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?

Comments

The enemy of my enemy is my friend

[Virtucon]

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

Re:The enemy of my enemy is my friend

[Anonymous Coward]

Press freedom is an essential element of any democracy. So pretty obviously the big issue with rich bastards using their wealth to try to shut down publications that criticise them is that it clearly works against that principle. I certainly wouldn't want to live in a society where the rich felt that they could do whatever the fuck they wanted and never be called out on it by the media, because media organisations feared this kind of attack if they did so.

Re:The enemy of my enemy is my friend

[Fire_Wraith]

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?

The ability of the rich to try and sue someone into compliance, or at least silence, is nothing new, and is troubling on its own, but at least when they're suing directly they open themselves to discovery. Donald Trump once sued a journalist for claiming he was worth less than $250 million, but that led to him being forced to release tax documents to the court as part of it, so everyone could see what the truth actually was. This is different, because he's not even a first party to it, he's just recruiting and bankrolling people to sue them.

And while Gawker isn't exactly a pure and noble martyr that we should feel bad about, to put it mildly, the notion that someone rich enough can use the court system in this manner to destroy a news organization, even a terrible tabloid one, just because he doesn't like what it says, should scare us. It's a chilling effect that may have significant repercussions on reporting on the activities of the rich and powerful in general.

Re:The enemy of my enemy is my friend

[Anonymous Coward]

>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?

It's a fine tactic to use against someone who would out you as gay against your will. What Gawker's circle does is not journalism, it's character assassination based on political beliefs.

Re:The enemy of my enemy is my friend

[Jiro]

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?

This lawsuit wasn't mainly trouble for Gawker because they would go bankrupt even if they won. It was trouble for Gawker because Gawker committed the unethical behavior described in the lawsuit and had to pay for it. There's a big difference between suing innocent people to make them pay for defense, and suing guilty people to make them pay for their crimes.

Re:The enemy of my enemy is my friend

[DNS-and-BIND]

Well, this relies on the Press being free enough to criticize the government, and be clever enough to realize when they government is lying to them and investigate to reveal the truth. Suing the media for lying isn't nearly the same level of problem, particularly when the media is 100% in the wrong as in the Hulk Hogan case.

Rhodesâ(TM)s war room did its work on Capitol Hill and with reporters. In the spring of last year, legions of arms-control experts began popping up at think tanks and on social media, and then became key sources for hundreds of often-clueless reporters. âoeWe created an echo chamber,â he admitted, when I asked him to explain the onslaught of freshly minted experts cheerleading for the deal. âoeThey were saying things that validated what we had given them to say.â

When I suggested that all this dark metafictional play seemed a bit removed from rational debate over Americaâ(TM)s future role in the world, Rhodes nodded. âoeIn the absence of rational discourse, we are going to discourse the [expletive] out of this,â he said. âoeWe had test drives to know who was going to be able to carry our message effectively, and how to use outside groups like Ploughshares, the Iran Project and whomever else. So we knew the tactics that worked.â He is proud of the way he sold the Iran deal. âoeWe drove them crazy,â he said of the dealâ(TM)s opponents.

The Presidency played the Press like a fiddle and they fell for it hook, line and sinker. They lied, lied, and lied some more and no reporter bothered to investigate. THAT is more destructive to democracy than a lawsuit against clear Press misconduct.

Re:The enemy of my enemy is my friend

[Fire_Wraith]

If you read through to some of the reporting on this, you'll find that it wasn't just the Hulk Hogan lawsuit - he's arranged for many more. What's more, the lawyers in the case were pursuing tactics that wouldn't make sense if they were actually trying to maximize the award to their client, but would absolutely make sense if they were simply trying to attack Gawker without care as to whether Hogan actually gets any money out of it.

So, in short, they're not trying to make Gawker pay for their crimes, they're trying to make Gawker go bankrupt any way they can. That's a huge distinction.

Re:The enemy of my enemy is my friend

[MightyMartian]

It's hard to justify the claim that publicly outing someone's sexuality or making a private sex tape available is an example of press freedom. There's no solid lemon test here, unfortunately, but certainly courts, when confronted with press freedom versus rights to privacy, there's a "public good" question that has to be asked. What good was served by releasing the Hulk Hogan video?

Re: The enemy of my enemy is my friend

[ArmoredDragon]

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.

Re:The enemy of my enemy is my friend

[dreamchaser]

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.

Re: The enemy of my enemy is my friend

[jmcvetta]

In Soviet America you have all the rights you can afford to sue for!

Sure it's libertarian

[Firethorn]

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.

Re:Rich people fucking over everyone else

[shaitand]

Who is being fucked over? He's helping people Gawker fucked over.

WTF Slashdot

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Actually it's VERY Libertarian to sue

[Zontar_Thing_From_Ve]

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.

Re:Don't worry, nobody will care

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

What's the story here?

[wwalker]

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.

Very Libertarian

[IMightB]

It sounds very libertarian to me, at least he's not whining and bankrolling politicians to pass laws against his interests.

Re:Don't worry, nobody will care

[Jason Levine]

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?

Someone explain the Gawker mentality to me

[DNS-and-BIND]

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?

Just like the ACLU & co.?

[Anonymous Coward]

> 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.

Re:Don't worry, nobody will care

[Crashmarik]

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.

Folks, you've been had.

[swan5566]

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?