Hacker News Reader

Comment by yablak | Hacker News Reader

This is the guy Thiel used as a vehicle to kill Gawker. What a jerk.

https://www.vox.com/2016/5/25/11779910/peter-thiel-gawker-hu...

Maybe Gawker shouldn’t have been digging into his private sex life including publishing a sex tape. It’s not like Thiel funded round after round of litigation until Gawker ran out of money - they lost on the merits.

It’s an everyone sucks here situation. Gawker was undeniably shitty for outing thiel and posting a sex tape of hogan and then refusing to take it down. But the impact of the lawsuit was basically that if a billionaire has a vendetta against your media org they can fund a lawsuit even if they are in no way involved. And it’s rumored that Thiel funded several suits, not just hogans, discreetly. Even with hogans he was challenged but was allowed to keep funneling cash to take gawker down

The end result of that is that media orgs are now far more cautious about posting “exposes” of powerful people. Gonzo journalism in America is basically dead except for a handful of independent outlets that have much less impact, funding, and reach. Now it’s substacks of people that used to work for the intercept and rolling stone because media with money is playing it safe posting articles about trumps latest antics and 12 vacation spots you have to check out before you die.

[flagged]

Ok, but can you please not post snark and/or post unsubstantive comments to HN? We're trying for something else here.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

It's not an everyone sucks situation. A relatively powerful organization well known for playing bully finally picked on someone who happened to be stronger than they anticipated and got what was coming to them.

It's not like they decided to fess up and play nice once they were caught red handed. They decided to double down and act even shittier in court thinking they were still the big bad bullies and finding out the hard way courts don't really like that sort of attitude.

Absolutely no one would be taking Gawkers side here if the victims happened to be more sympathetic. The facts of this case were pretty one sided, as shown by the win in a notoriously difficult to win sort of case. The behavior of Gawker in court was absurd on top of it all.

If this were a case of a SLAPP lawsuit or burying them in legal costs over a series of marginal cases I would agree. It was not. It was simply one of their victims finding the means to finally stand up to an organization that abused it power consistently and with malice. The bully found out the hard way they weren't the biggest bully on the block, and refused to back down.

Nothing of value was lost. Very little of what Gawker was doing was in the public interest. It was life-ruining clickbait at it's worst.

> But the impact of the lawsuit was basically that if a billionaire has a vendetta against your media org they can fund a lawsuit even if they are in no way involved.

How is that different from what was before?

This is an interesting thread from someone who worked on the case (on Hogan's side):

https://x.com/dilanesper/status/1948757550993998192

> Gawker published a link to the secretly recorded footage of Erin Andrews (now of Fox Sports) nude in her hotel room, shot through a keyhole. Nobody else in the "legitimate media" did that. Gawker did.

> Maybe Gawker shouldn’t have been digging into his private sex life including publishing a sex tape.

Even if one supports this revenge-based justification, it doesn't mitigate the societal harm done when a path is carved out for billionaires to shutter news orgs who print things they don't like.

The societal harm: Republicans weaponizing Gov power and billionaire resources against news outlets - which is happening at this moment.

ref: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44688663

He also ratted out Jesse Ventura to McMahon for trying to set up a union for wrestlers in the 80s and McMahon came down hard. https://www.wrestlinginc.com/1062201/how-hulk-hogan-helped-p...

Gawker was a terrible website filled with terrible, hypocritical people who got what they deserved.

Gawker killed Gawker. You don’t get to sucker punch two strongmen (both literally and figuratively) and then whine and cry when they knock the shit out of you for the sucker punch.

They leaked a sex tape and refused to take it down.

"Leaked" by his best friend at the time (Bubba the Love Sponge, radio dj), who filmed it, and whose wife was the one Hogan was fucking, with his blessing. A very strange situation all around.

Gawker was a horrible blight, though.

No. What a hero. Gawker was absolutely vile trash and should have been nuked from orbit a thousand times over. Their conduct on many matters, but particularly, hogan was inexcusable in the extreme.

That was a good case. More individuals should be bankrolled so they can afford to use the legal system when they have been harmed by bigger parties.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com