Discussion: Gawker.com Is Shutting Down After Sale To Univision

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Bwahahahahahahahahahaha!! Serves them right!

Why buy it then?

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For the rest of the property (Gizmodo, kotaku, io9, jezebel, etc)

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Not enough business in the steroid freak-show sex tape market to keep them going, presumably.

I’m sure this will be well received by the TPM crowd but if you give it look past the schadenfreude it should give you concern. A media giant was annihilated because a billionaire didn’t like it. Ir’s pretty popular around here to bitch about the political power having a billion gives you. Particularly of it’s buying politics the bitcher doesn’t like. Well the Gawker destruction was just another flavor of that power. The man was pissed so he did what he could do…you or I could not…and put his billions behind him. He didn’t just change his world he changed yours and mine.

Just like the Koch’s want to do.

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GOP: LGBT in this country is taking businesses to ground.

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thank you so very much.

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While folks are celebrating Gawker’s end…be careful with that ax.

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Precisely. This is yet another case where money trumps free speech.

And that should trigger a red alert in everyone who believes in free speech except for the clowns in the ACLU who equate money as speech with their defense of such garbage as Citizens United!

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First they came for Gawker/I said nothing…hyperbole, I know, but I do find this entire episode disturbing. I guess if you have enough money you really can do whatever you want. At least the world knows that Thiel is an overgrown six-year old with too much cash.

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I agree - especially with the added angle of 3rd party funded lawsuits for profit. Frightening times, indeed.

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The Gawker article reported on Thiel’s 'holy crusade’.

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I have a diffcult time feeling sympathy for a publication that distributes private video of a person’s sexual acts to the public and ends up getting hurt for doing it. The libertarian/progressive/liberal tendency is to defend the 1st Amendment as an absolute, everyone needs to accept a little of the bad to get the rest of the benefit. If the Gawker editorial department marched into a theater and yelled “Fire!” I’d be OK with the people rushing for the exits and getting injured suing them for damages.

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I supposed I’d feel bad for poor Gawker if they didn’t do something civilly tortuous to deserve it.

Well, that and their ridiculous hypocrisy .

Better get used to life in an oligarchy. At least until major campaign finance laws change and anti-Gerrymandering redistricting reforms are enacted.

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Gawker didn’t publish private videos of Mr. Theil. Theil was the billionaire that was pissed, in error, because he thought Gawker outed him. So he hedged into a lawsuit that didn’t concern him and did so for vengeance. He did that because he had the money. My point was not in the merits of the lawsuit. It was in a billionaire getting he way. Using his wealth to destroy something that millions of other folks liked. Just because he could.

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This is not unlike the frivolous lawsuits that Chiselin’ Trump files (or even threatens to file) to hurt or intimidate those who he believes to have crossed him.

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If Terry Bollea had borrowed the funds to finance his legal suit would you harbor similar ire for the bank that extended the loan?

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WHo WILL OUT THIEL now???

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