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.
Am I being too optimistic again?
"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
"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.