You're misinterpreting what i'm saying. Gawker did something illegal and they did deserve to pay for it.

The issue is that Thiel had no direct connection to that incident. The issue is that he funded everything because they outed him as gay (completely legal), with the express goal of bankrupting them via lawsuit. He didn't want them to learn a lesson, he wanted to fucking end them.

While he didn't do anything illegal, I think it absolutely counts as eroding modern society.