Let’s get ready to rumble! In this corner, weighing in at 11.7 million unique monthly global readers and an annual revenue of roughly $45 million, Nick Denton and Gawker Media. And in this corner, weighing in at 322lbs, the Hulkamaniac himself, Hulk Hogan…and billionaire gay libertarian Peter Thiel!
Hulk Hogan’s lawsuit against Gawker continues to make headlines, most recently for some of the behind-the-scenes machinations. Forbes magazine recently reported that Paypal cofounder Thiel secretly paid all of Hogan’s legal expenses in the former pro-wrestler’s suit again the online media company.
Hogan was awarded $140 million back in March in his suit against Gawker after the site posted video of him having sex with a friend’s wife. But it seem likely that this case is personal for Thiel as well:
“Money may not have been the main motivation in the first place. Thiel, who is gay, has made no secret of his distaste for Gawker, which attempted to out him in late 2007 before he was open about his sexuality. In 2009, Thiel told PEHub that now-defunct Silicon Valley-focused publication Valleywag, which was owned by Gawker, had the ‘psychology of a terrorist.’
‘Valleywag is the Silicon Valley equivalent of Al Qaeda,’ Thiel said at the time.”
Denton had previously speculated to the New York Times that someone in Silicon Valley was bankrolling Hogan’s suit, and this would seem to confirm his hunch.
How about we take this to the next level?
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Gawker has a history of outing people, not to mention what many would consider invasion of privacy. Last summer, the site was universally criticized by both the gay and mainstream press for a post outing a married Condé Nast exec. Denton eventually removed the post, saying he regretted running it.
Moral of the story: don’t cross a queen with deep pockets!
h/t: New York Times
MarionPaige
the bitchless blog blew the whistle on Gawker’s F-Company Strategy as far back as 2010 http://www.bitchless.net/index.php?showtopic=47157
Specifically,
F-Company was a website that chronicled the misfortunes of over-funded bad idea internet startups as they rapidly went out of business. F-Company particularly bad mouthed an internet investor called IdeaLabs. IdeaLabs was F-Company’s favorite company to beat up on until,
One day, Idealabs announced it was going to acquire F-Company. It was believed by most people that Idealabs acquired F-Company to shut the site down.
Shortly after The Bitchless Blog hinted that Gawker / Vallewag was possibly pursuing an F-Company Strategy (i.e. insulting deep pocketed internet companies and personalities in hopes that one of those deep pocket entities would pay to Shut Gawker / Valleywag up or down), Jason Calacanis seized the ball and “jokingly” blogged that Google was acquiring Gawker for the specific purpose of shutting down Valleywag. Of course,
Once the cat was out of the bag, Gawker / Valleywag was then seen less as a gossip site and more as something close to a shake down site (as in, “we will out you and post pictures of you in a dress unless you acquire us”). The simply fact is that,
Gawker never had the respect of true internet / technology companies. Gawker Media has always been viewed by true tech companies as a joke. without the NYT and a little inbred circle of NYC reporters pimping it, Gawker Media would never have gone any where. Like,
What was the business strategy of Valleywag?
Valleywag’s only function was to piss off deep pocket silcon valley entities who viewed paying $35 million to buy Gawker Media as something akin to throwing a $5 dollar bill at a beggar.
DanimalChgo
Thiel may be gay, but he’s also a far-right loony who supports Donald Trump, and has also given money to support James O’Keefe, the creator of faux-“sting” videos that slandered Planned Parenthood.
So this is more than a simple “gotcha” to Gawker. However awful it is that they posted the sex tape, this is a mega-wealthy ideologue using his money and power to silence his critics. This is the world Donald Trump wants. We should be concerned about this.
(More from TPM about this: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/a-huge-huge-deal )
MarionPaige
investing in a lawsuit is a business like, investing in a business. Back In The Day, a wealthy Tech Personality was rumored to have bought the company that created DOS because he hated Microsoft and wanted to pursue the company’s lawsuit against Microsoft.
The New York Times has an interest is “defending” Gawker Media because it, more than any other NYC Media Company, pimped Gawker endlessly, the NYT made Gawker>. At one point in time,
The NYT wrote an article on every company that bought advertising on Gawker Media. THIS obviously encouraged a lot of companies to advertise on Gawker Media.
Gawker Media and The New York Times were THE Barrier-To-Entry for doing business on the net for much of the 90′. If you wanted to do a news / gossip site on the net, you had to first overcome the New York Times’ pimping of all things Gawker.
notevenwrong
So an evil tech mogul has a fight with evil journalists. Let’s see, shall I care for neither?
Sweetie Pie
He may be a far-right loony who supports Donald Trump, and has also given money to support James O’Keefe, the creator of faux-“sting” videos that slandered Planned Parenthood…nevertheless, he also have the right to keep his personal life private, just like everybody else
Bye Gawker
doug105
@DanimalChgo: And he’s the asshole who funded Ted Cruz.
Poncho Sanchez
@Sweetie Pie: Theil is a libertarian who funded Ron Paul and is associated with AEI (American enterprise institute). Thiel has questioned the value of s college degree in our currrent academic environment. I can’t vouch for everyone he’s financially supporter, but im very much on board with his libertarian leanings
dwes09
Libertarianism is a political leaning that is essentially amoral, anti-ethic, and all for the destruction of the social contract. Best summed up as “I got mine, the hell with you”.
Poncho Sanchez
@dwes09: I grew up in Cuba, you don’t know evil until u lived under communism…..Bernie is dangerous.
susano
@Poncho Sanchez: Thanks for speaking up. How many millions of dead before people get it?
And, good for Mr Thiel. Nobody is under any obligation to reveal anything about their personal life to the public.
Tripster56
Thiel is a traitor, hypocrite and a big fat gay pig (except pigs are beautiful animals ) ok maybe pig shit.