3 ms·

>there are a thousand ways for the maturation from that awkward adolescence into adulthood to fail. It happened rather dramatically for the Gawker empire. Ther

by slg 7y ago

>there are a thousand ways for the maturation from that awkward adolescence into adulthood to fail. It happened rather dramatically for the Gawker empire. There is Deadspin in the Gawker portfolio which I think was a great example of the natural maturation you are talking about. The style of the site and what they covered definitely matured over the years, but that same defiant ethos stuck around until and was perhaps defined by the very the moment the entire team mass resigned in response to mismanagement. And it is interesting to note that multiple writers who resigned from Deadspin ended up at Vice.

yowlingcat 7y ago
I think the entire Gawker portfolio was absolutely quality, but there isn't too much you can do when Peter Thiel goes for your blood because you made the moronic (albeit one time mistake) of drawing his ire. After the fire sale to Univision, I never expected it to be the same.
- seabird 7y ago
  Except it wasn't a one time mistake. I can think of at least one other specific instance of them outing somebody, and the Hulk Hogan sex tape situation is equally morally bankrupt. This isn't even counting multiple other pointless invasions of privacy. Gawker got its just desserts, no matter how much Nick Denton cries about it.
  - FireBeyond 7y ago
    One of the many facets I dislike about this story is the "Gawker outed Peter Thiel" claim. Peter Thiel had used pictures of himself shirtless on a gay cruise as his profile on some social media. To consider that his privacy was invaded because he may not have specifically said the precise words "I am gay" is disingenuous. Not to mention, courts have repeatedly held that billionaires are considered "public figures" by virtue of their "outsized influence and impact on public affairs". There's a reason Gawker was never successfully sued by Thiel. Gawker and Hogan _had_ also settled before Thiel got involved. Hogan had settled with the other party, the one who _sold_ the tape, for 0.02% of the claim against Gawker. Isn't another of the tenets of a justice system the right to face your accuser, not have someone Wizard of Oz behind the scenes bankrolling things because of their own vendetta? I can dislike Gawker (TMZ, et al) and still see huge flaws in how this all went down.
    - yowlingcat 7y ago
      > Isn't another of the tenets of a justice system the right to face your accuser, not have someone Wizard of Oz behind the scenes bankrolling things because of their own vendetta? You communicated it better than I. I was somewhat horrified with the outcome because I (perhaps naively) had some belief that this tenet of the justice system had not yet been compromised. But the old adage that we have N justice systems for N wealth buckets (where N in {[rich, poor], [1%, 99%], ...}) seems to be true.
      - toasterlovin 7y ago
        But this isn't a case of one party with financial means going up against another party without financial means.
        yowlingcat 7y ago
        Clearly, it wasn't enough. Denton's fortune, large was it was, paled in comparison to Thiel's by a factor of 100, in pure net worth terms, never mind the social capital. In my eyes, that made it especially noteworthy.
        slg 7y ago
        Even Thiel himself admitted exactly this. He helped justify the bankrolling of Hogan's lawsuit by saying "single-digit millionaires" have no access to the legal system. The more money you have the more power you have. It isn't a binary rich/poor.
        yowlingcat 7y ago
        It's true. It's ironic that he proved the rule by proving that double digit millionaires too can effectively be locked out of the legal system by those with greater financial might. After all, are you really justifying the illegitimacy of the system if all you accomplish is merely swapping the places of who is destroyed?

by slg 7y ago

yowlingcat 7y ago

I think the entire Gawker portfolio was absolutely quality, but there isn't too much you can do when Peter Thiel goes for your blood because you made the moronic (albeit one time mistake) of drawing his ire. After the fire sale to Univision, I never expected it to be the same.

seabird 7y ago
Except it wasn't a one time mistake. I can think of at least one other specific instance of them outing somebody, and the Hulk Hogan sex tape situation is equally morally bankrupt. This isn't even counting multiple other pointless invasions of privacy. Gawker got its just desserts, no matter how much Nick Denton cries about it.
- FireBeyond 7y ago
  One of the many facets I dislike about this story is the "Gawker outed Peter Thiel" claim. Peter Thiel had used pictures of himself shirtless on a gay cruise as his profile on some social media. To consider that his privacy was invaded because he may not have specifically said the precise words "I am gay" is disingenuous. Not to mention, courts have repeatedly held that billionaires are considered "public figures" by virtue of their "outsized influence and impact on public affairs". There's a reason Gawker was never successfully sued by Thiel. Gawker and Hogan _had_ also settled before Thiel got involved. Hogan had settled with the other party, the one who _sold_ the tape, for 0.02% of the claim against Gawker. Isn't another of the tenets of a justice system the right to face your accuser, not have someone Wizard of Oz behind the scenes bankrolling things because of their own vendetta? I can dislike Gawker (TMZ, et al) and still see huge flaws in how this all went down.
  - yowlingcat 7y ago
    > Isn't another of the tenets of a justice system the right to face your accuser, not have someone Wizard of Oz behind the scenes bankrolling things because of their own vendetta? You communicated it better than I. I was somewhat horrified with the outcome because I (perhaps naively) had some belief that this tenet of the justice system had not yet been compromised. But the old adage that we have N justice systems for N wealth buckets (where N in {[rich, poor], [1%, 99%], ...}) seems to be true.
    - toasterlovin 7y ago
      But this isn't a case of one party with financial means going up against another party without financial means.
      - yowlingcat 7y ago
        Clearly, it wasn't enough. Denton's fortune, large was it was, paled in comparison to Thiel's by a factor of 100, in pure net worth terms, never mind the social capital. In my eyes, that made it especially noteworthy.
        slg 7y ago
        Even Thiel himself admitted exactly this. He helped justify the bankrolling of Hogan's lawsuit by saying "single-digit millionaires" have no access to the legal system. The more money you have the more power you have. It isn't a binary rich/poor.
        yowlingcat 7y ago
        It's true. It's ironic that he proved the rule by proving that double digit millionaires too can effectively be locked out of the legal system by those with greater financial might. After all, are you really justifying the illegitimacy of the system if all you accomplish is merely swapping the places of who is destroyed?