As part of my new initiative to put out more content here on the site, I’ve forgone my trip to go pick up this extra controller that I ordered. That’s so I could go ahead and bring you my thoughts on the Gawker news from today, originally posted by The Hollywood Reporter (THR). In fact, now that I think of it, THR really seems to hate Gawker. Much of the negative reporting on them originates there. So, kudos, THR! You have a friend in me.
I think you’ve all heard about Gawker’s issues with paying interns, but in case you haven’t, here’s a refresher:
Aulistar Mark, Andrew Hudson and Hanchen Lu held Summer internships within the Gawker network between 2008 and 2010. Mark and Hudson worked for Kotaku and i09, respectively, but Lu has no detectable presence on any Gawker sites that we could find. (If you find evidence of his work, please forward it to us.) All three claim they wrote, edited, did social media and were even forced to moderate Gawker’s notoriously miserable comment sections during their internship and were “not paid a single cent,” the lawsuit says, according to Bloomberg:
“Gawker employs numerous other ‘interns’ in the same way, paying them nothing or underpaying them and utilizing their services to publish its content on the Internet, an enterprise that generates significant amounts of revenue for Gawker,” the plaintiffs said in the complaint, which was filed on behalf of all of the company’s unpaid interns.
Hypocrites at Gawker? Who would have thought it? It’s hilariously tone deaf to preach progressivism while you also refuse to pay taxes, or you hard-working employees. But that’s how Nick Denton, The Cayman Crook, apparently likes it. And the hypocrisy doesn’t stop there, ladies and gentlemen.
Take a look at today’s report from THR:
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Gawker doesn’t want to annoy its former interns by spamming them with repeated messages: “Where plaintiffs have identified a particular person, they should not be permitted to send a Facebook message to that person and a tweet and a LinkedIn invitation.”
- Not all hashtags are cool with Gawker. The media company wants a single general tweet about the lawsuit and if a hashtag is to be used, Gawker wants it to be #gawkerinternlawsuit. As for the no-go’s, Gawker’s lawyer Mark Batten writes, “The hashtags #fairpay and #livingwage are inflammatory, and the Court’s approval of those would suggest that the Court has a view about the merits of this lawsuit. And the use of #nickdenton is also inappropriate; Mr. Denton is not identified with this case, and his personal conduct is not at issue in the matter.”
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Gawker wants the plaintiffs to be careful on Reddit, not connecting this lawsuit with “unrelated controversies and political causes.” Denton’s company gives some examples. The plaintiffs shouldn’t attempt to leverage the GamerGate controversy by posting in the subreddit “KotakuInAction,” which Gawker says has expanded into general criticism of its gaming site. “Plaintiffs apparently would like notice of the lawsuit to be added to this ‘munitions pile,’ but there is no justification for doing so,” states Gawker’s letter. “The same is true of Plaintiffs’ request to post information about this lawsuit in the ‘OccupyWallStreet,’ ‘LostGeneration,’ and ‘Progressive’ subreddits.”…
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Gawker is anti-blog — specifically anti-Tumblr — when it comes to notice. “Tumblr is a collection of blogs,” it says. “Permitting Plaintiffs to create a blog is equivalent to their creating a website, and Plaintiffs already have been permitted to create two of those – GawkerInternLawsuit.com and GawkerClassAction.com. There is no need for a third.”
So, Nick Denton is not involved with this lawsuit? Well, he is the majority shareholder of Gawker and it’s related properties. I would argue that he has quite a lot to do with it. I can see why he would find the hashtags #fairpay and #livingwage offensive (and GamerGate as well, since we’ve rekt him so badly). After all, he finds those concepts offensive in general. Basically, Denton and his lawyers are trying to keep this under the rug as much as they possibly can. The less of their audience that hears about it, the better. That’s why they’re setting sights on social media. That’s where the majority of Gawker’s audience comes from.
Hopefully the judge rejects Gawker’s pleadings. They don’t seem to hold much weight to me, but then again, I’m not a legal expert. I’m also not an expert at driving in the snow, but I’m seriously about to go do that now. Thank you all for reading, and I’ll catch you later.
