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Comment by vineyardmike | Hacker News Reader

His attack on gawker are anything but commendable. They may have been a trashy gossip site, but attacking press like that is not good for society.

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I’ve never understood the perspective that what Thiel did too Gawker was anything but good. Love or hate the guy, he just funded a lawsuit that Gawker assumed they would beat using the classic tactics of bankrupting their opponent. I despise those tactics, it was (rightly IMO) determined that Gawker acted illegally and caused massive damage, and if the Hulk Hogan had been funded by literally any other billionaire I think they would have been applauded.

Corporations use “run the meter” tactics to win lawsuits all the time. It’s nice to see that fail for once.

You seem to be confused as to which party used which tactics?

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2018/02/the-thiel-gawker-sag... https://www.forbes.com/sites/mattdrange/2016/06/21/peter-thi...

Gawker was not a major corp at all, it was a tiny publication. I don't think they thought they would beat him via bankrupting him at all.

Thiel approached a ton of people who Gawker wrote about, and volunteered to fund suits until he found a winner. Thiel was not the rich hero, he was trying to a chip in the armor for a long time to seek revenge on a petty grudge.

> Gawker was not a major corp at all, it was a tiny publication.

Lol, in 2014 Gawker had $45m in revenue (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gawker_Media#cite_note-BI-18), and it had hundreds of employees. Sure, it wasn't quite the NYT, but it wasn't a newsletter or a local paper by any means.

Really? Gawker published intimate photos of someone without their permission. What Gawker did was very wrong. I don't get why people defend Gawker.

One doesn't have to defend Gawker to think that what Peter Theil did was atrocious.

So... you think what Gawker did was bad, but Thiel was wrong to stop it?

Gawker did a bad thing, and Thiel funded a massive lawsuit to bury them. Thiel did it because he wanted to silence press that had wronged him. He didn't do it because he wanted to be a savior.

Wait, are you really calling gawker press? I assume TMZ is right up there with the Walls Street Journal as well. Yikes that is scary.

They were the press. They can be trashy tabloid, as opposed to a respected international publication, but they're still press. Gawker was also a series of publications, not just one (eg. Gizmodo the tech site, LifeHacker, etc).

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