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Comment by _8fjx | Hacker News Reader

The second sentence contains falsehoods:

"Peter Thiel, who is a Facebook board member and Donald Trump delegate, secretly sued Gawker in a proxy lawsuit and, even though the case is unresolved, it was enough to bleed and bankrupt the company."

Peter Thiel did not "secretly sue" anybody; he is not the plaintiff. There is no such thing as a "proxy lawsuit." Paying the legal bills for a plaintiff whose lawsuit advances your agenda is not unusual; the ACLU, EFF and NRDC do this regularly.

Saying the lawsuit was "enough to bleed and bankrupt the company" even though "the case is unresolved" makes it sound like Gawker was bankrupted merely by the expense of litigation. But the verdict is in and gawker lost. The case is only "unresolved" in the sense that appeals have not been exhausted.

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The term 'proxy lawsuit' is completely valid. It means he's bankrolling a lawsuit someone else is pursuing in absence of the ability to sue for what he really wants to. The EFF, ACLU, and NRDC bankroll lawsuits because they are trying to actively set precedent for other cases. Thiel backed this because he has a personal vendetta against Gawker, but he knew that his own lawsuit wouldn't succeed because it's not illegal to out a person as gay.

Similarly, when the US supplies rebels in central america against their country because they know they have no legal grounds for waging war against that country, it's a proxy war.

>ACLU, EFF and NRDC do this regularly.

Exactly this. I think the liberal media, liberal bloggers, etc has lost its collective mind over this. I haven't seen so many hit pieces against an individual at once, ever. Thiel went from SV weirdo genius to a Trump-loving anti-christ in one week.

I think the media wants to be untouchable and if they want to publish videos of Hulk Hogan having sex for ad impressions they will do so. Pushback by the saner side of soceity is not tolerated by them. Its incredible anyone is remotely defending Gawker here.

I think most educated people are seeing through this bullshit. Sex tapes aren't "journalism" and entities like Gawker and their simplistic "outrage journalism" for ad impressions are not morally defensible. I also don't believe "outing" people is journalism either. Thiel deserves the same privacy as any other closeted person. How did the liberal SJW brigade become homophobes and sex tape distribution defenders so quickly? It boggles the mind.

Paying the legal bills for a plaintiff whose lawsuit advances your agenda is the definition of a proxy lawsuit. Also, the game ain't over till the fat lady sings. The case is still unresolved until all opportunities to appeal are exhausted. In my opinion, Peter is a jerk and an example of another wealthy person who likes living in and conducting business in America but won't support the values of America enshrined in our Constitution and Bill of Rights.

In a freedom of the press case like this one, I think it's completely fair to consider it unresolved until the appeals are exhausted, given that there are Constitutional issues at stake.

Secondly, when the ACLU funds litigation, they are usually pretty darned public about it. I didn't see Thiel running around advertising that he was backing Hulk Hogan for any high-minded, principled purpose.

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