Gawker.com is done as of Monday thanks to its crushing courtroom loss. At the Awl, former Gawker writer Alex Balk makes the case that this is bad news for each and every one of us. It is not an entirely flattering piece, as he acknowledges that Gawker "published a lot of garbage" during its run, then compounded that problem by blindly defending said garbage. But, he writes, Gawker's greater good outweighed that. In a world filled with lies, it was one place where you could go to hear those lies called out, day after day. "Gawker was stupid, loud, bullying and ill-informed, and most days it was the only honest thing you could read," he writes.
Balk isn't sure whether a new Gawker will arise, but he's skeptical and thus dejected because the world needs it. "We are each a little worse off without someone else to keep track of all the dishonesty and remind us that we are not crazy in those moments where we look around and rub our eyes and stare in shock at all the lies." At USA Today, columnist Rem Rieder laments the site's loss for a different reason: "The idea of wealthy people being able to squash publications they detest should give comfort to no one who cares about free speech, no matter what they think of said publication." Click for his full post, or for Balk's full post. (More Gawker stories.)
,
uBlock 
,
and
Ghostery 
)
