Gawker.com is going to shut down as its parent company is sold to Univision, in the wake of a US$140 million (NZ$192 million) judgment against it in the Hulk Hogan invasion-of-privacy case, after the site published a sex tape of the wrestler.
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Hogan’s lawsuit was bankrolled by billionaire investor Peter Thiel, after Gawker in 2007 published an article about Thiel’s homosexuality.
Gawker said Denton, the company’s chief executive, informed staffers of the news Thursday afternoon, a few hours before a bankruptcy court in Manhattan decides on Univision’s offer. Plans for its archives have not been finalized, Gawker.com reported. Denton, who was found personally liable for $10 million in Hogan’s suit, reportedly told his staff on Wednesday that he will be leaving the company. Denton filed for personal bankruptcy earlier this month.
The company has not revealed exactly what day Gawker.com will go offline, but it will be before August 25.
Gawker, the embattled gossip website, is shutting down next week after 14 years in operation, the company said Thursday. Not only did the company declare bankruptcy, so did the company’s owner, Nick Denton.
Gawker is appealing the Hogan verdict, but Denton said in his memo that even if the appellate court rules in its favor, “Peter Thiel has already achieved many of his objectives”.
The trip to the auction block began when Gawker posted excerpts of a sex tape featuring Hulk Hogan. Thiel, who sits on the board of Facebook Inc., has since publicly acknowledged that he’s gay and called Gawker’s now-defunct blog Valleywag the “Silicon Valley equivalent of al-Qaeda”.
Online publishing company Gawker Media Group announced Thursday that its flagship digital property, Gawker.com, would shut down next week and end its almost 14-year run of broadcasting news and gossip.
Thiel recently defended his actions in a New York Times op-ed, arguing that “the defense of privacy in the digital age is an ongoing cause” and that “whatever good work” Gawker has done “will continue in the future”.
Univision acquired Gawker Media for $135 million on Tuesday.
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Employees of Gawker.com have been told they will all have jobs, the staffer said. “I will support him until his final victory”, Thiel wrote in a New York Times opinion piece August 15. Gawker Media staffers unionized previous year, and the union says that Univision has agreed to recognize the existing contract.
