Gawker In Bankruptcy After PayPal Billionaire’s Help, And He Has A Few Words To Say (VIDEO)

Is Gawker worth the $140 million lawsuit it’s ordered to pay to former wrestling phenomenon Hulk Hogan? We will find out today, August 16, after all the bids are in.

Gawker’s President of 14 years, Nick Denton, is preparing for a bankruptcy auction today. This news follows just days after Arianna Huffington announces she will step-down from the Huffington Post, which she co-founded 11 years ago.

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Image via YouTube screengrab.

So what is happening to our online gossip sites? Billionaire PayPal co-founder, Peter Thiel, blames it on the journalists. He believes any journalistic site with moral limits would not have outed people like Hogan and himself.

Thiel was a victim of Gawker in 2007, long before Hogan, when the blog accused him of being gay, which was later revealed to be true. Thiel felt as if Gawker took the freedom of coming-out on his own terms away from him.

Now, Thiel’s mission is to uphold the ethics of independent journalist sites, like Gawker, and he’s counting on the public to do so. He believes private information, such as someone’s sex life or sex orientation, should be kept private.

In lieu, Denton believes the Hogan litigation has forced Gawker to give up its “longstanding independence.”

Thiel got his revenge on Gawker when Terry Bollea, aka Hulk Hogan, won his biggest match to date; a $140 million privacy act against the reckless site. I guess when you have boatloads of money you can silence media outlets you don’t like.

Thiel contributed money to Hogan’s lawsuit against Gawker after the site posted a “secret” sex tape of Hogan and shock jock Bubba the Love Sponge’s then wife, Heather Cole, without their consent.

Gawker played on the fact that Hogan’s celebrity status automatically and willingly put him in the public eye; public disclosure of private fact. Gawker’s argument is it has a First Amendment right to publish newsworthy content, and by all the views Hogan’s sex tape received, it proved to be newsworthy.

Thiel’s quest then was to bankrupt Gawker, which he succeeded in doing.

Gawker announced back in June it would file for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy. Following that decision Gawker put itself up for sale in July.

Now, we sit and wait to see whom Gawkers highest bidder will be. But, that doesn’t mean Gawker will be handed over to whomever is willing to shell out the most cash. Denton has a say in whom has the site’s best interest at heart.

I think we can all agree it’s probably not Peter Thiel.