Gawker deserved someone to come after then as Thiel did, for what they did to him, Hulk Hogan and others
1) Gawker got what they deserved 2) The legal power of the very rich makes me uneasy, and I don't support such unilateral over-use of the legal system by the very rich.
In other words; Gawker got what they deserved, but I don't agree with the methodology behind the counter-attack -- I see it as abusive and indicative of a system that is tilted for one side to win more easily.
The power scale is kinda Hulk Hogan < Gawker < Peter Thiel < pether Thiel + Hulk Hogan.
But in the end power (and money) are always amoral. Its their use which defines it. The only shocking thing is that justice is not free (even in countries in europe where education and healthcare are...).
Thiel didn't take down Gawker by being richer and more powerful. He took them down in a fair trial because he was right and they were wrong. You would never get that fair trial because it would be millions in legal fees before you got there.
If you do something perfectly legal that someone does not like, and that person has sufficient money and/or power, they can simply go hunting for something illegal you've done (there's always something) and aggressively bankroll actions against you.
Thiel used Hogan and his case as a proxy to settle a personal beef.
This is not dissimilar from the cops tailing activists around in their daily lives, hoping they can find something, anything, to charge them with.
And then what Thiel did to Gawker, while not nice, was legal.
If you're going to build a company on the idea of skirting legality in order to ruin people's lives, don't be upset when someone does the same thing to your company.
It took me a second to realize you were not talking about palantir.
Or ebay.
Thiel getting angry about a story around his sexuality (it wasn't "outing" him, see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32265067) is pretty fucking hilarious coming from the guy who founded what amounts to a corporate-run NSA.
Given the general attitude in that country towards homosexuality and that it is straight up a crime in SA, not only Gawker was essentially sabotaging his business deal, they were opening him up to physical danger and criminal prosecution.
I can't say I read Gawker or was a fan of what they did, or saying it was morally upstanding. But they were the wrong target. It was bizarre to me that Thiel would go after them, except if you look at it as Thiel not really caring about the actual spread of information, and instead look at it as Thiel scaring away any sort of journalist or journalistic organization from scrutinizing him at all on any controversial topics. It just seemed like a classic case of defending the freedom of speech of the morally questionable to protect freedom of speech in general.
I don't remember the Hogan case in detail as it's been awhile, but to me Gawker was not the really offending person. It was whoever recorded that. Why Thiel went after Gawker rather than the person who clearly violated expectations of privacy in a way that might land them in jail in many districts is beyond me.
the gay editor of gawker published the gay writer from valleywag's essay about how peter thiel was ALREADY 'out' and that everyone in silicon valley acting like it was a shameful secret that could not be mentioned was in-effect trying to put a gay man who was not in the closet back in it because of their discomfort with the topic.
like everything else on the internet once the facts got rung through the social media process the conventional wisdom became the perfect inverse of the actual truth.
its worth noting that thiel himself has never claimed that his 'outing' (which did not happen) was his motivation. he has however on many occasions explained his reasoning and justification as essentially viewing journalists/journalism/critical-reporting as haters that hold us all back and should be forcibly shut up. note that i'm using the word 'haters' but he actually used the word 'terrorists'.
gawker repeatedly offered to settle with hogan, but for some strange reason* hogan refused to and kept appealing and moving venues. during these appeals and negotiations a judge required gawker take the video down which they did. the judge then also required gawker take the post (ascii text) down as well, which they refused to do.
* it turned out hogan was just a front for thiel and taking down the video was not really the goal, bankrupting the parent company of valleywag was.
"A lawful order from a circuit court judge is a serious thing. While we vehemently disagree with Campbell's order with respect to the video itself, we have chosen to take it down pending our appeal.
But the portion of the order compelling us to remove the entirety of Daulerio's post—his words, his speech—is grossly unconstitutional. We won't take it down"
The lesson should have been that Thiel and other billionaires have such enormous influence over governments and courts that he's a direct threat to democratic systems. Just look at how things turned out, Hogan couldn't touch Gawker because of Freedom of the Press, but then Thiel got involved and suddenly the 1st Amendment stopped protecting Gawker. The moment a billionaire got involved the legal system changed.
And if you need any more proof that people like Thiel are a threat to democracy, he's currently funding conservative candidates in the US who believe the presidential election was "stolen" from Trump.
And yes, billionaires who donate to "the left" are a problem as well. Any time enormous amounts of wealth and power are concentrated in the hands of a few people, it can't help but go against democratic ideals. You used the term "progressive" but both of the main US political parties have been bought out by wealthy interests, and I'd hardly call either "progressive".
Maybe I'm different from most people, but the lessons I learned were 1) there's a rich a-hole named Peter Thiel and 2) he's a petty spiteful vindictive a-hole (in my opinion based on what I know of his actions). In practical terms it mostly meant that when I saw news mention of him I knew who was being referred to.