"I didn't know who knew and who didn't, and I didn't know that everyone who wasn't under NDA wasn't going to be retained. But it did seem suspicious, because I was like, I know not everyone knows about the sale. I don't know why some people are being told ahead of time. This seems fishy to me, and it was a fishy, weird time period."
"The way I've described it since then is that I feel like both of us were used as bargaining chips for this sale. They really wanted managers to come over so that they could hit the ground running with these contractors that they had already lined up, we found out later."
"Valnet, the click farm that ended up purchasing Polygon from Jim Bankoff's Vox Media for an undisclosed sum, ended up laying off most of the staff, including all of its union employees. The site was completely uprooted overnight while the new owners rushed in a team of underpaid freelancers to start immediately churning out new articles."
Polygon was sold last year to a Canadian-owned media company, and a pattern of NDAs signaled an imminent ownership change that staff did not fully understand. Valnet purchased the site from Vox Media and then laid off most employees, including all union members, while quickly hiring underpaid freelancers to produce content. Some managers were approached to transition over, and some staff felt used as bargaining chips to enable the new contractor-driven model. Remaining employees experienced demoralization and depression as colleagues were let go and workplace stability evaporated almost overnight.
Read at Kotaku
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