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Welp: http://gizmodo.com/univision-executives-vote-to-delete-six-gawker-media-po-1786466510 I guess we can't be TOO surprised based on what I reported in July, though: http://lawnewz.com/high-profile/are-hulk-hogan-and-peter-thiel-trying-to-get-more-gawker-articles-deleted/ Especially egregious is the deletion of/lawsuit over the Meanith Huon post, which is not only truthful, but isn't negative to him: https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/2854976-Meanith-Memorandum-Opinion-and-Order.html#document/p22 Whatever you want to say about the Hogan case itself, THIS is what everyone was worried about with regards to the chilling effects of Peter Thiel's involvement. And, again, the Huon case is notable, because it's the only one we know of where Charles Harder is helping on the down low instead of being the counsel of record. We only know because Huon happened to mention it in court: http://www.forbes.com/sites/ryanmac/2016/06/07/behind-peter-thiel-plan-to-destroy-gawker/#46e3a0a15848 quote:According to Steve Mandell, an attorney for Above the Law who was present at the hearing, Huon told the judge in open court that he wasn’t worried about his appeal because he was “getting support from Hulk Hogan’s lawyers in California.” Huon and Harder declined to comment on the case, which is now on appeal.
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Sep 10, 2016 17:01
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I don't really see this as a chilling effect of the lawsuit more as good business and legal practice. Company A gets sued for gross negligence and is bankrupted by the verdict. A's valuable assets are bought by Company B. As a part of the purchase, B takes steps to mitigate existing and potential legal problems. This is business 101 type stuff. It also makes prudent legal sense.
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Sep 10, 2016 18:28
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I am horrified and chilled to the bone that intrepid journalists may no longer post the "man shits on a floor" hot scoops.
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Sep 10, 2016 19:59
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Mr. Nice! posted:I don't really see this as a chilling effect of the lawsuit more as good business and legal practice. Yes, when people have been talking about chilling effects, they're usually talking about the media at large and not the other Gawker Media blogs. But these are entirely truthful posts that Univision is not being sued over and that legally, they really shouldn't even be considered to be the publisher of. There is literally no reason to take them down other than that Peter Thiel is funding the frivolous lawsuits against Gawker Media and might very well be willing to fund them against Univision over the Gawker Media sites, as well. Even though none of them have any real merit and two (Ayyadurai for various reason and Huon because they didn't do a drat thing to harm his reputation, much less defame him) are especially egregious abuses of the legal system. How is that NOT a chilling effect? davidbix fucked around with this message at 20:41 on Sep 10, 2016 |
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Sep 10, 2016 20:00
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I'm glad the idiots defending this didn't even get a full month before they were proven wrong
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Sep 10, 2016 20:20
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lol
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Sep 10, 2016 20:22
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bloodysabbath posted:I am horrified and chilled to the bone that intrepid journalists may no longer post the "man shits on a floor" hot scoops. I didn't like gawker at all but agreed unironically
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Sep 10, 2016 20:47
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Are there any actual media outlets that have been 'chilled' by this 'dangerous precedent' that isn't actually a precedent? I mean, are we just now finding out that rich people can hire lawyers and inconvenience people they don't like to the point where suing them or wronging them is basically impossible? We're all wrestling fans, why do you think WWE can concuss everyone and call people independent contractors? I'm sure it's because they have a legitimate case, not because they can just outlawyer everyone and own them
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Sep 10, 2016 21:35
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"Felipe and Jay explained that they proposed deleting those seven posts because they are currently the subject of active litigation against Gawker Media, and that Unimoda had been authorized only to purchase the assets, and not the liabilities, of the company." This isn't some censorious act, guys, it's the new owners moving to limit their liability both legally and in the public opinion. Business as usual.
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Sep 10, 2016 21:59
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Liquid Communism posted:"Felipe and Jay explained that they proposed deleting those seven posts because they are currently the subject of active litigation against Gawker Media, and that Unimoda had been authorized only to purchase the assets, and not the liabilities, of the company." Univision has also set the precedent that they'll pull old articles without much provocation. The Mitch Williams lawsuit against Gawker is not even an ongoing case. Gawker won. Williams isn't appealing. We're not talking about the Conde Nast outing post, here: These are completely frivolous cases. The current situation is a result of Unvision's legal team taking a creative reading of the sale agreement at the last minute. They've also weakened the case of not just the former parent company, but John Cook (who's a defendant in the email lawsuit), who's also one of their employees. Theoretically, Gawker and the writers would still win, but it's a bad look for them in court.
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Sep 11, 2016 00:10
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Bix, I've really enjoyed your analysis and coverage of the trial. Forgive me if this is too personal, but have you noticed an uptick of interest in you/more opportunities since all the news/coverage started?
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Sep 11, 2016 00:15
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NotQuiteQuentin posted:Bix, I've really enjoyed your analysis and coverage of the trial. Forgive me if this is too personal, but have you noticed an uptick of interest in you/more opportunities since all the news/coverage started? It's fine, especially since it's not too hard to figure out if you dig a little. How do you think I got the LawNewz gig?  Death & Taxes and LawNewz came the most directly out of my Hogan/Gawker coverage. MEL came from an introduction by someone I befriended covering the trial. Motherboard was the only new gig that's more or less unrelated: One of the editors already knew my work and has also been bringing on some of the other better wrestling writers right now (like Brandon Howard and Bryan Rose) as freelancers, as well. Guessing everyone can see the moral of this story.
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Sep 11, 2016 01:17
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Talking about sex tapes is cool as long as you don't host it
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Sep 11, 2016 03:17
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Always be willing to cover a story especially if no one else really is.
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Sep 11, 2016 05:54
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Onmi posted:Always be willing to cover a story especially if no one else really is.
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Sep 11, 2016 05:56
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davidbix posted:Except that's not what a "liability" is as it's usually defined in the legal sense. It's only a liability in the sense that someone could theoretically sue over it in a case they'd inevitably lose. Winning lawsuits isn't free, friend, even frivolous ones. Just like Bollea's never seeing his awarded money because the opposing party is broke. I can absolutely see Univision just saying 'gently caress it, this doesn't really reflect where we want to go with the site anyway, and we don't want it to have to worry about it'.
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Sep 11, 2016 06:01
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Liquid Communism posted:Winning lawsuits isn't free, friend, even frivolous ones. Just like Bollea's never seeing his awarded money because the opposing party is broke. I can absolutely see Univision just saying 'gently caress it, this doesn't really reflect where we want to go with the site anyway, and we don't want it to have to worry about it'.
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Sep 11, 2016 06:08
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davidbix posted:...hence "chilling effects." Major media companies don't usually cave over completely frivolous lawsuits. Its not them caving over frivolous lawsuits. Any business that is buying a bankrupted company is going to be risk averse when taking when it comes to potential or actual liabilities from lawsuits. No company is going to buy another and continue on with old legal battles. Regardless of the merits of those suits, Univision is not the defendant and does not want to defend any of those cases. If we were in a world where somehow gawker was not bankrupted by the case (say Nick Denton had deep enough pockets to pay the judgement on his own) and gawker then pulled those stories, I would be more persuaded. However, cutting ties with anything that has touched litigation in a newly purchased company is a prudent legal move. On the subject of chilling - you're a reporter, right? Are you afraid to write something about Hogan because of this case? I still don't feel this case will have any impact on legitimate reporting.
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Sep 11, 2016 09:04
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Someone needs to stand up for the billion dollar private equity firms being bullied by Chuck Johnson.
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Sep 11, 2016 10:52
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Mr. Nice! posted:Its not them caving over frivolous lawsuits. Any business that is buying a bankrupted company is going to be risk averse when taking when it comes to potential or actual liabilities from lawsuits. No company is going to buy another and continue on with old legal battles. Regardless of the merits of those suits, Univision is not the defendant and does not want to defend any of those cases. Exactly this. It's not that Univision has any reason to feel pressured, it's that they have absolutely nothing to gain by courting controversy or defending Gawker's old editorial decisions in court.
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Sep 11, 2016 12:03
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Why did they purchase Gawker in the first place?
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Sep 11, 2016 14:05
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gohmak posted:Why did they purchase Gawker in the first place? Because gizmodo, jezebel, etc are still worth something even if gawker itself is dead. They just bought all the assets remaining that have value.
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Sep 11, 2016 15:41
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Mr. Nice! posted:Its not them caving over frivolous lawsuits. Any business that is buying a bankrupted company is going to be risk averse when taking when it comes to potential or actual liabilities from lawsuits. No company is going to buy another and continue on with old legal battles. Regardless of the merits of those suits, Univision is not the defendant and does not want to defend any of those cases. Also: The whole point of buying the assets in bankruptcy court is that the liabilities aren't attached. They weren't the first publisher. If they DID get sued, they'd win. The chilling effect is that it's about avoiding the legal fees. This is the whole point of what Thiel is doing, at least w/ the non-Hogan cases that he appears to be backing: They have little to no merit. Their only purpose is to drain whoever they're suing (Gawker or eventually Univision) of legal fees until the case can get completely thrown out. "Don't publish anything that might upset someone who's willing to bankroll multiple frivolous lawsuits as far as they can go solely to drain you of legal fees" is totally a chilling effect. It's also worth pointing out (and I should have mentioned this earlier), that Ziff Davis, if they had won the auction, was so committed to keeping posts up that they would have fought the creditor committee on it in court if they tried to make deletion a term of the sale. Also, by the way, someone else might know this better than me: Gawker's insurance company is trying to get out of paying for the defense of the second Hogan lawsuit because they're accused of a deliberate act (leaking the racist comments, which there's no proof of them being behind). Is that really how that works? What good is insurance if someone can just accuse you of something baseless and the insurance won't cover the defense? quote:On the subject of chilling - you're a reporter, right? Are you afraid to write something about Hogan because of this case? I still don't feel this case will have any impact on legitimate reporting.
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Sep 11, 2016 22:22
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davidbix posted:If the option is incredibly low risk vs. zero risk, then yes, of course. But it was kind of lovely to try to pull it late at night on the eve of the sale. One would think that Univision's lawyers knew they were going to do this going back before the sale. Entirely incidentally - thanks for posting here. I appreciate your viewpoint being added.
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Sep 11, 2016 22:30
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davidbix posted:The chilling effect is that it's about avoiding the legal fees. This is the whole point of what Thiel is doing, at least w/ the non-Hogan cases that he appears to be backing: They have little to no merit. Their only purpose is to drain whoever they're suing (Gawker or eventually Univision) of legal fees until the case can get completely thrown out. "Don't publish anything that might upset someone who's willing to bankroll multiple frivolous lawsuits as far as they can go solely to drain you of legal fees" is totally a chilling effect. Legal fees didn't sink Gawker though. And it would be nearly impossible to sink Univision on frivolous lawsuits. You're talking about a media company worth around $20 billion. I know Peter Thiel has been built-up to be some villain with unlimited superpowers, but he isn't capable of bankrupting a bunch of billionaires who own the media in this country with frivolous lawsuits. And this is nothing new in media. Companies have always assessed the risk on what they will and will not publish. It's unfortunately the cost of doing business. Just as it's the cost of doing business when tech companies have to fight patent trolls. Or when insurance companies have to fight ambulance chasers. If people want to see some kind of reform in the system, that's fine by me. I just don't think Peter Thiel is creating a chilling effect on media. I don't see Carlos Slim, Jeff Bezos, or $200+ billion companies like Verizon cowering in fear. We're talking about a billionaire suing another billionaire. They can afford the legal fees. I think the outrage toward Thiel has more to do with people being upset they lost a political ally in Gawker. If this was Bretbairt on the other end, I doubt you'd see the same people complaining.
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Sep 12, 2016 09:55
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I don't think anyone is expecting media titans to get bankrupted left and right by Peter Thiel personally. I do think that "needs to be reformed" and "a chilling effect" are not at all mutually exclusive. If enough oligarchs start flexing their "don't publish poo poo I don't like" muscles actively as Peter Thiel, it will likely shift the window of what is considered "risky" journalism to the point that a lot of stuff won't get published. It is also a lot easier to discourage smaller journalistic organizations that are not say, owned by a company worth $20B from reporting on things, or in fact sue them out of existence. None of this is new or unique to this case but I don't see why it can't be considered a troubling trend. Is it because you're convinced people only care because they like Gawker/don't like Hogan?
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Sep 12, 2016 14:10
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Edge & Christian posted:I don't think anyone is expecting media titans to get bankrupted left and right by Peter Thiel personally. I do think that "needs to be reformed" and "a chilling effect" are not at all mutually exclusive. No, the legal fees wouldn't sink Univision. But we know, for example, that Huon, whose case against Gawker is nonexistent, was getting pro bono help from Harder on the sly. There's literally no reason to do that other than to disrupt Gawker with legal fees. The case is such a loser that there's no reason for Univision to delete the post unless they think they're going to get sued and the case (where Huon wouldn't just have his lack of case obstructing him, but also the law being behind Univision as not the original publisher) will be dragged out solely as a financial drain. This cannot be reiterated enough: HUON HAS NO loving CASE. AT ALL. And he admitted in open court that Harder's firm is providing him legal and financial support for his appeal. Yes, Hogan's case was the fatal one, and it had by far the most merit, but this is clearly a coordinated plan that also involves just draining Gawker by burying them in legal fees.
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Sep 12, 2016 22:38
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Even if he has no case - it is still pending litigation against a bankrupt company. No company is ever going to buy up and maintain a taint like that.
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Sep 12, 2016 23:57
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Look, you guys are smart and I think there are good points on both sides. But please don't say "taint" in the context of a case involving Hulk Hogan's sex tape.
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Sep 12, 2016 23:59
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It's insane, Hulk Hogan's taint.
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Sep 13, 2016 00:36
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BROCK LESBIAN posted:It's insane, Hulk Hogan's taint. Mr. Nice! posted:Even if he has no case - it is still pending litigation against a bankrupt company. No company is ever going to buy up and maintain a taint like that. It seems like the corporate lawyers and the extreme uniqueness of the situation tied everyone else's hands, at least to a degree. Unfortunately, some of the really nagging questions are ones they can't answer because of privilege and similar reasons. Also, the complete obliviousness at first to why the Gawker Media staff wants indemnification in writing comes off badly.
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Sep 13, 2016 03:53
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davidbix posted:It's bigger than Terry Bollea's taint. I hope the part about how they're going forward with a major trump story helps put your mind at ease as well. It seems like what I thought it was, although I may not have articulated my point clearly. It wasn't so much the content of the posts or the merits of any suits, its that they represented a liability that they could not take as a part of the purchase. The other half of this, though, is Univision is indemnified in any of those cases going forward. If any of them proceed and get a judgement against the now defunct gawker, it will be certainly uncollectible.
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Sep 13, 2016 04:17
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Edge & Christian posted:None of this is new or unique to this case but I don't see why it can't be considered a troubling trend. Is it because you're convinced people only care because they like Gawker/don't like Hogan? What trend are you seeing though? I guess my point is that I don't see the media holding back because of this. If anything I think the media has gotten more brazen in their reporting
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Sep 13, 2016 08:08
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Mr. Nice! posted:I hope the part about how they're going forward with a major trump story helps put your mind at ease as well. It seems like what I thought it was, although I may not have articulated my point clearly. It wasn't so much the content of the posts or the merits of any suits, its that they represented a liability that they could not take as a part of the purchase. The other half of this, though, is Univision is indemnified in any of those cases going forward. If any of them proceed and get a judgement against the now defunct gawker, it will be certainly uncollectible.
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Sep 13, 2016 17:15
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davidbix posted:I'm more sympathetic to their position after reading the Isaac Lee interview that went up tonight: http://gizmodo.com/a-very-long-conversation-with-univision-s-isaac-lee-abo-1786525296 Between this and an article Felix Salmon wrote today (he's a bigwig at Fusion), one thing that I noticed really quickly is that the Gawker people have no perspective whatsoever regarding their own importance. Because they write about frivolous stuff like floor making GBS threads, they don't realize that since Univision is a "real" news company they have to deal with MUCH MUCH MUCH more serious consequences from their reporting, like Mexican drug cartels or corrupt politicians trying to assassinate their reporters because of what they reported on. It also seemed why Lee seems so confused about the indemnity part because he's thinking about how Univision will get their workers asylum because their lives are in danger so why are they asking if we'd still support them even if we wrote an article about troll that poo poo on the floor.
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Sep 13, 2016 18:55
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...except Felix Salmon ended up siding with them?quote:Which means that as a journalist, my sympathies here lie with my colleagues at Gizmodo, Deadspin, and Jezebel. As Gawker’s union says, the posts were good ones, and they deserved to live. And he gave his endorsement for writing about floor-shitter Chuck Johnson quote:Gizmodo, Deadspin, and Jezebel can and should continue to report aggressively and rigorously on individuals like Chuck Johnson, and otherwise afflict the comfortable. So what point are you trying to make here, exactly?
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Sep 13, 2016 19:44
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I get what he's saying. It really seems like a lot of the concerns the writers had were industry standard when dealing with a real news outlet. Gawker was ran fast and loose like a smut rag, so its not surprising that the writers had so many concerns after the purchase. The long discussion, though, shows that most of those concerns were abated by univision standard practices and provided solid explanation as to why the 6 posts were moved over. I don't know if gawker would have grown as large as it did without its tabloid roots, but its obvious that management maintained those practices long after they should have. Basically most of the former gawker staff concerns and worries are entirely because their previous owners were sleazy paparazzi.
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Sep 13, 2016 19:55
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Slanderer posted:...except Felix Salmon ended up siding with them? This sort of thing: quote:Univision is a company with some of the best First Amendment lawyers in the business, and has decades of experience defending the kinds of stories that anger powerful people, often in countries where a lawsuit is the least of your problems if you’re an aggressive, oppositional journalist. Just yesterday, Univision News published an investigative story about Melania Trump, a powerful and deep-pocketed woman who shares a lawyer with Hulk Hogan. The Gawker people are coming from the angle of not understanding the kind of stakes that a gigantic "real" news company has to deal with on a regular basis. They're coming from the experience where any kind of legal problem at all could sink them or the entire company and not realizing that the amount of harm some rando like Chuck C. Johnson can do is nothing compared to the kind of harm that "real" journalists have to deal with on a regular basis. Similarly, they don't realize that a gigantic "real" news company is going to have much better lawyers than whatever idiots they had at Gawker that thought that it is an extremely good idea to have your clients talk about how posting child pornography is important news and therefore are going to be able to easily quash frivolous stuff or have the resources to fight more determined individuals. I think it's also why Lee is so confused about some of the questions regarding chilling effects when he's thinking in terms of how the reporters at Univision know they can report on stuff like government corruption because Univision will protect them so why wouldn't they support Gawker's writers if they were in trouble. jpmeyer fucked around with this message at 20:06 on Sep 13, 2016 |
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Sep 13, 2016 20:01
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Mr. Nice! posted:I get what he's saying. It really seems like a lot of the concerns the writers had were industry standard when dealing with a real news outlet. Gawker was ran fast and loose like a smut rag, so its not surprising that the writers had so many concerns after the purchase. The long discussion, though, shows that most of those concerns were abated by univision standard practices and provided solid explanation as to why the 6 posts were moved over. Lol, they did't explain anything other than "our lawyers said to do this". They couldn't say precisely the criteria the lawyers used for making that call, or even if the lawyers had read the articles. Did you even read the inerview? quote:Basically most of the former gawker staff concerns and worries are entirely because their previous owners were sleazy paparazzi. Lol, no. They had real concerns such as "is there a written policy of protection from indemnification?" Will articles cited in lawsuits be taken down in the future? Prove otherwise, because i don't think you read the interview.
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Sep 13, 2016 20:11
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jpmeyer posted:This sort of thing: They're coming from the angle that dweebs like Chuck C Johnson are suing individual writers and putting bounties out on the dox of their families. Once again, the "child porn" comment was made by AJ Daulerio, a former editor who was still pissed about being fired. Gawker's lawyers had no say over what comments he made. And Lee made support protecting employees from lawsuits, but what about former employees sued over past articles? What about when the Univision leadership turns over and the next person doesn't feel so strongly? That's why Keenan was pressing him about a written policy.
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Sep 13, 2016 20:18
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