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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"
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
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.
Who is being fucked over? He's helping people Gawker fucked over.
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.
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.
How the hell is that chilling for free press? A horrendous, shitty rag was doing blatantly illegal and unethical shit, and a rich guy made sure they can't just hide behind a wall of expensive lawyers by paying for expensive lawyers for the other side. Justice won, and the shitheads at Gawker will finally have to face some consequences. I hope the Conde Nast guy they outed sues them for everything that's left after Hogan, too.
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.
Nobody said it's illegal. Not everything that's legal is right.
It sounds very libertarian to me, at least he's not whining and bankrolling politicians to pass laws against his interests.
First amendment protections from private citizens? No. However, private citizens also don't have the right to shut others up simply because they don't like what the person/group is saying. In the US, people have is the ability to report the truth and not get sued for it being embarrassing to the parties involved. If what Gawker reported about Peter Thiel wasn't true, he could have sued them. Presumably, it was true (or Gawker used enough "allegedly" wording to protect their rears) so Thiel couldn't sue. So instead of fighting back against Gawker directly, he used his money to help others sue Gawker with the goal of shutting them up.
The problem here isn't that Gawker is a journalistic saint, but that they are being bullied into submission because they committed the crime of Embarrassing A Rich Guy. As such Rich Guy will use his funds to keep them quiet. If this is allowed, how long until other news organizations - or even individual people - are sued into silence for reporting on things that Random Rich Guys find embarrassing?
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
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!
That does not make one an anarchist. The US Declaration of Independence, the US Constitution, and the Federalist Papers are not anarchist documents.
The best word for would be Classical Liberal as the the term liberal has morphed into progressivism one of many collectivist sects.
If you're scared of your govt then you need to further restrict its powers
Vote 3rd Party in 2016 and beyond
> 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.
Everyone hates Gawker so nobody here will defend them, even though this is fucking chilling for a free press.
Something something ethics in journalism.
If there were anything close to "Close To Ethics In Journalism" this could never have happened. Gawker is little more than a giant trolling operation.
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.
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
I think that misunderstands what anarchists are. I'd argue that they weren't even Libertarians, and certainly their actions when they became heads of government were not the actions of people who believed the state had virtually no role at all. Quite the opposite, particularly for Madison and Jefferson.
Beyond that, I question the notion that any of them viewed the state as an evil. They certainly viewed the State as capable of evil, but then again, the way the Constitution divvied up powers was largely because they viewed everyone, including the voter, as being capable of evil. That's why the President is selected by an Electoral College, rather than by direct general plebiscite, and why, prior to the 17th Amendment, the only branch of the Federal government that was chosen by direct vote was the House of Representatives.
It is true that Jefferson's ideal state was based, not surprisingly, on a sort of agrarian Libertarianism, and that does have some elements in common with some variants of Anarchism, but that hardly means they were Anarchists, nor does it mean, in my view, that they were Libertarians in the way modern Libertarians would think. Beyond that, the entire point of the US Constitution was because the Articles of Confederation were to weak and left too much undefined, and thus threatened the stability and unity of the United States, and the intention all along was to amend that problem by creating a constitution that created a stronger and more stable Federal government.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Well, properly, they are being taken to account for what they did to Hulk Hogan, and the publication of that video is much harder to defend than outing Thiel as a homosexual. The fact is that information gained through questionable, if not outright illegal means, cannot be just universally granted blanket First Amendment protections, and once again courts will be forced to ask "what public good was served by releasing this dubiously-obtained information"?
If this is a blanket First Amendment protection, then revenge porn has essentially been given a complete green light.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
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?
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