Gawker also doesn’t want unpaid interns and the lawyers representing them to utilize hashtags like #FairPay, #NickDenton and #LivingWage. That’s according to a report from The Hollywood Reporter.

I suppose I should add a disclaimer here: I haven’t seen the letter firsthand, I have no idea if the letter is actually true and given that media has been blatantly lying about #GamerGate for the past six months, resulting in a highly defamatory and denigrating Wikipedia entry, there is a measure of reasonable doubt as to the veracity of The Hollywood Reporter’s reporting on this subject matter.

With that out of the way, according to THR, the letter to the judge from Gawker’s lawyers state…

“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.”

Gawker namedropping Kotaku In Action is like looking into the mirror and calling the Candy Man. That sub-reddit was designed to unleash the righteous fury of ethically motivated gamers, and at the moment Gawker is positioned in the center of cross-hairs as everything that stands in opposition to what gamers want out of their media.

In a way, it’s funny that the article from The Hollywood Reporter and the letter from Gawker admit that it’s actually about ethics. Something that The National’s executive producer, Mark Harrison, had to learn the hard way through a letter writing campaign to the CRTC, which has now moved on to investigating the CBC, as reported by a concerned Canadian citizen in the ethics hub of Kotaku in Action.

Kotaku in Action and 8chan have also utilized their consumer fury to e-mail the Federal Trade Commission, which resulted in an ongoing investigation into Gawker, as well as a reform of the site’s privacy policies regarding affiliate links and native advertising disclosure.

The Hollywood Reporter article also takes note of some of the hashtags that the lawyers for the unpaid interns wanted to leverage to help spread the word, writing that…

“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.””

Now, this information was previously corroborated by Pando.com, who wrote about this incident previously, affirming that the unpaid interns’ lawyers wanted to utilize hashtags to help make the class action suit go viral. Sounds like an operation for #GamerGate.

Gawker really doesn’t want things like #FairPay and #LivingWage attached to their brand name, because it could be seen as damaging and help spread the word to other unpaid interns to join in the suit against them.

While mailing advertisers and utilizing Operation Disrespectful Nod is definitely damaging to Gawker’s bottom line — just the same as helping pull native advertisers out of their vendor cycle — having them lose a lawsuit that could cost them incalculably amounts of financial damage and further degrade the brand’s employment reputation could be an even bigger blow yet.

I mean, Gawker really doesn’t want #FairPay and #LivingWage trending alongside the mention of their name. It would be a devastating thing if either hashtag started trending because it might wake up more unpaid interns and get them involved in the lawsuit.

I did previously reach out to one of Gawker’s lawyers about the letter and the recent block by Gawker to have the unpaid interns weaponizing social media in order to spread the word about fair wages, but I haven’t received a response as of the publishing of this article.

(Main image courtesy of Scrump Monkey)