Gawker Media filed for bankruptcy protection in June after former pro wrestler Hulk Hogan was awarded $140 million in damages after Gawker published a sex video of Hogan and a friend's wife. It shut down after the sale, but sister websites, including Gizmodo, Jezebel and Deadspin, still operate. Gawker's flagship site,, covered media, culture and politics in a gossipy style. Spanish-language broadcaster Univision's Unimoda subsidiary won an auction last month to buy Gawker Media for $135 million. Their removal was first reported by Gizmodo. Univision declined to describe the litigation related to the posts. In a statement, Univision said Saturday that the decision "was based on a desire to have a clean slate" as it attempts to grow the acquired websites. Cook said Univision believes that leaving the posts up would expose it to inherited liability. Gawker Media's executive editor, John Cook, said in a memo to staffers that two Univision executives voted to remove six posts on Gizmodo, Jezebel and Deadspin. Lee added that he is a board member of the Committee to Protect Journalists and the journalism advisory board of not-for-profit news org ProPublica, “and I believe that my track record proves how deeply committed I am to the freedom of the press and how seriously I take the journalistic mission to provide news and information to the public.Univision, which bought Gawker Media, has removed several posts on Gawker websites because they are involved in lawsuits. That was a necessary condition for the deal that allowed us to acquire Gizmodo, Jezebel, Deadspin, Jalopnik, Kotaku, and Lifehacker,” Lee wrote in the memo. “When Univision acquired the assets of Gawker Media Group, it did so with the understanding that it would not inherit any risk of liability for pending cases. In a memo Saturday to Gawker Media staff, Isaac Lee, Univision’s chief news, entertainment and digital officer, said the decision to remove the posts “does not reflect an editorial judgment about their content” and that it was not a “precedent for the future.” Gawker Medias long, strange legal battle is done, and so is - reporter JK Trotter just confirmed that the site is set to cease operations next week, after 14 years of snarking up. The article pages have removed the headlines and body copy they continue to serve ads and include reader comments. “This story is no longer available as it is the subject of pending litigation against the prior owners of this site,” reads the text on each of the pulled articles. The six articles that Univision removed - which have garnered more than 1.1 million views in aggregate - are: Gizmodo’s “The Inventor of Email Did Not Invent Email?” and “Corruption, Lies, and Death Threats: The Crazy Story of the Man Who Pretended To Invent” Deadspin’s “Wait, Did Clowntroll Blogger Chuck Johnson Shit On The Floor One Time?,” “Mitch Williams Ejected from Child’s Baseball Game for Arguing, Cursing,” and “Mitch Williams Called Child ‘A Pussy,’ Ordered Beanball” and Jezebel’s “Man Acquitted of Sexual Assault Sues Blog for Calling Him Serial Rapist.” Hogan had won a $140 million judgment in March against Gawker Media, its founder Nick Denton, and one of its editors over Gawker’s publication of a sex tape featuring Hogan, whose suit was funded by Thiel. Gawker founder Nick Denton will have no future involvement once the blog network completes its sale to Univision according to the Wall Street Journal. That was the culmination of long battles with wrestler Hulk Hogan and Silicon Valley billionaire Peter Thiel. Gawker Media’s new owner, Univision, has removed previously published posts on Gawker sites Deadspin, Gizmodo and Jezebel that relate to the company’s legal issues. speaks with First Amendment Watch about Gawker, privacy, and Section 230 at the National. 22 although the website remains accessible. It was sold to Univision two months later for 135 million. Univision’s acquisition of Gawker Media assets did not include, which ceased publishing on Aug. “I communicated to Felipe and Jay in the strongest terms that deleting these posts is a mistake, and that disappearing true posts about public figures simply because they have been targeted by a lawyer who conspired with a vindictive billionaire to destroy this company is an affront to the very editorial ethos that has made us successful enough to be worth acquiring,” Cook wrote.
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