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Comment by nrook | Hacker News Reader

Gawker always said it was in the business of publishing true stories. Here is one last true story: You live in a country where a billionaire can put a publication out of business. A billionaire can pick off an individual writer and leave that person penniless and without legal protection.

If you want to write stories that might anger a billionaire, you need to work for another billionaire yourself, or for a billion-dollar corporation. The law will not protect you. There is no freedom in this world but power and money.

- Tom Scocca, "Gawker Was Murdered by Gaslight"

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There's so much at play here, that boiling this situation to a generalization like this is outright deception.

* Gawker ignored a court order to take down a post

* Gawker's legal defense had a poor strategy of attacking Hogan's character

* Gawker either didn't coach their witnesses, or they just ignored any coaching:

* You have the author of the post saying he didn't consider any of the reasons Gawker's legal team said made the sex tape newsworthy

* In a trial by jury, the author also said he'd only hold back a sex tape if the subject was under four years old

Yeah, the lawsuit was bankrolled by a billionaire, but it would have been a slam dunk for any lawyer. The fact that they sought $100 Million but were awarded $140 Million by a jury should be telling about how poorly Gawker handled this situation.

One could also say that if someone puts a video of you having sex without consent, then companies like Gawker will ignore you unless you're a billionaire.

They published a video of a young lady having sex in a bar bathroom, and despite both the lady and her father pleading with Nick Denton to remove the video, he only said "These things pass". The family could not sure, and the outcome was unsure, and Gawker has insurance against these things, so Gawker felt they could get away with it as long as they got the pageviews.

Should you need to be a billionaire to have a non-newsworthy video of you removed?

"You live in a country where a billionaire can put a publication out of business."

I highly doubt Thiel would have been able to do that had it not been for Gawker's general being shitty. Outing Thiel was shitty, publishing the sex tape of a private individual was shitty, and saying that they would publish kiddie porn if they felt it was "newsworthy" was shitty.

Gawker was able to be taken out due to their own actions.

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