tech2 News Staff

At the Code Conference in California, CEO and founder of Gawker Media, Nick Denton took responsibility for the stories published on his site. He also added that the likes of Facebook and Reddit must also be held responsible for the content published on their platform.

Gawker’s been dragged through the courts by Hulk Hogan himself, who was in turn backed by a wrathful billionaire. Gawker was asked to pay Terry Bollea (a.k.a. Hulk Hogan) a sum of $140 million in compensation for Gawker’s publication of his sex tape.

The verdict could completely ruin Gawker Media, running them under. Denton however feels that the likes of Facebook and Reddit publish content that’s much worse and more offensive by any measure.

Sites like Reddit and Facebook get by under something known as safe harbor provisions. They’re not liable for the content posted on their site as long as they can demonstrate that they’ve taken adequate steps to ensure that unsuitable/infringing content is taken down at the earliest.

It’s very much possible that this jab at Facebook is an indirect jab at Peter Thiel, the aforementioned wrathful billionaire, who’s also a board member at Facebook.

Gawker Media had published a piece in 2007 outing Thiel as gay.