Gaming foe Jack Thompson sues Gawker Media
Claiming that the Gawker-owned gaming blog Kotaku failed to remove comments that he deemed 'threatening,' Thompson adds parent company to the list of organizations he's suing.
Anti-video game advocate Jack Thompson has sued Gawker Media, the parent company of gaming blog Kotaku, according to GamePolitics. The reason for the suit, which was filed in a federal court in the Southern District of Florida, was a number of reader comments on recent Kotaku posts that Thompson deemed "threatening" and which he claimed Kotaku and Gawker Media declined to remove from the site.
Thompson, a Miami-based attorney, has been a high-profile crusader against video games and their alleged negative influence on children for some time now, but gained new notoriety in the wake of the Virginia Tech shootings earlier this month for being quick to point fingers at gaming as a root cause of the massacre. He alleged in the court complaint that the commentary from Kotaku readers began to emerge "within mere minutes" of an appearance he made on the Fox News Channel on the day of the shootings, as the result of a post by editor Brian Crecente that criticized Thompson's opinion.
To clarify, this is not actually a new lawsuit. Thompson had filed a suit against the Florida bar in March, citing a variety of forms of "aggressive left-wing politicking." He then expanded the complaint to encompass all members of Florida's Supreme Court. On Thursday, he formally added Gawker Media to the roster of defendants. The case, consequently, is now John B. Thompson vs. The Florida Bar, R. Fred Lewis, Charles T. Wells, Harry Lee Anstead, Barbara J. Pariente, Peggy A. Quince, Raoul G. Cantero, Kenneth B. Bell, Dava J. Tunis, and Gawker Media.
Kotaku's Crecente has acknowledged the lawsuit.
