If it walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then it must be a multi-million dollar conspiracy against you and your website.
Nick Denton, founder of the infamous media site Gawker, admits that he was skeptical at first, but is now considering the idea that there’s a conspiracy behind Hulk Hogan’s defamation suit. While it was speculated during the trial that someone other than Hogan was bankrolling the suit, Denton didn’t give the idea much credence until further suits were recently filed by the same Los Angeles-based litigator handling the Hogan case, Charles J. Harder.
Denton is now wondering if Harden is working on behalf of an unknown benefactor — someone who had received unwanted coverage on the site, but did not want to retaliate directly. Denton further explained to Andrew Ross Sorkin at the New York Times:
My own personal hunch is that it’s linked to Silicon Valley, but that’s nothing really more than a hunch. If you’re a billionaire and you don’t like the coverage of you, and you don’t particularly want to embroil yourself any further in a public scandal, it’s a pretty smart, rational thing to fund other legal cases.
Given Hogan’s well-known financial issues, it’s not much of stretch to believe that he wouldn’t be finding his own incredibly expensive legal actions. The case has been bizarre from the get-go, so is it really too much of stretch to believe that there could be a shadowy figure with deep pockets lurking behind the scenes, willing to do whatever it takes to take down Gawker? Either way, I’ll be happy if we never have to talk about Hogan’s Hulkamaniac ever again.
