Peter Thiel, Tech Billionaire, Reveals Secret War with Gawker
nytimes.com
nytimes.com
An important reminder of exactly what conduct, on Gawker's part, people are defending. They have no moral high ground, noble principles, or higher purpose. They're scum, and it's pure karma that they're being destroyed by someone they outed.
This is a lousy strawman. It's possible to both find Gawker abhorrent and think that Thiel's conduct is deeply unethical.
If Gawker counts as part of "the free press" -- the people Americans trust with the privilege of mediating their access to much information -- then yes, "the press" deserves whatever it gets.
(Goebbels and Stalin is a bit too hyperbolic, I think. Maybe try and scale it down -- say, Joe McCarthy.)
Parent was quoting Noam Chomsky
Citation/argument needed
I love liberty as much as the next guy, but libertarianism all too often seems to mean the liberty of the guy with money and power to mess with the little guy.
Seems a little weird that a self-professed libertarian like Thiel aligns with Trump, noted authoritarian who's not above calling for violence against those who disagree with him, wants to go after Jeff Bezos and Amazon because he doesn't like what the Washington Post says, calls the CNN control room to tell them what to cover, while at the same time threatening to cancel CNN's 'FCC license' and take them off the air.
Personally, if a boot is stomping on my face I'm not that concerned with whether it's a private boot or a public boot. I'm not cool with government telling the press what to print, and I'm not cool with large capital pools going on secret vendettas against media that doesn't do what they want, and making sure they get sued on any completely unrelated thing that comes up where they might be vulnerable.
Keep in mind that while many people would agree with you that Gawker is scum, various communities take offense and find tasteless all sorts of other things.
Freedom is either near absolute or useless.
If Gawker goes bankrupt, it won't be because they're horrible people, it will be because they overstepped the bounds of the law.
Bollea may well have had a valid case against Gawker, but we'll never know. The idea that a case with a side funded by a vengeful billionaire could be fairly decided in our court system is absurd.
That money's not gonna conjure up evidence from the luminiferous aether.
Hogan is a famous, well-liked millionaire[0] already. And he almost certainly doesn't like Gawker.
So maybe he thought, "I can give up some of these millions and these parasites will not publish another damned lie again". In return, he also gets the eternal gratitude of people who hate Gawker (all decent human beings).
Seems like his actions align quite well with his interests.
Your own link says he is no longer a millionaire. He changed from financial motivations to moral superiority after the investment of someone who wants to destroy Gawker (not that Hogan might not also want that)... reducing your ability to receive damages doesn't seem to align to me as well as it does to you.
Me, I'd take that cut.
As Thiel himself said, "even someone like Terry Bollea who is a millionaire and famous and a successful person didn’t quite have the resources to do this alone."
Thiel also said that, but for his involvement the plaintiffs would have accepted a pittance. The outcome is largely a consequence of an the intervention of an outside party, not merely the merits of the case itself.
I think it's a moot point, since both Thiel and Denton have enough money that throwing more money at lawyers would do practically no good. Yes, people with more resources win more lawsuits, but there are diminishing returns.
It was directly related his reason for disliking them. In fact, it was practically the same reason.
> and apparently influenced the process of that lawsuit with the aim of destroying Gawker to the detriment of Bollea
How so? Bollea was already a millionaire; he didn't need the money, and he wasn't materially damaged in any case. He wasn't going after Gawker for the payout; he wanted to see them punished for what they did to him, and dissuaded from doing it to anyone else. This outcome serves his interests much better than a bit of extra money would.
Am I grossly misunderstanding this case?
The concern is that this is a generic strategy for destroying any media org you dislike. Simply locate and fund any and all lawsuits, forever. Any critical story could be libel. Any publishing of secrets could be an invasion of privacy. A weak case can be pumped up with enough money. Eventually the billionaire wins the war of attrition.
This is not hypothetical. Mother Jones was similarly attacked for publishing Mitt Romney's 47% comments. http://www.motherjones.com/media/2015/10/mother-jones-vander...
This is the very definition of a chilling effect on free speech!
It's also important to point out that Thiel is not manufacturing bogus cases to try and overwhelm a company with lawsuits. He's trying to find legitimate victims of Gawker and fund their lawsuits. These aren't frivolous claims, they're merely claims that the victims may not have been able to afford to file otherwise.
The post I was responding to was advocating apparently limitless free speech, though. Chilling effects SHOULD apply to certain things, and unapproved pornography of yourself maybe should be one of those?
Limitless speech but limited recourse isn't worth advocating, IMO.
Edit: Actually, "free speech" arguably includes the funding of private litigation.
If it's news, it will circulate the likes of twitter/facebook regardless and be picked up by others.. that's how news works. Someone will always be the first. All of that said, there's also a consideration to be held for ethics and responsible disclosure in journalism.
In this instance a legal case with merit was funded, I don't see a problem with that, necessarily.
That said I do in general have a problem with all this. I mean what does it say about our justice system when a millionaire needs a billionaire to help seek justice for himself. Is that how it's going to be in the future? If you find yourself wronged by some massively wealthy or powerful entity you now have to find an equally massively wealthy or powerful entity to back you in seeking justice?
We've all known money has far too much power in the legal system. But this just lays it out plain as day. How can anyone look at this and think, "Yea that's a good way of handling things".
The challenge still exists for us to find a way to build more just and egalitarian societies.
[1].http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:19...
I cannot speak for other European countries, but in Switzerland, much less of the cost of the judicial system is on the individual. Also for minor the there are dedicated judges appointed to quickly resolve disputes without huge processes. And finally, there's insurance you can get that will pay a lawyer for you if you really get into some nasty situation ever, something I haven't found in the U.S. where it would actually make even more sense, given the litigation trigger happiness here.
That's my view in a nutshell. Despite our reputation as supposed money grubbers perpetually on the side of Big Business I've yet to meet any libertarian who thinks the poor are less deserving of justice, or as we say here: 'a fair shake'.
The thing is a codebase overflowing with cruft.
Donate to the ACLU if you want things to change but don't blame a good thing for being done. Hopefully this will lessen the likelyhood of lawsuits needed to be brought in the future.
Right-libertarianism on the other hand was basically an attempt at reformulating the theories of Ayn Rand and von Mises to something that would allow a common from on many issues with liberal groups on the left.
That aside, I don't think this is the best example. Litigating through courts is pretty fundamental to anarcho-capitalist ideas, so this seems fairly consistent with that worldview.
First I take it you accept the necessity of gathering intelligence and analyzing it i.e. You don't believe the world is a John Lennon song.
He says that Palantir is a very targeted approach to surveillance. It was founded at a time when dragnet surveillance proposals were being thrown up. The 'greater good' in this sense is preventing a more Orwellian world by the method of being effective and flexible in a way that sprawling govcomplexes tend not to be.
When Snowden came out Thiel was alongside Binney in criticizing the NSA for being overwhelmed in irrelevant data. The basic point they both make is that an effective government isn't a cruel one or has the potential to be less likely to cudgel large numbers of innocent people. No need to send the village to the gulag if one of them is the culprit.
despite the somewhat narrow notion of what "libertarian" encompasses in US politics, even there they aren't equivalent to zero-government anarchists.
> to crush free speech
i'm increasingly believing that the notion of "free speech" has asymptotically zero meaning in general discourse. that said, an interesting counterpoint is in the article: "Mr. Thiel has donated money to the Committee to Protect Journalists and has often talked about protecting freedom of speech."
it certainly appears to me that he sees gawker as a particularly hostile and unethical enterprise. the cases wouldn't exist without gawker's behavior, and the judges ostensibly render judgement according to the law.
As it happens the particular tort that was dropped was the only one that would allow Gawker to use their insurance to cover the liability of the verdict awarded.
Thiel's goal is to destroy Gawker. A Gawker that is less able to pay out a verdict (because the verdict was $100M, but Gawker's revenue is only around $40M/yr) is going to go bankrupt, versus potentially staying in business if their insurer pays out.
What's Bollea's goal? To destroy Gawker? Or achieve recompense? Or indeed both?
Given that the counsel used by Bollea in this case is the same lawyer/law firm that Thiel is also channeling significant other money - and clients - to, for exactly the same thing, how clear is it exactly who the firm's client _really_ is - Bollea, or Thiel?
And if Bollea and Thiel's goals are not the same (because as Thiel says, Bollea couldn't afford to do this himself), whose is going to take priority? Was Bollea briefed on the consequences of dropping this part of the suit (thus risking the ability for him to be paid/paid as much)?
If so, was he okay with it? Is he expecting external compensation? Do the lawyers have a conflict of interest here? Is Bollea a knowledgeable/willing partner, or a semi or wholly uninformed pawn?
However reprehensible Gawker is in this, there absolutely a wide crevice where there are perfectly valid ethical questions about Thiel's involvement and motivations in this whole debacle.
Your post basically reads like a law school ethics question/answer. You did a great job issue spotting. Law being one of the most highly regulated industries there are rules on point, so I can answer some of your questions.
Here is how the Florida Rule of Professional Conduct reads "Rule 4-5.4(d): Exercise of Independent Professional Judgment. A lawyer shall not permit a person who recommends, employs, or pays the lawyer to render legal services for another to direct or regulate the lawyer's professional judgment in rendering such legal services."
In other words, under the rules Bollea is the Client. As such has full decision making power with the attorney-client relationship. Not only would funny business result in the disbarment of the lawyer, there are also a lot of practicalities to law that prevent the undue influence on the lawyer.
For example if Bollea wants to settle its not like Thiel could direct the firm to trial for a chance at a bigger judgment over Bollea's wishes, there would be record and it would be grounds for a malpractice claim and disbarment. Lawyer's can't even withhold settlement offers from clients, without there being a record, and again grounds for malpractice and disbarment. Your issue about dropping the claim against the interest of Bollea's ability to collect is interesting, but again if it can be shown Bollea suffered damage (lost ability to collect full judgment through insurance) because the lawyers breached their duty to the client that is grounds for malpractice.
FTA: "He would not say whether he had compensated any of the people, including Mr. Bollea, which could raise questions in an appeal."
That's why I can't take seriously anyone other than him suggesting such.
He is the only one who can decide that his lawyer somehow wronged him here. The question is simply not before the court. They decide the arguments presented to them, they can't simply invent one to decide. And Bolea is the only person who can make such an argument here.
Also, it's going to be hard to argue that his lawyers bungled things when he won a huge pile of money.
And then made a decision that meant that in all likelihood he will see either none of, or a tiny fraction of that money, when he could have seen nearly all or all of it by virtue of a liability insurance pay out.
Until and unless Bolea says otherwise, the uninformed speculation to the contrary is simply absurd.
Whatever he chooses, for whatever reasons he chooses, is justice. By definition. To be honest, if anything is a perversion of justice, it's a settlement. Because a settlement prevents a verdict from ever being reached and the legal 'truth' of the situation from ever being found.
Its major function, crudely, is to prevent Hulk Hogan from visiting Nick Denton in character.
It isn't to prevent the pursuit of revenge. It is to prevent violence and vendetta by having a neutral third party arbitrate. The pursuit of revenge for wrongs committed is the notion and motivation behind the elaborate social institution we call justice.
Like you say, Thiel could not direct the firm to change strategy, but on the other hand (and I realize that this may come across as an accusation where one isn't intended), no doubt Thiel is talking to the law firm, and directing multiple people to this particular firm, and given that he has been vocal about his goals, it's also possible that such things creep in to decision making processes.
Bollea and Thiel's interests may also be perfectly aligned.
I totally agree, and the Bars that regulate lawyers agree. Not just valid, but serious enough issues for the Bars to create Rules to try to guide lawyers when confronted with these exact scenarios. Notwithstanding the Rules and severe punishments, they can still be broken, and as you suggest violations can be intentional and unintentional only clouding these ethical issues.
Just don't under estimate how archaic the Bars Rules are in practice. For example, the power of Admonishment wherein lawyers are dragged in front of groups of their peers to be publicly ridiculed, a record of the event is made and distributed among the community. Even if not disbarred, punishment is not only humiliating but can potentially ruin a career anyhow.
>Bollea and Thiel's interests may also be perfectly aligned.
I haven't confirmed, but I think the gist is that separate and apart from the firm's representation of Bollea, the firm represents Thiel in various unrelated legal matters. If true, coincidentally we know that at minimum Bollea and Thiel don't have adverse interests[1]. Moreover, before a firm represents a client (Bollea) they must perform a conflict check against all existing clients, which coincidentally would have included the payer, Thiel.
Funny enough I don't think such a conflict check is required of someone who pays the lawyer for another (Thiel if he wasn't a client of the firm) and such a rule would seem to make sense. Though it would be burdensome in the instance of crowdsourcing lawsuits which will probably begin to become more of a thing. It would also be a strange analysis in the criminal justice context where the tax payer is paying the judge, the prosecutor and the defense (in the instance of public defender cases), or even insurance cases where opposing parties are both insured by the same company (e.g. my insurance company is representing me and paying for my litigation, and they are also representing and paying the opposing litigation...a conflict).
[1] FL Rule: https://www.floridabar.org/divexe/rrtfb.nsf/FV/2E30A65D3638C...
Which also happens to align with the overall interests of the lawyer's patron.
Some people will find the idea of Bollea having a moral code or honour to be facetious but I'd like to remind them that people have very different definitions of what that means.
By all intents, though, Bollea is (at least to his own words) "near bankruptcy", due to divorce. So it seems odd that he'd also - after being awarded a large sum - which is all he'd sought before - _then_ decide to drop the claim which offered him his only real chance at seeing any noticeable part of that award.
Certainly there is more to life than money, though, as you point out, moral codes and honor.
I also am curious as to whether he would have gotten the award he did if the jury felt that it would bankrupt Gawker, rather than cause an insurance liability payout - that seems a little bit unusual.
This is an admittedly contrived example, so bear with me - there are some analogies, and some discrepancies, and this is the best I can do:
I am driving negligently. Setting aside any criminal charges that may cause me to face, I come careening through and have an "accident". Subsequent to that, your property is destroyed, perhaps as part of a chain reaction, me coming through the fence. Perhaps as a result, you're injured. You lose your livelihood, you lose your house.
You sue me, for damages related around this whole messy incident. Medical costs. Lost livelihood. The loss on your house when foreclosed, damages etc.
The jury says hey, you're absolutely right, he was negligent and we're going to award (say) $2M in damages.
Here I am, I'm a careless and reckless driver. But I do have good insurance. It has a whole bunch of third party, property, and liability coverage. So it sucks for everyone, but you have the ability to be "made whole" (as far as is reasonably possible). I on the other hand am out of business. The vehicle I drove was my truck I used for my own business. My fault, consequences of my actions, etc, etc. I'm probably done for.
Then you decide, at the last minute of the court case, to drop any claim of damages explicitly about the accident. "Nope, we don't want to pursue the damages claim directly related to the accident itself. We are still going to pursue all claims related to any of the fallout, the loss of house, livelihood, but the accident itself, we're waiving that".
This has the curious effect of 1) meaning my insurance company says "Well, sorry, pal, we no longer have an interest. You're not being sued over damages due to your accident, you're on your own", and 2) which you realized, also realistically means you have near zero chance of collecting any of the moneys awarded, because this is putting me out of business.
I would certainly be asking questions of you there, were I the judge: are you aware of the consequences of this decision? what motivated the change, certainly at this point in proceedings, and I'd be asking the jury how that would affect the award, because in most cases there is going to be -some- (not the only) element of the likelihood of payment of the award.
So the judge could use discretion such that all the damages related to the fallout be paid. Otherwise it's a bit like being somebody in debtor's prison to pay their debts. This means the side affect of killing Gawker should be taken into account by the judge.
There are at least three confounding issues though. The first is that this guy who crashed into your house has repeatedly done the same thing to other people's houses. He's a habitual drunk who shouts mean things while shaking his fist at other cars as he drives. Public menace. Maybe having him off the road entirely isn't such a bad solution. He can catch the bus or get a new line of work and pay off his debts gradually.
The second is that this guy has other coworkers that could lend him money to pay the damages. He's not homeless just yet. The question is whether his support network exists for doing so. (i.e. Gawker could just about scrape by, it's not dead yet)
The third is that the man could just declare bankruptcy. Then all his assets are gone but he won't owe the remainder for covering the problem he caused. A new start is underrated. (i.e. Gawker cannot pay what it does not possess, I assume here Gawker is a LLC of some type) A harsh punishment by the judge but we have to send a message to these drunks driving crazily on our roads.
And it was cheap for him - around $10mm to bankrupt his mortal enemy. There's no way that other rich folks aren't going to do it as well, especially now that he's framing it as a philanthropic act.
He isn't on Hulk Hogan's side. He's on his side, and he won. Making this about the particulars of Hogan's case is deliberately eliding the fact that Thiel didn't give a shit about Hogan's case other than that it could bankrupt Gawker.
1. You have a moral obligation to litigate moral wrongs, whether or not they happened to you. Since rich people have more money and hence more things are litigable to them, they have a moral obligation to litigate more things. In this view, Thiel obviously did the wrong thing: he avoided litigating moral wrongs for years while waiting for the right case to come up strictly about Gawker. He failed to act ethically, under this model.
2. It is morally permissible to litigate moral or even legal wrongs that were not committed to you. It being permissible means it's a supererogatory feature of your moral life, in that you don't have to do it. It goes beyond the call of duty to sue Gawker for what they did to Hogan. But without a moral obligation to do so, you can't say that it could ever override your other obligations to behave ethically. Retribution, which this clearly was, is not an obviously ethical motive that would mean we should wholesale excuse what Thiel did—even though it may have been a good act to punish Gawker for Hogan, it was morally wrong to use the legal system strictly for retribution.
3. It is your moral obligation to litigate all litigable acts. This is absurd, prima facie: all our money and time should go towards litigation? Nah.
In other words, yeah, the motives matter. Thiel went above and beyond the call of duty and acted unethically, in an especially egregious and self-serving way available only to billionaires, along the way.
"Moral obligations" are made-up. Obligated by whom? What happens if someone doesn't fulfill their moral obligation? Nothing, right? Maybe someone writes a comment on the Internet saying they should be ashamed, but that's pretty much it.
Feel free to pontificate all you like about the morality of it. That won't change the fact that it did happen and will happen again unless a force powerful enough to stop it chooses to do so.
Ultimately, the whole point of having a justice system is to sort out these questions. Anybody can sue anyone else for any reason. We depend on the courts to sort out the ones that are valid from the ones that are invalid. In this case, the courts deemed this a valid lawsuit. If you disagree with the validity of it or feel the methods by which the courts make these judgments is flawed, then that's one thing, but the rules of the system allow any lawsuit to be brought for any reason.
In any event "retribution" is an overly simplistic way of looking at what Thiel did. It could also be interpreted as protecting future victims of Gawker.
Suppose someone stabs me, and I live. For whatever reason, they get away and continue to run around stabbing people. If at some point in the future, they attempt to stab someone else and I stop them, killing them in the process, is that killing in retribution or protection? Maybe both. It doesn't really matter so long as we can stop people from getting stabbed.
Gawker went and made a powerful enemy for no good reason. Outing someone who didn't want to be outed helped no one. Thiel used the considerable means at his disposal to ruin Gawker in a way that didn't harm anyone other than the owners of Gawker. Since nobody else really benefited from Gawker's existence it's unsurprising that nobody else really cares if they stop existing.
If Gawker had been exposing powerful people doing something illegal or otherwise harmful instead of just being gay or having affairs, they would have had the justice system and the public on their side and they wouldn't have lost the lawsuit.
Most of all, if this was indeed above board and ethical, why did Thiel feel the need to do this surreptitiously until outed by the NYT (is he going to fund someone to sue them too?).
That would be unethical if the case were frivolous, or designed to bankrupt Gawker through "court fees" defending themselves against unreasonable complaints, or so on.
Gawker's going bankrupt, if they do, because they lost the case, for what I think were correct reasons. It can not be unethical to help someone get justice they were owed. If there are more cases like this one, I hope the plaintiffs win those cases too.
Hulk Hogan is already a very wealthy man. Did he truly need many many millions more? Is that just and fair?
Let's say you do something, ANYTHING, that someone takes issue with and brings you to court with a fully staffed legal team. You lose the case. You have to pay millions in damages. Would you keep true to your word that you hope more cases like this happen and that the plaintiffs win those cases too?
Yes, it is. Much of the damages were economic. He lost his job with WWE due to Gawker's publication. That's how much his job was paying him. It is a good thing that people can get economic damages from courts, even if they are rich. (Though it would be much better if everyone could receive the same level of justice as Hogan did, regardless of how rich they are.)
> Let's say you do something, ANYTHING, that someone takes issue with and brings you to court with a fully staffed legal team. You lose the case. You have to pay millions in damages. Would you keep true to your word that you hope more cases like this happen and that the plaintiffs win those cases too?
I'm so confused by this argument. The reason I hope more people in Hogan's situation win their cases is that I think the jury verdict was correct, and achieved justice for him, as it would for them too.
I expect I would be personally unhappy about losing millions, as anyone would. But it would only be wrong if it was for an unjust reason. That's not the case here. There is no hypocrisy in wanting just cases to succeed and unjust cases to fail.
I think it boils down to a conflict of interest and hence Thiel shouldn't have been involved in the legal process at all. That's the unethical element about it (to me).
I think it's also about transparency.
Thiel should have been front and centre during the legal process and open about his involvement instead of manipulating from the background.
Now, Thiel has not only undermined his own reputation (would you want to deal with a man who, if you got on the wrong side of him, might use considerable economic might to bring you down?) and the reputation of the legal system (now perceived to be a football game for billionaires).
You can argue day and night whether or not this is ethical or unethical, or how important the original legal cases were. However, Thiels' approach failed the smell test (to me) and has done more overall harm than good in the cold light of day ... just so one man could have a "fuck you" moment in the sunshine.
Disclaimer: if half of the things written about Gawker are true, I'm obviously not in their camp. It's possible to criticize both for different reasons.
"Hillary Clinton’s secret email account, Bill Cosby’s history with women, the mayor of Toronto as a crack smoker, Tom Cruise’s role within Scientology, the N.F.L. cover-up of domestic abuse by players and just this month the hidden power of Facebook to determine the news you see.”
It's not so cut and dry, which is why people are rightfully worried about a billionaire's personal vendetta to destroy a press organization?
It's straight out of the 21st century authoritarians playbook - nobody is dumb enough to admit that their actions are against the principles of freedom, but people are dumb enough to agree with those same actions when you simply redefine who those principles apply to.
It's the new-newspeak, see how Putin has as much power as any Soviet leader but with the veneer of democracy, popular support and individual freedom.
Not actually debating the merits of outing a public figure, but regarding your timeline, this was 2007, or 9 years ago, so it's possible that no, we were not past "that point" at that point. However you are defining that point.
He can't do a single thing to them unless they break the law.
Hillary Clinton’s secret email account: New York Times Bill Cosby’s history with women: National Enquirer The mayor of Toronto as a crack smoker: Gawker Tom Cruise’s role within Scientology: Gawker N.F.L. cover-up of domestic abuse: ESPN Hidden power of Facebook to determine the news: Gawker
Am I being too optimistic again?
"You are defending a murdering terrorist!"
"No, I am standing for the security of our communications infrastructure and, by extension, our society"
Now:
"You are defending a criminal low-brow rag that cares nothing for violating someone's privacy in the name of profit!"
"No, I am questioning whether we want people secretly funding punitive lawsuits for their own ends, regardless of merit. I also think I personally would be fine with it if you remove 'secretly'."
Sometimes the means matter, even when you agree with the immediate ends. I respect Thiel a hell of a lot more than I respect Gawker, and yet I am not sure this is how we want to do things.
What would have been different if it was known upfront Bollea had third party funding and was willing to use it? The facts of the dispute haven't changed, so the end result should not have changed.
The main effect is that Gawker may have changed their approach to defending/settling the case. Which is a good argument not to disclose how the applicants are funded.
But in this case, it seems the lawsuits have merit?
This is what's considered to have caused the damage to his career, rather than the fact that he likes sleeping with his friend's wife.
At the same time, they are the only independent online media outlet left in the world. Every other company that once prided itself on being "independent" from the large media network owned by ancient billionaires has now received at least hundreds of millions of dollars in investment from them.
Say what you will about the publishing of the tape (and I for one think it was a despicable action) it certainly showed Gawker's true editorial strength. They could do whatever the hell they wanted, publishing for the editorial integrity rather than to get pageviews.
The idea of every single large online media outlet being at least partially owned by a small group of media companies owned by billionaires is horrifying. BuzzFeed has a great and fascinating new editorial unit, but they have 200 million reasons not to publish anything that goes against the mainstream media.
Gawker is a horrible company, but I'm going to miss them.
[edit] Wow, this is really being run into the ground with downvotes. If you disagree, please don't hesitate to let me know why, as I'm genuinely curious. My email's in my profile if you'd prefer to contact me there. Cheers!
Look, for example, at pando.com - given that Thiel is an investor there, their language about him ("unforgivable", "a tremendous hypocrite", "cowardly", etc.[1]) shows at least a degree of independence!
https://pando.com/2016/05/25/peter-thiels-secret-attack-gawk...
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/gawker-turmoil-2-ed...
I don't understand how this applies to a sex tape.
Don't discuss your own (down)votes. Don't interrupt the actual discussion to meta-discuss the scoring system.
The sex tape is a little more black and white as a moral argument, but i'd love to hear justifications for defending a man who is clearly so full of shit in a case that with Thiel's support he'll likely win.
[0] http://fortune.com/2016/05/12/gawker-lawsuit-shiva-ayyadurai...
[1] https://www.techdirt.com/blog/?tag=shiva+ayyadurai
[2] http://gizmodo.com/5888702/corruption-lies-and-death-threats...
Best hope we don't piss off a m/billionaire who seeks to see us destroyed.
http://money.cnn.com/2016/05/25/media/peter-thiel-gawker-hul...
'Ayyadurai told CNNMoney that Thiel has "zero involvement in my case."'
B - Spreading rumours is what Gawker does best. They are fighting for their life here so we'll need to make doubly sure of sources. Spreading shit to distract is a time honored custom. Government, businesses and media do it all the time.
C - Nick Denton & Co remain cockmongling thundercunts.
The honest reason why some people are bellyaching about this is because they don't see Thiel/Hogan/Trump as members of their own political tribe. The rationales they come up with are retroactive justifications because they feel that they've taken a hit. Part of their political tribe - Gawker, lost out. Political tribe affiliation wins out over pragmaticism and logic. We all know very well that Gawker was a nest of Social Justice political advocates.
They ought to ask themselves if Thiel wasn't a Trump Delegate, was not wealthy but managed to accomplish the same thing, would they still have a problem with this. I am certain the answer is no. The only change I would have made personally is that I would have stayed clandestine but then again I'm not as familiar with SV's political context.
I am much much more disturbed by the funding activities of George Soros than Peter Thiel. Abuse of power by the rich can be a genuine problem, but this wasn't an example of that.
It is time to play The Warrior Song!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Xo3fwddONA
Kill with a heart like Arctic Ice!
Why is it that an (already a millionaire) entertainer _needs_ to get a billionaire on his side just to try and get justice done? This is a totally crazy state-of-affairs.
I do agree with you that there's too much "money=justice" in the United States though.
Part of the problem with this case I think is less politics, it is the people involved. I do not have high opinions of Hulk Hogan, and there's a certain irony that this case also round-about involves Bubba the Love Sponge, a radio shock jock that from my viewpoint is about as scummy and ethic-less as Gawker in his career.
What Gawker did was scummy though, and I have no problems with the outcome.
For those who believe that Thiel's financial backing is unethical because it makes it unfair, how so? Doesn't that line of logic presume that the court system is completely ruled by money? Is that how the legal system works in America? Money wins?
edit: Not sure why I got downvoted. I'm trying to be sincere and express my disbelief. I really want to hear a well thought out answer cause I really want to understand the situation and why people just keep repeating that Thiel is being unethical.
It certainly appears so, yes.
Ask any small company dealing with a giant patent troll.
This isn't some David vs Goliath story.
However! That is totally not what happened here. "Loser pays" would not help because Thiel/etc won the case, I think rightly so. A case can't be frivolous if you win a huge judgement.
So I agree with you that there doesn't seem to be anything dramatically concerning about this case, though I'd still argue that there's a gigantic "money wins" problem in the US due to lack of "loser pays" rules.
If it was about principle why was he hiding his actions? This interview is a pure PR exercise because his involvement was revealed.
The whole story is a sorry mess.
It all comes down to a simple point. You may not like Gawker. They’ve published
stories I would have been ashamed to publish. But if the extremely wealthy,
under a veil secrecy, can destroy publications they want to silence, that’s a
far bigger threat to freedom of the press than most of the things we commonly
worry about on that front. If this is the new weapon in the arsenal of the
super rich, few publications will have the resources or the death wish to
scrutinize them closely.
Is there some method of 'destruction' that isn't reported on here, other than Peter Thiel financing Hulk Hogan's lawsuit? I think you are going to be hard-pressed to find people that think Gawker should be able to publish a 'sex tape', ignore a court order to take it down, because it's 'journalism'.
He's simply financing a non-spurious lawsuit, which the courts have decided was legitimate. This is exactly what I want the billionaires in our society doing.
He may be acting in his own self-interest, but it also happened to align with the public interest. And if the courts had decided against Hogan, it all would have been for nothing. There is no grand problem here. He isn't "destroying publications he wishes to silence", he's augmenting the resources of someone with a legitimate legal claim against the newspaper.
If you are putting forth the argument that merely financing a lawsuit is a corruption of the public trust, then we have much more serious problems with our legal system than Peter Thiel having it out for Gawker. Anyone should be able to fund any lawsuit that they want, and then the courts will decide if that lawsuit has merit. That's why we have courts in the first place.
That is debatable and also the problem. What if it didn't align with the public interest? Is it ok then?
If Hogan wasn't able to finance the lawsuit on his own, that would be the perversion of justice. But if our court system operates as it should, and there is no indication to my knowledge that it has not in this case, then billionaires funding legal teams should only enhance the level of justice available to all.
If the above is not true, then that is a problem with the court system, not a problem with people funding each other's lawsuits.
Hulk Hogan won this lawsuit fair and square.
The resources the justice system spent chasing Thiel's personal vendetta could have been used for cases other people think are more important. That's why other people complain about it.
that being said, sometimes the thumb is doing good work - or at least, doing necessary work in pursuing positive outcomes.
"On 12 March 2015, two journalists from MVS, Daniel Lizárraga and Irving Huerta, were fired after they used the station's brand name without permission in a newly-created website known as MexicoLeaks, which leaked reports on government corruption" - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carmen_Aristegui#Second_firing...
The legal case, of course, focused on "used the station's brand name without permission". But the actual reason for their dismissal was "a newly-created website known as MexicoLeaks, which leaked reports on government corruption".
Now, I am not saying the Gawker case is or isn't appropriate, but the intent of the parties matters, if not legally, then morally. When you are using a lawsuit, not to redress a wrong, but to attack a rival, the fact that the letter of the law is on your side doesn't make your actions ethical. This is specially true for governments, but there is no reason why it might not true for individuals as well (wealthy or not).
http://qz.com/692312/billionaire-peter-thiels-attack-on-gawk...
Reinstitution of maintenance/champerty laws will never politically happen. It means banning donations to the ACLU or EFF or NRA or union legal fund, etc. Good luck with that politically.
And while the US certainly is in that situation, this is clearly not such a case, because Bollea v. Gakwer was not arguing some obscure legal esoterica.
In which specific cases is it illegitimate? The only answer I've been able to come up with is "when you don't like the person or cause."
I mean, if anyone wants to condemn the general case, please remember that you'll be condemning the EFF, ACLU and many similar organizations.
He could not have done anything at all to them if the cases were not meritorious. Now, there is a serious problem wherein access to the courts is effectively gated by wealth, but I don't think anyone can seriously argue that Gawker was unable to afford lawyers.
One can, however, point to their violation of court orders, along with their admission in court that they would publish sex tapes for anyone over 4, as evidence that they have no one to blame but themselves for their loss in court.
I would say there is absolutely no problem if Thiel is funding the lawsuit because he considers Gawker publishing Hogan's tape to be unethical and wants to help Hogan redress that wrong. Although I would perhaps have wanted that disclosed as part of the trial. On the other hand, if Thiel would have funded any lawsuit against Gawker that had a chance, regardless of the other party or the particulars of the case, with the objective of forcing Gawker to shutdown or in order to punish them, then it can be a problem. As another comment pointed out, the hard thing here is that you cannot always tell one from the other. Perhaps strong funding sources disclosure requirements represent a reasonable improvement?
Right, so the real problem here is simply that people don't like him. The motive is something that exists only in his head--people can, and will, invent motives consistent with whatever their opinion of a person is.
Insofar as there's an argument that lawsuit funding should be open, well, I submit that perhaps the laws on that should be changed if this is truly at issue.
> Right, so the real problem here is simply that people don't like him.
For the record, I am far more pro-Thiel than I am pro-Gawker, although I base my judgement only on their public reputations. I am actually more concerned about the general idea than the specific parties in this case, and I think the result of the suit is correct, I just wonder about the means and the precedent that you can use a third-party's legitimate complaint to launch a punitive lawsuit.
That said, I tend to think it should be a public record outside of court at least.
In this case it's the first. What those of us who are looking at this case with more long-term consequences in mind are worried about is the second.
The jury can decide whether some wrong has been done based on the facts of the case itself. If some wrong has been done, that's true regardless of who footed the bill. If no wrong has been done, that's true regardless of who footed the bill.
Judging cases based on who we do and do not like is something our justice system has been set up to avoid.
That's not true at all. One jury verdict (before appeals have been heard) plus a bunch of nascent suits is no proof of eventual merit. It could be that every single one of those cases eventually ends up getting dismissed, or being awarded negligible verdicts. But because Gawker may not be able to afford a full defense, they could well be out of business.
Long-time financial journalist Felix Salmon points out the issues here:
https://twitter.com/felixsalmon/status/735662530903826437
You also write like somebody who has never been on the receiving end of a lawsuit. They are a painful multi-year distraction and expense even if you win. My mom was on the receiving end of a lawsuit after a business deal gone bad. Eventually she won on all counts, and after he had finished reading his verdict, the judge gave both the plaintiff and the plaintiff's lawyer a royal dressing down for wasting the court's time. But the stress was incredible for the whole family, and we still had to pay the defense bills. It was not cheap.
And in Gawker's case, defending themselves against $10m worth of lawyering could well take them at least $10m no matter the outcome of the cases. News is not a business rolling in money; publishers go out of business every day even without being forced to burn unlimited millions. I can and will seriously argue that Gawker will be unable to afford defense lawyers long before Thiel will be unable afford lawyers playing offense.
They had lawyers. They had their defense. They can appeal, but they have no one but themselves to blame for going to court and asserting the right to publish stolen sex tapes of anyone over 4... and for violating a court order.
Inasmuch as there are problems here, they're with the legal system in general, not this suit specifically.
Rather, it reminds me more of the McDonald's hot coffee thing, where if they had been reasonable, they wouldn't have been hit so hard.
To me that's like saying, "Inasmuch as there are problems with this massive data breach, they're with computer security in general, not the thief in specific."
Sure, there's a broader problem. But that doesn't mean that people willing to take advantage of a problem aren't also a problem. When many factors contribute to a bad outcome, it's worth looking at every factor when trying to fix the problem.
This was not some meritless nuisance suit, as should be evident by the fact that he won.
The broader problem is when people do things like spam settlement offers for less than the cost of defense, or the fact that the legal system is so expensive to operate to begin with. But none of these can rightfully be blamed on Bolea, so your analogy is simply faulty. There's no "abuse" here to begin with: he had a valid legal claim and won on the merits in court.
It is telling that as much as you wax poetic about abusing the court system, you failed to acknowledge that Gawker is the one who violated a court order here. I mean, if winning a meritorious case is what you count as "abuse" of the legal system, exactly how do you rate that?
Thiel did not have a legitimate claim in court, but he is still using his billions to destroy a news organization he does not like.
I should say again that I am not interested in defending Gawker here; I think Denton's an ass. I think Nazis are terrible too, but I think it's worth defending both their and Gawker's First Amendment rights.
Inasmuch as this creates a chilling effect to keep people from publishing stolen sex tapes... oh well.
Also, this is clearly wrong: "All Thiel did was help Bolea." [sic] Thiel clearly imposed conditions. The suit was specifically structured to exclude the insurance company, reducing Bollea's risk-adjusted odds of a payout.
Bollea also turned down settlement offers, presumably at Thiel's behest. That clearly suits Thiel, whose goal is not helping anybody, but destroying Gawker. It's not clear it was really in Bollea's best interests; there are reasons most of these cases get settled. Far more of us now know about Bollea's adultery than if this had been quietly settled, which increases the reputational harm that's supposedly part of Bollea's reason for suing. And Bollea has had to actually go through a trial, which increases the emotional suffering that again was a putative problem.
Thiel doesn't care here about helping people. Or even helping people who have been harmed by tabloid journalism. If he did, he would have structured it as something like the ACLU: transparent donations to a group of independent lawyers with a stated purpose, who then get to pick their own cases on the merits. What he cares about is destroying Gawker. Which is why he spent a decade secretly plotting and executing a series of lawsuits aimed to driving the company out of business.
I have no reason to believe that Bolea couldn't have funded the lawsuit himself. Bolea has no obligation (and no reason) to do things in a way friendly to Gawker. I find it highly believable that he himself asked his lawyers to screw Gawker over even if it got him less cash. More money != more justice. And inasmuch as this puts a chilling effect on publications that spy on people's private sex life, I honestly don't have a problem. There's no news here. Just perverts who want to spy on a celebrity.
You can't just go out and manufacture lawsuits--at least, not without getting yourself in trouble in court when they're found bogus. Someone has to have some kind of case or they get laughed out of court. He might be willing to fund suits, but they won't go anywhere and at least some of the time one can recover reasonable costs and attorney's fees on victory.
So call me when he funds something clearly meritless. The funding has no bearing on the rightness or wrongness of what Gawker did, therefore it should not affect the case outcome.
So yes, the merits of the suit are relevant. Funding tons of bogus suits is clearly different from helping Gawker's victims seek justice. And so far, evidence points to the latter.
But yes, meritless lawsuits pursued because of personal agendas are an actual threat to First Amendment rights. Which is why anti-SLAPP statues have become necessary, and why 28 states have passed them in recent decades. As a NY Supreme Court justice wrote about strategic use of meritless lawsuits: "Short of a gun to the head, a greater threat to First Amendment expression can scarcely be imagined." Thiel has found a new twist, where he can assault public participation without actually being a plaintiff. But he poses a very similar threat.
And yes, of course I can complain. Thiel is creating a systemic distortion around publishing the same way, e.g., tobacco companies funded systemic distortions of science. That the individual scientists have a right to free speech does not mean that I can't complain about how they use it. Or complain vociferously about the tobacco companies' damage to science, no matter how much they mewl about "fairness" and "seeing both sides". As a citizen, it's my job to make sure our democracy keeps working.
It's true that The Hulk had home field advantage here (and easily arguable that Gawker being from NYC hurt them even more than The Hulk being from Florida), but they did themselves no favors at all during the trial. It's like they gave up and sought to win in appeal.
What I do care about is that people recognize that using money to silence reporting, however lowbrow and however nettlesome, is a step on the road to oligarchy. The 1st Amendment is a cornerstone of our democracy. Thiel here isn't trying to litigate an issue of concern to him. His only goal is to destroy a publisher, regardless of the merits of plaintiffs' complaints.
Now there are plenty here who are fine with a little oligarchy, and some who would like quite a lot. If they want to openly argue for that, great. And plenty of people, me included, have contempt for Denton, and who will enjoy his eventual comeuppance. But as much as I'd like to see that, I don't want to see it come with a major chilling effect on our already-mostly-toothless tech press.
This was a winnable case and if they had done a better job we wouldn't be having this conversation.
They were fired. What does that have to do with legal cases?
That part is clearly bullshit.
Additionally, Thiel is altering the normal course of how these cases would have gone and specifically notes that here: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/26/business/dealbook/peter-th...
It's one thing to say that funding a lawsuit is fine, and another thing to say that its fine to target an organization to ensure that every grievance against them does not settle out of court and goes to trial.
Gawker owns insurance to decouple financial harm from existential harm in the case of lawsuits like these. The civil system expects that victims who are harmed will try to maximize expected payout in case of a suit. If Hulk's legal case is indeed robust, he should have included every possible harm in the suit to maximize his payout.
The decision to structure the suit in a way that excludes Gawker's insurance coverage is an under-handed technique which turns a civil suit into an indirect tactic to destroy Gawker. It is underhanded because, at the very least, it violates an expected principle of the civil suit system. This signals that the goal of the suit is not to compensate Hulk for damages, but to put Gawker out of business.
"Your Honor, we are dropping this claim here, but keeping all the rest intact."
"You realize that this means the defendant will have little to no ability to compensate you for the damages you claimed and sought and stated caused you duress?"
"... Yes... Your Honor."
If you state it's about compensation for lost potential earnings, and such, and say you need to be made whole, then waive away a large part of your practical ability to be made whole, at what point does that become disingenuous?
I'm genuinely curious, where did you learn that the only goal of the civil suit system is to compensate the damaged party? It would seem odd to me that punitive damages would be a thing that exists, distinct from compensatory damages, if they're not meant to be a part of the system. I don't see how there was an "expected principle" of that at all.
>Punitive damages or exemplary damages are damages intended to reform or deter the defendant and others from engaging in conduct similar to that which formed the basis of the lawsuit. Although the purpose of punitive damages is not to compensate the plaintiff, the plaintiff will receive all or some portion of the punitive damage award.
Larger crimes don't excuse smaller ones, which is also known as the Fallacy of Relative Privation. I'm also having trouble figuring out (or even learning) what public interest is served by this result? Does a rich guy shutting down a publication enter into it at all? I think it does.
I would far prefer the bllionaires in our society financing a big pool of money that then indescriminately funds the 'little guy' against the big corporation, so that the bias of money is removed from our legal system. Instead, this current process of being able to selectively target lawsuits means that the rich can indeed influence things in a biased fashion via their money.
I'm all for Thiel to have it out with Gawker, but should that not be on his own valid legal claims? By funding this lawsuit in particular, he's negatively impacting other suits by omission.
Basically, if money can't be kept out of the legal system then the money shouldn't be able to selectively enter it either, because either result produces a bias of the optimal situation where two equally strong legal teams debate a case in front of an impartial judge on its merits.
The fact that gawker is online after losing the trial pretty much illustrates the point.
I felt the same way reading this thread. I also thought about an h3h3 video I saw earlier today https://youtu.be/fEGVOysbC8w where they talk about fair use and how a lawsuit can cost you $100k in legal fees if you prevail.
The question to ask should be: should our legal system be a game of chicken? or a sick twisted game of poker where you can't call "show" but just keep raising stakes?
I hope we have not forgotten that the attorneys responsible for Aaron Schwartz's case are still in charge of things.
I am by no means endorsing what Mr Thiel is doing. I think it is in extremely poor taste (even though I hate gawker). I simply agree that our attention should be more focused towards fixing our broken "justice" system.
edit: no, the winner getting reimbursed for legal cost by the loser is not a fix
B: "Twitter, Facebook etc. 'curating' political viewpoints is not a threat to free speech because it's not the government."
The intersection of people arguing A and people arguing B.
for their illegal actions... maybe it's unfair that the companies that piss off a billionaire are more likely to be called on their illegal actions, but the solution is more focus on legal aid, not fewer legit lawsuits.
Let's say that there is some patent troll that only extorts money from small startups, who don't have the resources to fight back. Some billionaire of today, who in his past career was harassed by this patent troll, decides (both for revenge and for the greater good in his opinion) that the patent troll should die and secretly starts backing startup lawsuits against the troll.
1/ Is this a fair analogy?
2/ Is the press "special" and hence we cannot use analogies from other industries?
3/ People who disagree with Thiel's actions, would you feel similarly against the billionaire above?
2) You can always use analogies from other industries, but you can also make a case that in the United States the press is something of a special case. It's the only private industry specifically given constitutional protection in the Bill of Rights. It's certainly worth asking--and potentially litigating--whether Gawker violated both Thiel's and Hogan's right to privacy, but we give the press more latitude than we do other industries for a reason.
3) In the example as you outlined it, where a "patent troll only extorts money from small startups," I wouldn't feel the same despite disagreeing with Thiel's actions in this case.
The difference, beyond what I've suggested above in (1) and (2), is one of precedence. People are focusing, understandably, on the specifics of this particular case. But we don't know wat other cases Thiel is funding against Gawker; we don't know what the merits are. And that's the whole thing: a billionaire unhappy with the way a media outlet has covered him doesn't need to find winnable libel and defamation suits against that outlet; he just needs to find ones good enough to get to trial and cost tens of millions of dollars to defend. If Thiel funded a half-dozen losing cases against Gawker, he might still bankrupt them.
And, again: precedent. What if instead of Peter Thiel this was Donald Trump? Hillary Clinton? George Soros? David Koch? What if the ultimate reason for the vendetta was because they brought out embarrassing secrets that were in the public interest?
While I understand why everyone is focusing on the "Gawker? Couldn't happen to a more deserving company, ha ha ha" aspect of all this, free speech cases don't always revolve around noble defenders with noble goals. As wary as I am of slippery slope arguments (use one once and you'll use them everywhere), "hey, this couldn't possibly happen to someone who's less of a jerk than Nick Denton" seems uncomfortably close to magic thinking.
If I could be as wealthy as Peter Thiel, I wouldn't give a damn about what the media wrote about me. Maybe I would just quietly cry myself to sleep in my gold-plated bed inside my luxurious NYC penthouse.
The fact that people are applauding because it's someone they disagree with whose ox is getting gored is really disappointing for a community that espouses such strong freedom of speech principles.
Peter Thiel isn't a government entity, but an individual. He by definition cannot do anything to restrict gawkers freedom of speech.
First, Peter Thiel used the court system, an arm of the government, to pursue a personal vendetta and suppress their speech.
Second, the First Amendment protects freedom of speech from government intervention, but freedom of speech is a concept that exists outside the U.S. Constitution.
I hope this clarifies things and helps you better understand the situation.
No, he merely helped others do so. Whether or not he had a personal vendetta does not affect the validity of the cases. And again, Peter Thiel has every right to do so. As he himself isn't an arm of the government.
>Second, the First Amendment protects freedom of speech from government intervention, but freedom of speech is a concept that exists outside the U.S. Constitution.
I just can't find a definition that agrees with you here, it seems to me that it's commonly accepted that freedom of speech is specifically about the right to communicate without fear of government interference.
It'd be rather ridiculous if wasn't, would any retaliation from a private person in response to speech be violating ones freedom of speech? Wouldn't that mean that if you insulted me and I responded in kind I'd effectively be suppressing your speech?
In any case, I'd appreciate it if you could find a source that supports your position. I'd be very interested to read it.
I don't have any problem with deterrence - or "chilling effect", if you prefer to word it that way - on the latter.
It's unfortunate that it requires a millionaire to fund the court case to get us there; but the only cause for concern here is that someone else might see their privacy similarly violated, and not have a rich sponsor to pay the legal bills for personal reasons.
I think that is a very dangerous way to look at thing. The right to privacy is a limitation to freedom of speech. You might think that it's a reasonable limitation in this case, but it's still a limitation and not something different.
However, our legal system holds that even where we have freedom of expression, we still have a responsibility to not invade people's privacy, and not cause them emotional harm. A court found that Gawker didn't act according to those responsibilities, so they owed damages. That's exactly the kind of deterrence that our civil law is designed to provide.
"[...] an unusual decision Mr. Bollea’s legal team made: It purposely excluded a claim that would have allowed Gawker’s insurance company to help pay for its defense as well as damages."
That speaks quite loudly to the intent of the deterrent, otherwise they wouldn't be concerned who was paying, since insurance company money is just as green as Gawker's.
Publishing a sex tape is completely different than writing about it.
You can sue any time you want. That's how the US legal system works.
#1 Gawker did not out Peter Thiel. Peter Thiel outed Peter Thiel. Back when Friendster was a thing he had a public profile which featured him shirtless on a boat which clearly advertised his interest in handsome men. So on the scale from Closet Queen to Totes Obvious, he was more on the side of totes obvi. It was also the worst kept secret in San Francisco, particularly if you had any latin friends. So Owen Thomas was right in concluding that Thiel was already out when he ran his "Peter Thiel is totally gay" piece because it wasn't news to anybody.
#2 if Hulk Hogan is claiming injury and embarrassment from a sex tape, why did he make a sex tape? Yes, Gawker is muck raking trash (I just read it for the comments!), but they trade in such material. Unless I am missing something, Gawker didn't trick him into making a sex tape. Common sense would tell you that if you don't want your sex tape on the Internets, don't make a sex tape in the first place.
Hulk Hogan said he did not know the tape was being made so could not consent to it. He was not consulted about it's release and would not have authorized it. The jury agreed with him.
Taking a vendetta like this by trying to sue them out of business is just playing whack a mole. Another company will rise out of their ashes.
We could get some ethics professors to write a monograph on the subject; maybe that would enlighten them.
Keep speech plural.
No, I don't feel like I need to justify whether I read Gawker or not; or whether I agree with Gawker as a publication or not. If you don't like one article go and take it down if you got legal standing. Why go nuclear?
PS. I know little about P. Thiel and his political and social stances. The impression I got of him are from headlines like: "Billionaire investor Peter Thiel's plan to pay college students to drop out..." and "Libertarian Island: A billionaire's utopia". And now "Billionaire Peter Thiel funded Hulk Hogan lawsuit to take down Gawker"... Is there a decent biography out there worth reading?
Then later in life I'm a billionaire and I want revenge. It becomes known publicly that I want to destroy him and his company so very badly, that I will fund any lawsuit against him or them. I fund lawsuit after lawsuit until the company is destroyed and he is bankrupted and ruined, his family and life in shambles.
Is that okay?
"I guess people can do whatever they want with their money. For me the bottom line is that Hogan is a public figure and the definition of “newsworthy” isn’t up to anyone other than media to decide on. Sure, it’s tacky as fuck to report on him fucking his best friends wife and it isn’t any of anyone’s business but the market can decide if gawker should be in business or not. It shouldn’t be able to decide what they are or are not allowed to report so long as they’re true."
It's creepy that the billionaires can fund lawsuits against the media because they wrote something that the billionaire didn't like but that's a free market. I don't think anyone that reads Jezebel or gawker or valleywag is going to stop reading it because Nick Denton publishing something about an ex-pro wrestler fucking a dj's wife. That's their market.
The people decided this verdict was just. I think it's ridiculous but then again Trump is probably running against Clinton for the leader of the free world so you get what you get.
I think it's a good thing that those who have earned money can use it to attempt to change the world - and Gawker did a jerk thing.
1. As you say, Gawker can report on Hogan's private sex tape. Tacky but newsworthy for tabloids.
2. Gawker cannot distribute Hogan's private sex tape. That would equivalent to Playboy distributing Jennifer Lawrence nudes from The Fappening.
3. Gawker certainly can't ignore requests from judges telling them to take down the private sex tape.
You've conflated the first with the second and third.
Gawker is mostly getting rapped for the third point to make an example of them. That's the judge's prerogative.
Is this something that is normal among tabloid outfits? I have no idea because I really don't follow tabloids.
Left or right click drag opens a new story. This would be fine, except if you want to select text it de-facto opens a new story.
What does it matter who funded his legal case?
Hogan/Bollea should be able to fight his case without Mr. Thiel's financial support.
If he had been open from the start, then I may have a different opinion of him.
Not when the alternative is Hillary Clinton.
Well not in the strawman form of 'give up on privacy' - but yes, if the information may be of public interest (I definitely don't think that sex-tapes are fyi) - than the legal standards are different.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_Times_Co._v._Sullivan
> New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, 376 U.S. 254 (1964), was a landmark United States Supreme Court case that established the actual malice standard, which has to be met before press reports about public officials can be considered to be defamation and libel; and hence allowed free reporting of the civil rights campaigns in the southern United States. It is one of the key decisions supporting the freedom of the press. The actual malice standard requires that the plaintiff in a defamation or libel case, if he is a "public figure", prove that the publisher of the statement in question knew that the statement was false or acted in reckless disregard of its truth or falsity. Because of the extremely high burden of proof on the plaintiff, and the difficulty of proving the defendant's knowledge and intentions, such cases—but only when they involve public figures—rarely prevail.
As it's taught in journalism schools, this precedent is seen as the major driver of American press freedom.
That said, I don't see why Thiel's homosexuality would be newsworthy nor why Hulk Hogan's sex tape is newsworthy (the racist rant was, but they didn't publish that)
As he says in this interview, he's big and powerful enough to defend himself.
What he's fighting is the practice of destroying the reputations or lives of people who don't have the power to defend themselves, and claiming "free speech" as a justification for operating without any sense of morality and compassion.
The above is not a defense of Thiel, Palantir, or narcissists, whoever those are.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seasteading
So justice on such an island could be bought?
[Note that I despise Gawker for publishing the tape in question.]
I've no love for Gawker at all, I've blocked most of the related properties as not worth the bits. But Thiel's actions here are deeply troubling. In large part for precisely the hypocrisy your parent post notes.
(It'd be nice if HN showed more than just the immediate parent post in the compose page).
Would Gawker still feel as strongly about freedom of expression when their significant other's or their daughters'/sons'/parents' legs are spread all over the internet? If that video was sent to them, would they publish something like "Watch the sextape of the people who pulblished Hogan's sextape",
I can think of many, many ways Thiel could have harmed them. He's a very smart man and I'm sure he could think of many more, but he held back going at it in a civilized manner only legally backing a law-suit.