I suspect these comments will descend into a pit of chaos within a few minutes as everyone talks past each other... but the principle of this disturbs me. Basically, a billionaire secretly funded a lawsuit against a media organisation he doesn't like, and now that's it has been successful, he wants to scoop up the remains of it and (presumably!) delete it. The free speech implications of that are a little unnerving.
Now, I know the immediate retort to that is "Gawker was garbage", and indeed there's a fair case to made that Gawker wouldn't have been sued if they hadn't opened themselves up to it by doing publishing Hulk Hogan's sex tape. But it isn't just Gawker - Mother Jones was sued by a billionaire for reporting true fact, simply because he didn't like the reporting. He didn't even need to win, he just needed to bankrupt them through legal costs, and he nearly succeeded:
http://www.motherjones.com/media/2015/10/mother-jones-vander...
(Thiel followed this same idea by narrowing the suit in such a way that Gawker's insurance would not be able to pay out)
Personally, I'm concerned that the individual factors of this case (i.e. Gawker being Gawker) will overshadow the principle at stake, which feels a lot more important than a gossip site.
Now, I know the immediate retort to that is "Gawker was garbage", and indeed there's a fair case to made that Gawker wouldn't have been sued if they hadn't opened themselves up to it by doing publishing Hulk Hogan's sex tape. But it isn't just Gawker - Mother Jones was sued by a billionaire for reporting true fact, simply because he didn't like the reporting. He didn't even need to win, he just needed to bankrupt them through legal costs, and he nearly succeeded:
http://www.motherjones.com/media/2015/10/mother-jones-vander...
(Thiel followed this same idea by narrowing the suit in such a way that Gawker's insurance would not be able to pay out)
Personally, I'm concerned that the individual factors of this case (i.e. Gawker being Gawker) will overshadow the principle at stake, which feels a lot more important than a gossip site.