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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?
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.
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.
There is no 1st amendment against individuals, just the state. If you harm me by rounding things that are routinely considered private - such as with the hogan case or outing that other guy -you deserve to have your ass handed to you in court. And gawker was trying to avoid that by outspending their opponents in legal fees. This guy just decided to even the playing field.
Gawker can now try and justify their "journalism" in a court of law, versus people they wronged. This is how the system is supposed to work. Justly.
[...] "first they came for X, but I was not X, so I didn't speak out, then they came for Y, but I was not Y, so I didn't speak out, then they came for Z, and I'm Z, but there was no one left to speak out for me."
I am white AND male. Gawker would never be speaking out for me anyway.
Gwaker media is not worth saving. Let the cancer die.
What gawker did in the Hogan case was completely wrong, and it doesn't matter who was backing action against them, even if it was Adolf Hitler. You likewise can't validate what they did just because you don't like the prosecution.
They had zero right to post what they did then to ignore a court order to take it down. This is not a good test case for freedom of the press. Gawker was in the wrong and got bitch slapped for it. It has nothing to do with liking them or not. They crossed the line. Freedom of speech is not absolute (citation: SCOTUS rulings over the years). They were wrong then when ordered to take the video down they thumbed their nose at the court.