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It's amazing to see how the left latched onto this as a "billionaire buys lawsuit" narrative, as opposed to the much more accurate "shitty darling of the left t

It's amazing to see how the left latched onto this as a "billionaire buys lawsuit" narrative, as opposed to the much more accurate "shitty darling of the left that habitually engaged in abuse got its comeuppance" narrative. Gawker repeatedly, knowingly, unabashedly, broke the law. They repeatedly, knowingly, unabashedly, tried to ruin innocent people's lives. They absolutely deserve everything that happened to them and more. Thiel is a goddamned hero for the part he played. Edit: >Also. This has nothing to do with left v. right. Only people on the left believe this. GawkMedia was loathed by the right as pretty much the worst example of how bad leftist media could get. Trust me, we were all popping champagne and lighting off fireworks when we got the news on this side of the aisle.

dopamean 10y ago
Darling of the left? Is that really how Denton has been described? I don't know anyone -- left or right -- who thinks Denton is anything more than a scumbag.
- Bartweiss 10y ago
  Not Gawker directly, but Gawker Media is certainly a darling of certain (unkind) parts of the left. Jezebel is a Gawker label, and it's been top source for share-on-Facebook level left-journalism for years.
bobwaycott 10y ago
Not disagreeing with your points on Gawker's despicable behavior, but this doesn't answer the question of how the damages were calculated. It also doesn't address the precedent issue, beyond voicing support for exacting revenge as justified.
- jdmichal 10y ago
  What precedent, exactly? That doing illegal things is still illegal, even if you're a journalist? Or that you can get sued into oblivion, which could and did happen before this case?
  - bobwaycott 10y ago
    I believe the precedent the GP was referring to, to which the parent was replying—and to whom I replied—is a billionaire using the legal system and a case to which he's not a party to seek revenge by bankrolling that case. I see no one disputing the legitimacy of suing Gawker or defending Gawker's disgusting and illegal behavior.
    - jdmichal 10y ago
      You realize that this is the same mechanism used by groups like the EFF, ACLU, and NAACP to bring cases? And what about a lawyer agreeing to take a case on contingency; isn't that technically the lawyer funding the case, and not the plaintiff? Also, what is the alternative here? Sure, Hogan maybe has enough money that he could have funded the case. Could Joe Smith working his 9-to-5 have funded that case? If not, how is he supposed to get justice, if this exact situation happens to him? Money is already a problem in court, isn't restricting the funding sources of the common person therefore a negative outcome? Finally, this was discussed the last time this case came up: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11878742 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11878742
      - bobwaycott 10y ago
        I'm not sure why you've decided to argue with me. You seem to have erroneously concluded I have some issue here for you to fix. The GP is the person who had questions. I merely replied to someone who made a fairly combative and unnecessarily political reply to point out the GP's concerns were in no way addressed—such is the way of political rants.
        jdmichal 10y ago
        Sorry; I assumed that by replying to you and you replying to me that we were entering into a conversation. I am attempting to address your interpretation of the concerns raised by GP. Replying to your interpretation of the concerns seems like a natural place to do that. As it is, your reply here was not really necessary.
- Ping938 10y ago
  It was $55 million for economic harm,$60 million for emotional distress and $25M punitive. That sex tape also revealed racist comments made by Hulk Hogan which costed him losing deals and sponsorship.
- paulpauper 10y ago
  they probably calculated the valuation of Gawker and then added some extra. 'pain and suffering' 'damage to Hogan's brand and earning power' In some instances the judge will reduce it. This time they didn't.
  - bobwaycott 10y ago
    Hopefully the GP who asked sees this. Seems a sensible enough explanation of the "how" asked for.
gohrt 10y ago
Is this some sort of gamergate leakage, that makes Gawker "left" because they are united with Kotaku, who gamergate hates, and social-justice fighers hate gamergate, and social-justic fighters are "left", so Gawker is "left"?
- tedks 10y ago
  Pretty much.
- iamdave 10y ago
  Edit: Lot of words, only to realize I may have misread your post entirely. Redacting.
- redthrowaway 10y ago
  Gawker Media, along with Vice, Salon, Vox, Buzzfeed, HuffPo, etc., are left wing online publications. It has nothing to with GamerGate. It would take some impressive sophistry to claim they're not left wing, just as it would take quite some sophistry to claim Breitbart, Daily Wire, National Review, etc weren't right wing.
  - tedks 10y ago
    Well, you could get a little less myopic, zoom out of the purely American perspective where left=Democrat and right=Republican, and see that none of the publications you named are left in any way. (Vox sometimes has leftists writing for it, but I wouldn't call it left as a whole.)
- cocotino 10y ago
  Gawker defends progressive ideas and bashes conservative ideas. Of course in a world where you can get kicked out of your job as a CEO of Mozilla for defending the traditional family, it may look like there's no other option.
- Bartweiss 10y ago
  I mean, you can make the connection way easier via Jezebel, which is an unabashedly left-wing Gawker Media imprint.
threeseed 10y ago
> They repeatedly, knowingly, unabashedly, tried to ruin innocent people's lives Others might simply call that reporting.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
joering2 10y ago
> They repeatedly, knowingly, unabashedly, tried to ruin innocent people's lives. Can you actually prove that anyone's life was ruined? They mostly "reported" on sex tapes and other weird stuff, like the origins of Trump's hair. And my opinion, as I can imagine 99,9% of others, about Hogan's wrestling persona or skills has nothing to do with his out of wedlock shenanigans. And if you see a 140MM win from a lawsuit for Hogan as a form of ruining someone's life, then by all means please have someone ruin my life the same way!!!
- Bartweiss 10y ago
  The primary event for "ruining lives" is the gay rival CEO Denton outed (who was married to a woman), not Hogan.
  - joering2 10y ago
    That's "a life", not "lives". Anyone else?
- maverick_iceman 10y ago
  Justine Sacco, Greg Gopman
- ulucs 10y ago
  They released the list of all NY gun owners, complete with their addresses. Some people had gotten their guns as a measure against their stalkers, which now had their legal addresses. This also increased the risk of the relevant houses being hit by thieves, who could then use their new illegal guns for crime purposes.
bmm6o 10y ago
Not sure where this "darling of the left" thing is coming from. Disliking both Gawker and Thiel is one thing that can unite us all.
- redthrowaway 10y ago
  > Disliking both Gawker and Thiel is one thing that can unite us all. Speak for yourself. I've nothing but respect for Thiel.
  - jbooth 10y ago
    For what, his libertarian values? While backing Palantir and engaging in stuff like this?
    - redthrowaway 10y ago
      > and engaging in stuff like this? Only the left has a problem with his support of Hogan, because it was an attack on your tribe. Stop assuming the rest of us share your outrage. We don't. Thiel essentially insured Hogan's lawsuit, so that Hogan could proceed without fear of losing millions in legal costs. That's it. Billionaire swoops in and enables aggrieved party to sue evil corporation for abominable behaviour. It's practically an Erin Brockovich story.
      - paulpauper 10y ago
        also the 'left' has Soros, who has more power than Thiel... not a peep about that, too
      - jbooth 10y ago
        Buddy. Give the 'the left' stuff a rest. We're talking about a libertarian going way out of his way to attack a (horrible, tabloid) press organization here. Same guy bankrolled/backed one of the biggest private enablers of security state overreach in the country. I'm just pointing out the hypocrisy. Also, as far as you deciding what 'the left' thinks and then feeling superior to them for it.. I mean, whatever floats your boat, but it's not exactly the path to enlightenment.
nl 10y ago
I don't think anyone, left-or-right thinks of Denton as anything except a gossip peddler. It is hard to judge, but the divisions in this case don't appear to be right vs left. It seems to me it has more been aligned with people's views on a right to free speech vs a right to privacy. There seem to have been plenty on the right who think that the right to free speech should have trumped the right to privacy in this case.
- jshevek 10y ago
  I would agree that left vs right isn't the best way to categorize the disagreements here, but I think its understandable that some people might think that 'the left' was championing Gawker. There were quite a few low brow leftist media outlets who jumped to Gawkers defense and tried to demonize Thiel.
  - nl 10y ago
    Yeah, you might be right. Maybe there should be third axis in the left/right divide? Left|right|stupid.
  - basch 10y ago
    >quite a few low brow leftist media outlets maybe a better explanation is that "aggregators" republish whatever is outrageous and visible that day. the "news" is an echo chamber of people that spend their day surfing reddit and ending their contributions to the fourth estate with h/t
jessaustin 10y ago
>Also. This has nothing to do with left v. right. Only people on the left believe this. I suspect this was before they learned that Thiel would be speaking at the Republican Convention.

dopamean 10y ago

Darling of the left? Is that really how Denton has been described? I don't know anyone -- left or right -- who thinks Denton is anything more than a scumbag.

Bartweiss 10y ago
Not Gawker directly, but Gawker Media is certainly a darling of certain (unkind) parts of the left. Jezebel is a Gawker label, and it's been top source for share-on-Facebook level left-journalism for years.

bobwaycott 10y ago

Not disagreeing with your points on Gawker's despicable behavior, but this doesn't answer the question of how the damages were calculated. It also doesn't address the precedent issue, beyond voicing support for exacting revenge as justified.

jdmichal 10y ago
What precedent, exactly? That doing illegal things is still illegal, even if you're a journalist? Or that you can get sued into oblivion, which could and did happen before this case?
- bobwaycott 10y ago
  I believe the precedent the GP was referring to, to which the parent was replying—and to whom I replied—is a billionaire using the legal system and a case to which he's not a party to seek revenge by bankrolling that case. I see no one disputing the legitimacy of suing Gawker or defending Gawker's disgusting and illegal behavior.
  - jdmichal 10y ago
    You realize that this is the same mechanism used by groups like the EFF, ACLU, and NAACP to bring cases? And what about a lawyer agreeing to take a case on contingency; isn't that technically the lawyer funding the case, and not the plaintiff? Also, what is the alternative here? Sure, Hogan maybe has enough money that he could have funded the case. Could Joe Smith working his 9-to-5 have funded that case? If not, how is he supposed to get justice, if this exact situation happens to him? Money is already a problem in court, isn't restricting the funding sources of the common person therefore a negative outcome? Finally, this was discussed the last time this case came up: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11878742 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11878742
    - bobwaycott 10y ago
      I'm not sure why you've decided to argue with me. You seem to have erroneously concluded I have some issue here for you to fix. The GP is the person who had questions. I merely replied to someone who made a fairly combative and unnecessarily political reply to point out the GP's concerns were in no way addressed—such is the way of political rants.
      - jdmichal 10y ago
        Sorry; I assumed that by replying to you and you replying to me that we were entering into a conversation. I am attempting to address your interpretation of the concerns raised by GP. Replying to your interpretation of the concerns seems like a natural place to do that. As it is, your reply here was not really necessary.
Ping938 10y ago
It was $55 million for economic harm,$60 million for emotional distress and $25M punitive. That sex tape also revealed racist comments made by Hulk Hogan which costed him losing deals and sponsorship.
paulpauper 10y ago
they probably calculated the valuation of Gawker and then added some extra. 'pain and suffering' 'damage to Hogan's brand and earning power' In some instances the judge will reduce it. This time they didn't.
- bobwaycott 10y ago
  Hopefully the GP who asked sees this. Seems a sensible enough explanation of the "how" asked for.

gohrt 10y ago

Is this some sort of gamergate leakage, that makes Gawker "left" because they are united with Kotaku, who gamergate hates, and social-justice fighers hate gamergate, and social-justic fighters are "left", so Gawker is "left"?

tedks 10y ago
Pretty much.
iamdave 10y ago
Edit: Lot of words, only to realize I may have misread your post entirely. Redacting.
redthrowaway 10y ago
Gawker Media, along with Vice, Salon, Vox, Buzzfeed, HuffPo, etc., are left wing online publications. It has nothing to with GamerGate. It would take some impressive sophistry to claim they're not left wing, just as it would take quite some sophistry to claim Breitbart, Daily Wire, National Review, etc weren't right wing.
- tedks 10y ago
  Well, you could get a little less myopic, zoom out of the purely American perspective where left=Democrat and right=Republican, and see that none of the publications you named are left in any way. (Vox sometimes has leftists writing for it, but I wouldn't call it left as a whole.)
cocotino 10y ago
Gawker defends progressive ideas and bashes conservative ideas. Of course in a world where you can get kicked out of your job as a CEO of Mozilla for defending the traditional family, it may look like there's no other option.
Bartweiss 10y ago
I mean, you can make the connection way easier via Jezebel, which is an unabashedly left-wing Gawker Media imprint.

threeseed 10y ago

> They repeatedly, knowingly, unabashedly, tried to ruin innocent people's lives Others might simply call that reporting.

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]

joering2 10y ago

> They repeatedly, knowingly, unabashedly, tried to ruin innocent people's lives. Can you actually prove that anyone's life was ruined? They mostly "reported" on sex tapes and other weird stuff, like the origins of Trump's hair. And my opinion, as I can imagine 99,9% of others, about Hogan's wrestling persona or skills has nothing to do with his out of wedlock shenanigans. And if you see a 140MM win from a lawsuit for Hogan as a form of ruining someone's life, then by all means please have someone ruin my life the same way!!!

Bartweiss 10y ago
The primary event for "ruining lives" is the gay rival CEO Denton outed (who was married to a woman), not Hogan.
- joering2 10y ago
  That's "a life", not "lives". Anyone else?
maverick_iceman 10y ago
Justine Sacco, Greg Gopman
ulucs 10y ago
They released the list of all NY gun owners, complete with their addresses. Some people had gotten their guns as a measure against their stalkers, which now had their legal addresses. This also increased the risk of the relevant houses being hit by thieves, who could then use their new illegal guns for crime purposes.

bmm6o 10y ago

Not sure where this "darling of the left" thing is coming from. Disliking both Gawker and Thiel is one thing that can unite us all.

redthrowaway 10y ago
> Disliking both Gawker and Thiel is one thing that can unite us all. Speak for yourself. I've nothing but respect for Thiel.
- jbooth 10y ago
  For what, his libertarian values? While backing Palantir and engaging in stuff like this?
  - redthrowaway 10y ago
    > and engaging in stuff like this? Only the left has a problem with his support of Hogan, because it was an attack on your tribe. Stop assuming the rest of us share your outrage. We don't. Thiel essentially insured Hogan's lawsuit, so that Hogan could proceed without fear of losing millions in legal costs. That's it. Billionaire swoops in and enables aggrieved party to sue evil corporation for abominable behaviour. It's practically an Erin Brockovich story.
    - paulpauper 10y ago
      also the 'left' has Soros, who has more power than Thiel... not a peep about that, too
    - jbooth 10y ago
      Buddy. Give the 'the left' stuff a rest. We're talking about a libertarian going way out of his way to attack a (horrible, tabloid) press organization here. Same guy bankrolled/backed one of the biggest private enablers of security state overreach in the country. I'm just pointing out the hypocrisy. Also, as far as you deciding what 'the left' thinks and then feeling superior to them for it.. I mean, whatever floats your boat, but it's not exactly the path to enlightenment.

nl 10y ago

I don't think anyone, left-or-right thinks of Denton as anything except a gossip peddler. It is hard to judge, but the divisions in this case don't appear to be right vs left. It seems to me it has more been aligned with people's views on a right to free speech vs a right to privacy. There seem to have been plenty on the right who think that the right to free speech should have trumped the right to privacy in this case.

jshevek 10y ago
I would agree that left vs right isn't the best way to categorize the disagreements here, but I think its understandable that some people might think that 'the left' was championing Gawker. There were quite a few low brow leftist media outlets who jumped to Gawkers defense and tried to demonize Thiel.
- nl 10y ago
  Yeah, you might be right. Maybe there should be third axis in the left/right divide? Left|right|stupid.
- basch 10y ago
  >quite a few low brow leftist media outlets maybe a better explanation is that "aggregators" republish whatever is outrageous and visible that day. the "news" is an echo chamber of people that spend their day surfing reddit and ending their contributions to the fourth estate with h/t

jessaustin 10y ago

>Also. This has nothing to do with left v. right. Only people on the left believe this. I suspect this was before they learned that Thiel would be speaking at the Republican Convention.