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lifeisstillgood

Err, yes. Thiel was completely out of order backing legal suits in order to achieve a "political" end.

If he was not suing an unsavoury gossip-monger the discussion around this would be vastly different.

Irrespective of the legality this was a spiteful campaign at odds with the stated case(s) involved.

Yes he should be held to account for it.

Edit: change to clarify middle paragraph.

Is this a UK/US thing? Being outed in the UK was a political action for sometime in the 80s but has more or less had its time - it has no shock value and little political value. Or is the focus on the supposed cause of thiels actions the irrelevant part?

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"Err, yes. Thiel was completely out of order backing legal suits in order to achieve a "political" end."

Would you say the same thing about the American Civil Liberties Union, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, the National Organization of Woman, and Lambda Legal -- all of whom have litigated to achieve political ends.

There is a vast vast difference between secretly and openly backing legal action. If thiel had been in the court with a "privacy for billionaires" banner then I would not nearly be so concerned. But it was mere accident - years of litigation without any indication he was bank rolling this stuff, the courts did not know - that is unacceptable. Courts must know this stuff

And political is not quite the right term - this seems way more personal and vindictive

Are you actually allowed to go to a courtroom in the U.S. with banners? I find that strange.

Imagine that Gawker owners and editors hated, say, puppies and out of spite Thiel funded a bunch of puppy shelters. Would you say he should be held in account for it? Probably not, because despite the bad motivation, funding shelters is considered a Good Thing.

To me, the problem when we say Thiel should be held in account for funding the lawsuit is that we're implicitly admitting the court can be used as a weapon, and we're putting the onus on him not to use it, instead of putting it on the court not to allow itself to be used as such.

Funding a lawsuit should, at worst, cost some time and maybe some money in legal fees to the defendant, and at best it should help to achieve justice.

It's a shame your comment has fallen victim to the disagree button. While I disagree with you, which I'll get to in a moment, it greatly disappoints me how some of the supposed intellectual thinkers on this site would like to hide your comment because they disagree with it. I didn't find it to be spam or inflammatory, which is to my understanding the type of post the down arrow is supposed to be used for.

Anyway, what he did was legal. There's nothing to be held accountable for. Whether or not it's right or wrong in general is not really a topic I'm interested in. Since the legal process worked as it's supposed to, I believe this to be what you might call right though. Gawker has had this coming. If they hadn't made it so easy by publishing garbage, Theil would have been powerless.

It's a shame that you think the down-vote button means something other than what it is used to mean.

Is it legal to fund another parties court case, to influence their decisions (why did hogan drop insurance-covered issues?) and do so without knowledge of court? I am not sure those are clear answers - we shall see.

Can’t find the source, but I read somewhere that it was also about investor relations in the Middle East.

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