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Tech Billionaire Peter Thiel Secretly Bankrolled Hulk Hogan's Lawsuit Against Gawker: Reports (gawker.com)
If you're a powerful Silicon Valley billionaire, and there's a media house which actively points out flaws in your investments, can you do something about it? If you're Peter Thiel, you certainly can. The New York Times and Forbes magazine have independently reported that Thiel has been funding a steady stream of lawsuits -- including three different ones filed by Hulk Hogan -- to destroy Gawker Media. Gawker reports: Gawker and Valleywag, Gawker Media's defunct tech gossip vertical, have often written critically of Thiel, a self-identified libertarian (and, it turns out, a California delegate for Donald Trump) and his investments, covering the failure of his hedge fund Clarium Capital, his right-wing politics, and his personal life. In just the last month, Gawker Media's tech site Gizmodo published a series of stories on Facebook's use of "news curators" to manipulate the site's "trending" module, sparking a congressional investigation into the social network's practices.Jay Rosen, media critic and a professor of journalism at New York University, said: Trying to kill a publication you don't like by funding lawsuits against them isn't very libertarian, is it?
So, what's the big issue? This guy saw an opportunity to attack an opponent albeit in the shadows.
"Attack the enemy where they are not" - Art of War
Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
Since when was critic a verb?
At the bottom of the
If he wants to secretly fund the lawsuit, what's the big deal? It's his money.
Surely, *hiring* lawyers to produce a desired result is a market-based solution.
Everyone hates Gawker so nobody here will defend them, even though this is fucking chilling for a free press.
Something something ethics in journalism.
Jay Rosen, media critic and a professor of journalism at New York University, said: Trying to kill a publication you don't like by funding lawsuits against them isn't very libertarian, is it?
Huh? It's not? Especially when they turn out to be valid lawsuits, it seems a very libertarian thing to do. If a company is wronging people in a way that lawsuits would succeed against them, but aren't normally pressed because those being wronged don't have the money for lawyers, sure, you can fund them.
Hell, I donate to a couple funds for doing just that.
I don't read AC A human right
What could possibly be more libertarian than that?
Since when was critic a verb?
Every since Calvin made verbing popular!
Calvin and Hobbes
I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?
If you can't fuck over people that pissed you off
because what it comes down to is that contemporary libertarians believe in; Might makes right. That's how markets work, through using economic power over everything and everyone. In this case, he's used his economic might to find enough of a opening in the armor of the legal system to get what he wanted.
They deserved it...
Trying to kill a publication you don't like by funding lawsuits against them isn't very libertarian, is it?
Wow, what bias.
A jury sitting within, and a judge of, the United States legal system may bankrupt Gawker, not Thiel.
If this news is covered by unbiased sources, link one of them.
If it isn't covered by unbiased sources, then it isn't news, it's just the next round of character assassination.
C'mon slashdot.
The comment about Thiel's actions not being very libertarian is trolling. Since when do the editors engage in rampant trolling in the summaries? This is obnoxious.
Free speech works both ways.
Back in the latter part of the 1990s I worked with a guy who was Libertarian and very vocal about it. So I asked him to explain exactly what Libertarianism was and what his beliefs were. Two things in particular came out of that conversation. One was that I realized that while a lot of what he supported sounded really good on the surface, the whole philosophy seemed like a house of cards to me where one bad actor could make out like a bandit after basically gaming the system to take advantage of it since Libertarianism working relies on people "doing the right thing" and it all collapses when one guy doesn't. The other thing I took out of it was that I asked him since the government under his Libertarian ideals was incredibly weak and small, what did you do when you had problems, like for example, some manufacturer sells you bad medicine? Simple - you sue. So instead of the government being your big stick the legal system is. So yes, I think it's very much in keeping with Libertarian principles to simply sue people you don't agree with.
Slashdot has really gone into the crapper lately. Can you get rid of the stupid SJWs please?
They dug up dirt on him, he dug up dirt on them. Seems fair. I can see it being a problem if he hired thugs to rough up a few journalists to silence them. On the other hand, bringing up valid lawsuits in a legitimate court of law, at least one of which 12 independent jurors confirmed to be valid, that's fair game. Free press (or freedom of speech for that matter) doesn't mean you can say whatever you want without any repercussions whatsoever. I guess some bloggers have to learn it the hard way.
So the complaint is that he funded a lawsuit against gawker and to show why he would do that you only show attack stories from gawker?
Not content with their billions, they now seek to meddle in society.
Isn't Gawker the publication that outed him as gay in 07 and then released a sex tape of his which he sued for ~120 million dollars?
http://gawker.com/335894/peter-thiel-is-totally-gay-people
No, winning lawsuits makes right.
Gawker lost to Hulk Hogan, and big time. Are you suggesting that Gawker should have won simply because it is a leftwing rag spewing shit, and Hulk Hogan should have just taken it?
As a libertarian, I see "Might makes right" a lot more coming from leftwing side of things, like when idiots block traffic to protest something nobody in traffic has any connection to, and thinking that is just fine and dandy. And for once, someone takes on a leftwing rag spewing crap and takes them for huge losses. Gawker deserves to die simply because they were wrong, and lost in court.
Unless you're saying courts are not functional and filled with biased judges who spew their own prejudices. But only when it isn't leftwing agenda items that is.
It is funny how people view things that when it is their side, it is fine and dandy, but when it is against them, how the system is rigged and corrupt. I'm trying to figure out which "might makes right" is the right might, that makes right.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
Seriously, this sounds a lot like the convoluted "Curb Your Enthusiasm" style situations featured in the show.
Horror & SciFi Erotic Nudes
Gawker comes under financial pressure and might even have to close, and a LOLbertarian burns through a bunch of money. There's literally nothing to not like about this.
It sounds very libertarian to me, at least he's not whining and bankrolling politicians to pass laws against his interests.
I think you have incorrect information already in the first sentence of the description. The New York Times and Fortune did not report this separately, the new York Times piece actually directly refers to the Forbes piece. It is simply Forbes talking to an source the public has no way of confirming as real and the New York Times reporting on this piece.
Years ago, I started reading deadspin.com because it seemed cool, it had all this behind-the-scenes information about sports, it was a good way to avoid work for a few minutes. But I soon became aware there was a real nasty streak in the website. They didn't just report things that happened, they went out of their way to hurt people and say vicious things. Even when it wasn't warranted...sometimes it was warranted because some sports figures are real human trash. But every day there was this nasty, hurtful personality of the site, just ready to put the hooks into anyone who got in their way. I eventually had to stop reading because I was afraid this kind of thing was going to rub off on me. When you stare into the abyss, the abyss stares into you, that sort of thing.
In the years since, I have come to know that pretty much every website Gawker has is the same way. They are petty, cutting, severely biased, and often wrong. It's their bias and hurtful nature that leads them to make so many factual mistakes, they are so ready to unload on anyone. Even good people who mean well...especially good people who mean well, they get the extra treatment.
Can someone explain the mentality of the people who work for these websites? I just don't get it. How can journalists heartily enjoy such blackhearted behavior? Hulk Hogan is no hero but what they did to him was clearly wrong and clearly deserved a vicious legal smackdown. What turns these journalists into such lowlife scum, even more than the typical journalist?
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
> So if he decides he doesn't like you, he can sue the crap out of you on multiple fronts, without his own name getting dragged into it? You're fine with trying to fight off all those lawsuits, where you'll go bankrupt even if you win?
How is that any different from the ACLU and similar orgs? Lots of people fund them and they go around looking to sue anyone who is doing things they don't agree with. Just to remember, this wasn't a frivolous lawsuit against Gawker--they won.
Interesting how Gawker will peddle conspiracy theories when the target is them.
Meh gawker is dead, good riddance.
Is anyone else noticing how the headline has turned the conversation posts from what the actual news subject matter to what a provocative NY professor has said about the subject matter?
In debates about Christianity, there are two groups: those looking for answers, and those looking to just ask questions.
What could be more Libertarian than wealthy people using their power to get their way?
Not really. Not directly. Not just for that.
But if they've left a flank hanging in the air, which Gawker appear to have done, you can sure as hell get them indirectly.
It's dirty tactics, but what goes around comes around.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Gawker has resorted to anonymous rumor mongering to stay afloat. Who would have thought that fine upstanding group of journalists would sink lower than Buzzfeed?
He used Government resources appropriately. Gawker lost the suit.
Libertarians aren't against government, contrary to popular leftwing statists views. The purpose of the government is to provide equal application of laws (something it has abrogated) and ensuring the rights (in the case Hulk Hogan) of individuals are upheld. The fact that the lawsuit was funded by him is irrelevant, except to statists who don't understand libertarianism.
The case here is one where an individual asked the state to protect his rights, and the state found Gawker in violation. The only reason why I think you could even protest this, is because you're a shill for Gawker and think leftwing organizations can do not wrong, because ends justify the means. Or you just kneejerking "anti-liberation" catch phrases because you can't actually think for yourself?
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
Hiring mercenaries to attack somebody is explicitly non-libertarian. It is a philosophy of self defense, not offense.
I don't read AC A human right
As a libertarian, I see "Might makes right" a lot more coming from leftwing side of things, like when idiots block traffic to protest something nobody in traffic has any connection to, and thinking that is just fine and dandy.
I see "might makes right" as the sad truth of the world far too often. It's why we band up and put power into the hands of government, to hopefully have a neutral party willing to enforce a standard set of rules. The libertarian party are not anarchists, and 'weak' government is a misnomer - the correct phrase is 'limited'. A limited government is one that is only present in the areas granted to it. It should NOT be weak in those areas. It shouldn't be involved in areas where it hasn't been granted jurisdiction.
Anyways, have you noticed how most of the anti-libertarian posters seem to feel the need to post as anonymous cowards, while I'd say it's more the opposite for supporters?
I don't read AC A human right
Barratry (/bærtri/ ba-r-tree) is a legal term with several meanings. In common law, barratry is the offense committed by people who are “overly officious in instigating or encouraging prosecution of groundless litigation” or who bring “repeated or persistent acts of litigation” for the purposes of profit or harassment.
For example, in the U.S. states of California, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Washington, barratry is a misdemeanor.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barratry_(common_law)
It might not be such a bad thing if Gawker were put out of business. I had never heard of Gawker until I read How Gawker Ripped Off My Newspaper Story seven years ago. Who needs to read the story from its original source when Gawker has published a digest? And this has helped put local newspapers on their back.
Of course, this isn't a lot different from a SLAPP, so it is troubling. The funny thing is that most litigation is supposedly about "being made whole", and our court system evaluates wholeness in dollars and cents, but Thiel seems to want wholeness in destroying the organization that outed him.
"Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past." -- George Orwell
It takes a big government with guns to enforce libel laws, so yes. They are the opposite of libertarian.
Common mistake, libertarians aren't for weak or 'small' government, though we are for a smaller government than is currently in place.
We're for a limited government, which means a government that is restricted in scope of duties, not power to implement said duties. The government is too small/weak if it can't enforce court orders.
Unfortunately, there's a fairly intense(for the size of the party itself) misinformation campaign that mixes up Anarchist views with libertarian views.
For example, we ask why the hell do we have the TSA. We don't try to limit it to, say, 5k employees, we try to get rid of the whole thing. If the FBI is swamped handling cases(murder/kidnapping/theft/etc...), maybe they do need more money for personnel, but the DEA needs to go away. Etc...
I don't read AC A human right
This is referred to as champerty or maintenance in the common law and used to be illegal.
Basically the wealthy and powerful get to walk over everyone else in a libertarian society unless there is a magical supersmall but superpowerful government or powerful weapon shop hand weapon which allows everyone else to resist them.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
Seems like the money this guy used on Hogan's behalf should be considered taxable income for Hogan.
...Wow. I wonder how that got missed?
Okay. First thing, realize that neither liberal nor conservative philosophies are particularly pacifistic. Second, that there's a difference between an individual using force, and the government doing so.
Individuals and government both have the right to use violence to prevent imminent harm by violence. Otherwise, if you have been harmed through the improper actions of another, the correct action is to ask for redress, and if that is not satisfactory, to sue. After the court passes judgement, yes, violence may ultimately be involved in the enforcement of the court order. Such is life.
Some cites:
source
"One possible position is extreme pacifism, according to which individuals are never permitted to use non-consensual force against others. Another is moderate pacifism, according to which individuals are permitted to use non-consensual force against others only when necessary in self-defense (or the defense of others). This moderate view would allow the use of force against a person to prevent her from wrongfully using force against others, but it would not allow the use of force to rectify past violations (e.g., punish or extract compensation from the rights-violator). Most libertarian positions would allow the use of force for cases of rectification. Many would allow the use of force for retributive punishment, but some—Barnett (1998), for example—reject retributive punishment and insist that compensation for wrongful harms is the sole justification for the rectificatory use of force."
Non-agression principle
Like many philosophical points, a couple sentences is far from enough to adequately explain such a complicated topic.
It's even more complicated in that as a moderate libertarian, I'm willing to set aside the non-agression principle in cases where there's sufficient evidence that holding to it will lead to increased human suffering. It's just that I hold that, in general, it's the best option, and that any breaking from it needs to be carefully weighed and considered.
I don't read AC A human right
A lot of people are spouting "Freedom of the Press", but really, Gawker and "Journalism" should not be used in relation to each other.
As to this asshat using his money to fight against something that bothers him? Well, it's a free country, right?
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
Hogan is a piece of shit.
Go read up on his son's high speed accident and the friend he crippled for life. Go read up on the tapes that got leaked of what they were saying amongst themselves in regards to said crippled friend when they thought nobody was listening.
He's just as big a piece of shit as Gawker, and has done just as much to ruin other people's lives. Furthermore, he liked bragging about his sex life on national TV, so he'd already opened the door to more in depth reporting on it, even the filthy tabloid kind.
Has anyone checked to see who is behind the editorial direction of Gawker? Most media outlets are nothing more than the mouthpiece for someone with money and an agenda.
Would anyone have brought this up if it was Soros funding the lawsuit?
Yeah, I didn't think so.
The double standard in the media is unbelievable.
Eff you Slashdot.
Unfortunately "Libertarian" has many different schools and meanings as "Feminist".
On one end you have "Dude they are going to legalize weed!" Libertarians. On the other end you have "If you want police or military protection you should hire your own police force and military."
This is just like Feminists have humanists at one end saying "Woman are just people, just like men are and as such you should treat them well, until they earn different treatment." and at the other end radfems saying that all men should be castrated and enslavedor aborted so the human species can just be women, now that you can fertilize eggs with the DNA from another woman.
When the Libertarian name began to gain buzz a lot of anarchists became "Libertarian", as that seemed like the best odds on getting rid of government and law.
As for helping a case against Gawker.. This bothers me as much as finding out he secretly funded finding a cure for Ebola.
So this sounds like they meet the definition of "Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation", would be an interesting tactic.
Remember: a Libertarian is an anarchist with a trust fund.
Remember what Orwell wrote about 5-minute hates? These have the effect of instilling group unity against a common enemy.
So it's basically porn dressed as news, meant to feed people's most primal competitive needs.
Like you, I had to stop reading. Any site that goes nasty in search of clickbait gets deleted from the bookmarks. It's kinda sad, though, the list of readable sites keeps getting shorter. It's funny, you'd think we'd have learned that lesson a hundred years ago or so, with the rampant yellow journalism in print media. Granted, it never really stopped--we've always had tabloid rags that will print any nonsense--but we once at least had some veneer of respectability in our media.
It's hard to find even a hint of that nowadays.
... fuckin' doin' what I please. Cuz I can.
Jay Rosen, media critic and a professor of journalism at New York University, said: Trying to kill a publication you don't like by funding lawsuits against them isn't very libertarian, is it?
Freedom with a capital 'F' and a loud voice so often means only "my freedom" - especially when you are rich and feel entitled to take what you want. It is so very rare that it actually means "I will defend you freedom, even if it costs me".
Ever since I read about Gawker taking a quote out of context and basically destroying someone's life, it's hard for me to feel sorry for them.
Since when the whole story came to light, Gawker didn't do the responsible thing and discipline Biddle, I conclude they didn't learn anything about responsible journalism. News flash: creating news is explicitly not part of a reporter's job.
A cat can't teach a dog to bark.
If the lawsuits against Gawker aren't frivolous, the any third party involvement in the promotion of such suits shouldn't matter - even if we think that such involvement is motivated be revenge. In fact, this would be a case of a rich man funding a public interest litigation (media which defames individuals can be hard to fight back).
In other words, as long as Thiel's involvement leverages proper means and towards proper (primary) ends, any improper side effects he might hope for shouldn't concern us to the extent that we might dismiss the value of the primary ends and his positive contribution towards achieving such ends.
Really? A "news" story about Gawker by Gawker on a secret plan to destroy them because Gawker reported on a billionaire who funded lawsuits against Gawker...
Really?
Gawker.
Does anything think they have a shred of integrity at this point?