Univision has decided to end production at Gawker after they bought the company for $135 million at an auction. Reporter J.K. Trotter wrote:
After nearly fourteen years of operation, Gawker.com will be shutting down next week. The decision to close Gawker comes days after Univision successfully bid $135 million for Gawker Media’s six other websites, and four months after the Silicon Valley billionaire Peter Thiel revealed his clandestine legal campaign against the company.
Business Insider reported that the company “will still maintain Gawker’s other properties, like Gizmodo, Lifehacker, Jezebel, Deadspin, and so on.”
Their troubles began in 2007 when they outed Peter Thiel, a Silicon Valley billionaire. Not only that, but the site also published numerous articles on his friends, which he claims ruined their lives. Since then, he set up “a team of lawyers to find and help ‘victims’ of the company’s coverage mount cases against Gawker.”
In June, Gawker filed for bankruptcy protection due to the $140 million verdict to Hulk Hogan after they published a video of him having sex with his best friend’s wife.
No one knew until afterwards that Thiel helped pay for the $10 million lawsuit against Gawker:
“It’s less about revenge and more about specific deterrence,” he said on Wednesday in his first interview since his identity was revealed. “I saw Gawker pioneer a unique and incredibly damaging way of getting attention by bullying people even when there was no connection with the public interest.”Mr. Thiel said that Gawker published articles that were “very painful and paralyzing for people who were targeted.” He said, “I thought it was worth fighting back.”Mr. Thiel added: “I can defend myself. Most of the people they attack are not people in my category. They usually attack less prominent, far less wealthy people that simply can’t defend themselves.” He said that “even someone like Terry Bollea who is a millionaire and famous and a successful person didn’t quite have the resources to do this alone.”Mr. Thiel said that he had decided several years ago to set his plan in motion. “I didn’t really want to do anything,” he said. “I thought it would do more harm to me than good. One of my friends convinced me that if I didn’t do something, nobody would.”
CLICK HERE FOR FULL VERSION OF THIS STORY