If you’ve read websites like Gizmodo, Jezebel, Deadspin, Jalopnik, Kotaku, or Lifehacker, you may or may not know that these websites are actually under the control of a parent company called Gawker Media. Now it looks like their parent company is in trouble as they have recently filed for bankruptcy.
This is follow a lawsuit with former WWE wrestler Hulk Hogan in which he sued the company after they published a clip of his leaked sex tape. Gawker lost the lawsuit which required them to pay Hogan $140 million in damages, and it was later revealed that PayPal’s co-founder Peter Thiel was the one who bankrolled the lawsuit as it seemed that Thiel took issue with the way some Gawker websites are operated.
Gawker had initially requested the judge allow them to make an appeal before making payments to Hogan, presumably in hopes that the appeal would overturn the decision, but the judge had denied their request which some have speculated led to the company filing for bankruptcy.
Now before you get too alarmed about some of your favorite websites closing down, it seems that IGN’s publisher Ziff Davis has placed a bid on Gawker Media and its assets. It is unclear as to how this will play out in the end, but no doubt this is a pretty huge deal.
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