Does the whole Thiel vs. Gawker thing trouble you? | Hacker News Reader

Does the whole Thiel vs. Gawker thing trouble you?

34 pointsbitinn30 comments

First of all, I should admit I live nowhere near SV, nowhere near US, but in a land where censorship is the norm, China.

I have been following reports on Thiel vs Gawker for the past a few days, on Twitter, through a VPN.

And what surprises me is the amount of praise for Thiel's actions.

Their reasoning usually includes:

- Look at what Gawker reports, they are in no way representing good journalism.

- Look at the harm Gawker causes, it is only fair they face this consequence.

Alarmingly, these defenses come from notable VCs, or at least they gladly retweet them in defense of Thiel.

Ignoring the conflict of interests for a moment here: let's assume they all act according to their principles.

You know what this looks like to a Chinese citizen and a Startup founder that thinks highly of SV culture?

US is slowly sinking to Chinese level of thinking:

- Where there are no alternatives, but to silence troubling tabloids.

- Where sacrificing freedom of a few, for stability of the masses, is a good cause.

- Where the best assurance you get, is to trust the people at the top.

And you can expect Chinese media quoting this case one day to prove US billionaires can silence media as well.

Gawker may be nowhere near journalism, but to think they "rise above" others to the point where SV billionaires need to spend millions and stick together to defeat them?

It says more about US than Gawker, isn't it?

And that troubles me, as an outsider.

There is a big difference here. In China the press is censored by the state. In this case Gawker was allowed full freedom by the state to print what they chose. But the individual who felt his privacy or whatever was damaged sought redress through a Civil trial. The press has many protections for what they write, where an individual has little ability to fight back when they have been wronged. And it takes lots of money to fight such a case, and I bet many such cases fail. And even having a large backer does not guarantee success. This is not a perfect system, but it is not censorship.

Charities and nonprofits fund trials againts wealthy opponents all the time. To give people, who can afford it, a chance defend their rights in a trial. Jury and judge make a decision. But when someone with money does the same thing, everybody lose their minds. He only funded Hulk Hogan, his attorneys etc. He didn't bought judge or jury.

My first issue is the "who can afford it" part. People shouldn't get more justice when they're wealthier and less when they're poorer.

My second issue is that more money gives a plaintiff access to legal tricks that can overwhelm an opponent with less money. One example is to bury the opponent with discovery.

My final problem is that Thiel is not using the justice system to get justice for himself. He's sticking his nose into another person's complaint. That isn't how our courts were intended to work.

It's still no different from charities and nonprofits, they don't get justice for themselfs either. Thiel saw, that Hogan has a strong case and he's willing to fight for it (but doesn't have enough money to do so). [1] "One example is to bury the opponent with discovery." You think Gawker is so poor it can't afford first class lawyers? Don't hate the player, hate the game.

[1] http://observer.com/2016/05/peter-thiels-reminder-to-the-gaw...

Let's not ignore that Gawker had top lawyers too. Remember, it's really the $140 million verdict that's going to kill Gawker. Not the legal fees which I'm sure are well under $10 million (and Hogan - maybe Thiel? - would be on the hook for if he lost)

Seems like your problem is with the legal system, not Thiel. Which is completely fair. "Don't hate the player, hate the game."

What I think: Thiel saw an opening in both Gawker's reputation and the legal system, and made a deadly move.

And to clarify, I am not equating this case to censorship, but rather to setup some context that we have seen much worse :)

But what troubles me is really how SV response to this case:

- There are no better ways and so be it.

This is what Chinese call: the limit of democracy and freedom.

And Thiel get VCs to agree with him in this case. Even though I believe many VCs hold different view on democracy and liberty.

So I am personally troubled by their reactions.

The reason many people don't think there is a better way is because this case involves two opposing forces of the same principle, free speech.

On one hand, media outlets should ideally feel un-intimidated in publishing stories. On the other hand, people should be allowed to support causes with money. Both are widely considered in America to fall under freedom of speech. So it's balancing act. There is no optimal solution, there are only tradeoffs.

This is also ignoring the facts that are highly favorable to Thiel's case: what Gawker did really was illegal and reprehensible, and also let us ignore the fact that Peter Thiel really did not bury Gawker under a mountain of legal fees - the verdict is what did Gawker in, not the legal fees which I'm sure are less than $10 million (Gawker can afford that)

It doesn't trouble me at all from the perspective of this being something Thiel can do that I can't. As long as billions mean something billionaires are going to wield more power than mere morals. From my standpoint, moreover, this is far from the worst use of private donations for an "activist" cause.

As for it being censorship, this event is not properly comparable to the government censorship of speech in China. Read http://www.paulgraham.com/say.html if you haven't. In the US what you can say is restricted through informal, "softer" means like social pressure, which would make it like most places if not for the fact that American cultural institutions are the most powerful in the world; those institutions, in turn, have a complicated relationship with the government. Briefly, American billionaires like Thiel have nothing on the American media or universities in terms of their ability to influence what people think. Government, media and academic opinion form a feedback loop.

There is (thankfully, of course) no Great Firewall of the United States but in practice American thought rarely deviates from the government-approved norms.

It is a strength of the U.S. system that outsiders to a case can contribute toward it. That's as true when the outsider is a private individual with a grudge as when they're the ACLU or Sierra Club. It is a weakness of the U.S. system that a jury has the power to destroy a company with excessive judgments, as in the Hulk Hogan case. I don't have the solutions to this, but I am clear that one of them is not to limit potential plaintiffs to their own resources.

The troubling part, to me, is not the case itself. I personally don't believe the sex tape was newsworthy (at least not as much of it as they released).

The troubling part is that we have someone secretly using money to manipulate a case in which he is not a direct participant.

Wealthy people should not be able to weaponize our legal system.

Do you also have a problem with the EFF, ACLU, and NAACP?

Or is it the secrecy that's more concerning?

> someone secretly using money to manipulate a case in which he is not a direct participant.

What manipulation was there?

3rd parties funding lawsuits is not a new, it's been happening for centuries.

So is political corruption. My criticism is the same no matter how common it is. Thiel is a bad actor to me, even if he's one of a crowd of bad actors.

Yes, it definitely does. There has been a recent shift in the past decade or so among a lot of people, I've been noticing, where respect for strict freedom of speech and press has been in decline. A loss of the ideal of "I may disagree with what you say, but I'll fight to the death for your right to say it".

I'm loving it because Peter Thiel is a f-ing billionaire who is now publicly showing what the 1% of the 1% are capable of. The power that these 0.01% have is staggering. To see what they're capable of with just a few million dollars is truly awesome. And the very best part is that there absolutely nothing we can do about it anymore. We're now officially owned by the 300!

The 0.1% can fund a lawsuit because you published a sex tape.

>We're now officially owned by the 300!

That's a steep slope.

> The 0.1% can fund a lawsuit because you published a sex tape.

The point of the article is that the .01% can fund a series of unrelated lawsuits because you publish an article unflattering of their industry, political stance, ideology, or just stating that cats or better than dogs.

For the 300 it's a trivial amount of money. Like us spending $1000 to shut down a web site we didn't like. (using them to us as 1,000,000,000 : 10,000,000 = 100,000 : 1,000)

My points are that first, this is both really scary because of how relatively few people are in this position and second, we've gone too far: there's no longer any way to stop these people from essentially doing anything they want to control us. They've become effectively gods who will allow us to live out our insignificant lives only if we don't annoy them.

-- Edit (to continue the metaphor cuz fun). --

Remember, the infraction wasn't posting the video on Gawker. The infraction that pissed of this god was being outed as gay. Essentially, this god was angered by being outed. He opened up a portal to our world via the Hulk Hogan video. His lightning bolts were the series of lawsuits he had lined up.

It's also worth noting that this is a god doing battle with a demi-god. Could you imagine the trivial amount of power (= money) (= free speech) that he would need expended to take out one of us antlike mortals.

If you could shut down breitbart or the drudge report (or your least favorite liberal sites) you wouldn't because you're a benevolent god. But then one day you wake up and find that they've passed judgement on you. Well, they can't pass judgement on a god. So you wave your hand and take them out without so much as making the most minor impact in your existence. "I'll show those mortals how judgement is passed! Talk bad about me, will they." That's the real issue here.

If you are truly worried about power, look no further than the government. The power to use force is actual power.

The thing is that there's already a huge amount of manipulation by billionaires. Read up on George Soros and Carlos Slim.

Thiel funding a lawsuit against a website that specifically wronged him is so mild that it's just not worth getting upset about.

To me the story seems to be that Gawker was wealthy enough to crush libel and slander lawsuits for years. But in the end, there's always a bigger fish.

The only unsettling part to me is the cost of litigation.

Assuming the legal system is just, I don't have a slightest problem with whoever funding or managing a lawsuit, revenge-seeking or not.

And comparing an invasion-of-privacy (or libel and slander) lawsuit to opaque state censorship is a huge stretch.

I feel like hes allowed to do what he wants with his influence/money/connections. If I fell victim to defamation by a news outlet and I had the ability to put a stop to it, I would.

I thought this wasn't a case of defamation. Weren't the claims true but just not the timing Thiel and Co. wanted?

Isn't this (as stated in another post) a case of revenge? (Legal revenge as it were.)

If you fell victim to defamation by a news outlet and you had the ability to put a stop to it, why would you sue the defamer anonymously through a proxy and not directly?

You answer your own question.

It's a news outlet.

They can use/abuse their position to make hay in ways nobody else can.

The problem is not that Thiel financed Hogan the problem is that Hogan needed the money to do so that's where us justice system seems as fucked as anywhere else in the world.

Good old-fashioned revenge. What's not to like?

Nick Denton kicked the hornet's nest with his article on false claims of Peter Thiel being gay.

Now he is going to get stung.

> false claims???

Explain the false part please.

“I saw Gawker pioneer a unique and incredibly damaging way of getting attention by bullying people even when there was no connection with the public interest. . . . I thought it was worth fighting back.” - Peter Thiel

Peter Thiel was not hiding his sexual orientation, but Gwaker made it look like so.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2016/05/27/...

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