I’ve recently noticed coverage at BB that was missing or no better at io9/Gizmodo. Not a lot. Not in depth. …but this is ignoring the other five citations I provided, content spread among them, and neither individually nor as a whole a replacement for the singular editorial character or topic spread of io9. I’m not trying to glorify an imperfect publication, just placing it’s worth in the relative scheme of things.
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yes, i know. i was speaking specifically about BB & IO9. i am not familiar with the other sites you mentioned, and i am definitely going to check them out. thanks : )
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There were full time staffers, they have been letting quite a lot of those go. They closed the Budapest office, where they had a couple of writers producing good work.
Oh stahp. You keep mentioning this aspect. Whatever marylou.
That’s because that’s who paid for the lawyers that sued Gawker. What would you like me to refer to them as? “The lawyers representing Terry Bollea but paid for and acting in the interests of Peter Thiel”? You think Terry wanted this level of shit show? Barely anyone cared about the video and it would have disappeared within 2 weeks. He wanted them held to account, sure, but now his fucking his friends wife will forever be linked with so much more. If Thiel wasn’t involved this would never have ended in a network of websites being put up for sale. You can pretend this case wasn’t a proxy for Theil vs. Vallywag all you like, but you’re wrong.
I think we’re actually in agreement about the distinction between Terry and Hulk Hogan. The lawyers raised it as a point because Terry said his sex life was private (we both concur), and had to defend charges that Hulk Hogan’s sex life was not private, as he had publicly discussed it on Howard Stern (iirc), including the size of his dick. The argument maintained was that while Terry is not being Hulk, nothing Hulk does or says should be applicable to him. (I guess it was Hulk who defended his murderer son when he killed his friend in a car crash? No one seems bothered about that any more, and we’re just talking about Terry now).
[quote=“fidgit, post:69, topic:79517”]
You think Terry wanted this level of shit show?[/quote]
He lacked the power to dismiss Thiel’s lawyers which represented him?
That’s ridiculous.
If you want to discuss the influence of billionaires over our daily lives, do so without these asinine conspiracy theories where persons are held in a magical thrall.
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“I guess it was Hulk who defended his murderer son when he killed his friend in a car crash? No one seems bothered about that any more”
You dismiss Hogan’s humanity because he raised terrible children. We dismiss Denton’s empire because it relished in dehumanizing celebrities that “had it coming”.
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I’m pretty uncomfortable with millionaires using media companies to destroy lives, so…
can we do away with billionares and media empires, both?
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“Lawyers” would suffice, if you were here to argue the merits of the case. But you are not, so bloviate however you like about this atrocious slight to your ego.
Doesn’t matter what I think. Take that on board.
With a crystal ball like that I suggest you have a future in invasion of privacy.
You can pretend this case wasn’t a proxy for Theil vs. Vallywag all you like, but you’re wrong.
And you can pretend that I’m on the opposing side of your personal crusade, but you would be incorrect.
Must you be incorrect at the volume and frequency required to actually be wrong about it?
Yes, I quite like Kotaku too. Their Highlight Reels of funny videogaming moments are fun (when I can make out what’s going on).
He lacked the power to dismiss Thiel’s lawyers which represented him?
Had Terry Bollea paid for his own lawyers and they had been acting on his instructions only, this would not have been the outcome, based on the assumption that he was not interested in destroying Gawker, he was interested in getting a stolen sex video taken down. But yes, technically speaking I suspect at some point it would have become apparent to him that the “ship had sailed” on not having this spin wildly out of his control. Why do you have a hard time believing the lawyers weren’t acting only in his best interests, but on the instruction of the man paying them too? I maintain that is Gawker had simply removed the video when instructed to, this wouldn’t have gotten so ridiculously bad for them - by refusing to do so they played in Theil’s hand.
You dismiss Hogan’s humanity because he raised terrible children. We dismiss Denton’s empire because it relished in dehumanizing celebrities that “had it coming”.
Yeah that was a stupid comment and I shouldn’t have made it. It was a half-hearted attempt to equate something publicly awful Terry Bollea had done in the past with the awful thing that was done to him under his guise of “Hulk Hogan”. It was ill-conceived and I should have nuked it before I hit reply.
If I’m sounding like I’m waging a personal crusade on the case of Gawker vs. Hulk Hogan I might need to stop replying now… At the end of the day, Gawker should never have refused to remove the video, and Peter Theil is a slimy scum bag with too much money and influence. Pretty sure every here would agree with at least those two sentiments.
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This is not at all what Thiel did, though. He funded people who had serious axes to grind against Gawker – and ones that were based on valid legal cases, at least according to one court and jury so far.
Here’s my advice to Gawker: try being in a position where you aren’t legally vulnerable to so many people by dint of being complete assholes and creating multitudes of enemies with valid legal cases against you. Exhibit A:
Jurors in Hulk Hogan’s sex video trial on Wednesday heard a videotaped deposition of Gawker’s former editor in chief — saying he’d draw the line at posting the sex tape of a celebrity who is under 4 years old.
A.J. Daulerio, 41, was sitting ramrod straight in the Florida courtroom during the awkward moment when he was asked on video by Hogan’s lawyer, “Can you imagine a situation where a celebrity sex tape would not be newsworthy?”
Daulerio answered flatly, “If they were a child.”
“Under what age?” attorney Charles Harder asked.
“Four,” he said.
“No four-year-old sex tapes, OK,” Harder said.
I guess my point is that Gawker is only “destroyed” to the extent that other people have valid legal cases to bring to bear against them, that juries will agree are valid.
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But you see that would also be morally okay because literal four year olds couldn’t finance legal support on their own?
Now Peter Thiel’s Lawyer Wants to Silence Reporting on Trump’s Hair
Ordinarily, we would publish the entirety of Harder’s letter, so readers can judge its merits themselves. (Gawker Media’s response can be read here.) But Harder claims, on the fifth page, that the document is “protected by applicable Copyright law and therefore may not be copied, published, disseminated or used by any person or for any purpose, other than internally at your company and its outside legal representatives.” Given Harder’s propensity to launch groundless lawsuits against us, we have decided not to invite distracting litigation over whether such publication is covered by the Fair Use doctrine, even though it plainly is
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Ken White’s got a nice write-up that syncs pretty well with my views, but as a lawyer, he’s better at explaining: Go ahead and hate Gawker, but don’t cheer its downfall
Nobody I know of who’s saying this case’s outcome is troubling is saying Gawker didn’t do things that were unacceptable, didn’t deserve to be sued, or shouldn’t have had some penalty. Certainly they did bad things, should have been sued, etc. Rather, sometimes hostility towards an unsympathetic defendant can be used to excuse travesties of justice, which IMO is what happened here. YMMV.
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