# Peter Thiel vs. Gawker: Should I be glad about this, or worried? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [May 26, 2016, 9:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/peter-thiel-vs-gawker-should-i-be-glad-about-this-or-worried/755766 "2016-05-26T21:17:20Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![TheSeaOtter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ed655f/32.png) [@TheSeaOtter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TheSeaOtter)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2016, 9:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/peter-thiel-vs-gawker-should-i-be-glad-about-this-or-worried/755766/1 "2016-05-26T21:17:20Z")
So, this is much in the news today. Here’s a piece from the Times: [Peter Thiel, Tech Billionaire, Reveals Secret War With Gawker - The New York Times](http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/26/business/dealbook/peter-thiel-tech-billionaire-reveals-secret-war-with-gawker.html) Summary: Ten years ago, Facebook board member, PayPal co-founder and all-round Silicon Valley rich guy Peter Thiel was outed as gay by Gawker news, and has spent ten years waiting for the chance to utterly destroy the company. He’s now near to accomplishing that goal - he financially backed not only the headline-grabbing Hulk Hogan sex tape lawsuit, but multiple other, smaller suits. Gawker is (or ‘was’, since it looks like they’re rapidly headed for the past tense) an awful, tabloid-esque company. Thiel, in the linked article, says that they “ruined people’s lives for no reason”, and aside from pointing that the reason was ‘to generate views, because money’, I can’t really disagree. They are clearly bad people who did bad things. So I should be glad about this, right? Well, not so fast… Thiel, for his part, is a billionaire using his immense wealth to shut down a company that said things he didn’t like. He claims to be a Libertarian (how he squares this with being a pledged delegate for Trump is unclear to me), but seems to have no problem using the government (the court system, in this case) to destroy his enemies. He wasn’t able to hit them on the thing they actually said about him (because it was true), but now, even if they were to prevail on appeal in this particular suit, he has the resources to simply wear them down, defending against an unending torrent of lawsuits. As a free-speech advocate, I can’t exactly condone that kind of behavior either. Is there someone here I should be rooting for? Or, failing that should I regard this apparent outcome as a positive thing? ---
**Author:** ![Grumman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/43a26b/32.png) [@Grumman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grumman)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2016, 10:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/peter-thiel-vs-gawker-should-i-be-glad-about-this-or-worried/755766/2 "2016-05-26T22:49:57Z")
So on one side you have a bunch of sociopaths who show open contempt for the right to privacy, up to and including declaring that they think distributing child pornography serves the public interest if the victim’s parents are famous. On the other, you have a man who donated money to stop them. And you don’t know which side to root for? ---
**Author:** ![PastTense](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pasttense/32/14550_2.png) [@PastTense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PastTense)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2016, 11:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/peter-thiel-vs-gawker-should-i-be-glad-about-this-or-worried/755766/3 "2016-05-26T23:03:48Z")
" During the trial, New York-based Gawker was said to be worth $83 million, and Gawker founder and chief executive Nick Denton worth $21 million." > **[Is billionaire Peter Thiel secretly bankrolling Hulk Hogan’s lawsuit against...](https://www.marketwatch.com/story/billionaire-peter-thiel-secretly-funded-lawsuit-against-gawker-report-2016-05-24)** > > Billionaire venture capitalist Peter Thiel has reportedly been funding pro wrestler Hulk Hogan’s lawsuit against Gawker Media LLC. This is plenty of money to be able to pay good lawyers. What you should be concerned about is lawsuits between the non-rich and the rich. ---
**Author:** ![iamthewalrus\_3](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/258eb7/32.png) [@iamthewalrus\_3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iamthewalrus_3)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2016, 11:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/peter-thiel-vs-gawker-should-i-be-glad-about-this-or-worried/755766/4 "2016-05-26T23:41:44Z")
I am conflicted about this. Gawker seems like the worst kind of “news” organization, and outing Thiel against his will, and in so flippant a manner the worst kind of bullshit privacy-destroying, so seeing them get their comeuppance in this way is satisfying. I find it hard to fault a result that it’s not ok to release a sex tape of someone without their permission and thumb your nose at a court order to remove it. Seems like the case was decided reasonably on its merits. On the other hand, there’s no real indication that Peter Thiel might not do the same thing to another organization that he disagreed with. The fact that he was searching for plaintiffs with the goal of destroying Gawker, not searching for people who were wronged and who legitimately needed help, is relevant. > [@PastTense](#): > > " During the trial, New York-based Gawker was said to be worth $83 million, and Gawker founder and chief executive Nick Denton worth $21 million." > [Is billionaire Peter Thiel secretly bankrolling Hulk Hogan’s lawsuit against Gawker? - MarketWatch](http://www.marketwatch.com/story/billionaire-peter-thiel-secretly-funded-lawsuit-against-gawker-report-2016-05-24) > > This is plenty of money to be able to pay good lawyers. What you should be concerned about is lawsuits between the non-rich and the rich. Peter Thiel’s net worth is $2.8 billion. How much of that was he willing to burn to destroy Gawker? Sure, they can hire good lawyers, but if he keeps funding anyone with a beef against them, eventually he’s going to grind them down. It’s like table stakes at poker. Doesn’t matter how good you are if you’re going up against someone with 100 times the bankroll. On the other hand, if Gawker didn’t do shit like release sex tapes of people against their wishes, then Thiel’s money might be for naught. Ben Thomson’s take on this, that [Thiel is a comic book hero who fights the systemic problems he helped create](https://stratechery.com/2016/peter-thiel-comic-book-hero/) is astute. ---
**Author:** ![Larry\_Borgia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/larry_borgia/32/156_2.png) [@Larry\_Borgia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Borgia)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2016, 11:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/peter-thiel-vs-gawker-should-i-be-glad-about-this-or-worried/755766/5 "2016-05-26T23:52:59Z")
> [@Grumman](#): > > So on one side you have a bunch of sociopaths who show open contempt for the right to privacy, up to and including declaring that they think distributing child pornography serves the public interest if the victim’s parents are famous. On the other, you have a man who donated money to stop them. And you don’t know which side to root for? You’re a smart guy, Grumman. I’m sure you can think of some potential unfortunate consequences if Thiel’s tactics become a general tactic every time a wealthy person is annoyed by a news organization, even one as shitty as Gawker media. ---
**Author:** ![Grumman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/43a26b/32.png) [@Grumman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grumman)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2016, 12:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/peter-thiel-vs-gawker-should-i-be-glad-about-this-or-worried/755766/6 "2016-05-27T00:46:22Z")
> [@iamthewalrus\_3](#): > > On the other hand, there’s no real indication that Peter Thiel might not do the same thing to another organization that he disagreed with. So there is zero evidence that this is anything more than a figment of your imagination, and this is Peter Thiel’s fault why? ---
**Author:** ![UDS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecae2f/32.png) [@UDS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UDS)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2016, 12:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/peter-thiel-vs-gawker-should-i-be-glad-about-this-or-worried/755766/7 "2016-05-27T00:54:56Z")
> [@Larry\_Borgia](#): > > You’re a smart guy, Grumman. I’m sure you can think of some potential unfortunate consequences if Thiel’s tactics become a general tactic every time a wealthy person is annoyed by a news organization, even one as shitty as Gawker media. Hey, wealth buys power. That’'s why people crave it. And if you’re going to arrange society in such a way that certain people can amass collosal wealth, then those people are going to be extremely powerful. And they’re going to use their power for their own advantage, because that’s what people who have power do. As it happens, Thiel thinks that privacy is really important, so he is using his power to take down privacy-destroying organisations. He will undoubtedly tell himself - and there is a measure of truth in this - that he is doing so not just for himself, but for everybody; that we all benefit when privacy is assured. But the fact is that Thiel’s view of what has paramount importance - privacy - will prevail over the view of some less wealthy person that free speech has paramount importance, because Thiel is very rich. If there is a problem here, it is not that society does not sufficiently value free speech. It is that society allows power and influence to be unevenly distributed, so that a small number of people get to decide what is important and what is not. ---
**Author:** ![coremelt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/4491bb/32.png) [@coremelt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/coremelt)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2016, 1:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/peter-thiel-vs-gawker-should-i-be-glad-about-this-or-worried/755766/8 "2016-05-27T01:01:03Z")
> [@iamthewalrus\_3](#): > > I find it hard to fault a result that it’s not ok to release a sex tape of someone without their permission and thumb your nose at a court order to remove it. Seems like the case was decided reasonably on its merits. This is the key issue. Gawker thought they were above the law, ignored court orders and gawker staff made ridiculous comments during the trial indicating their contempt for the process. They brought this on themselves. If a billionaire goes after another media company that doesn’t try and pull this kind of bullshit then the result would probably be very different. Vice has gone after plenty of billionaires and foreign dictators, Greenwald’s Intercept is publishing stuff squarely targeting most governments of the world, and we’ve just seen the Panama papers get wide media coverage. Non of these seem to be in danger of getting shut down despite pissing off plenty of billionaires. ---
**Author:** ![HMS\_Irruncible](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hms_irruncible/32/7394_2.png) [@HMS\_Irruncible](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HMS_Irruncible)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2016, 1:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/peter-thiel-vs-gawker-should-i-be-glad-about-this-or-worried/755766/9 "2016-05-27T01:06:58Z")
Gawker is/was has been wrong and irresponsible in outing people, and they ought to pay for that. However IMO society should not allow a person without standing to fund someone else’s lawsuits, because that creates a serious imbalance of power. ---
**Author:** ![urban1a](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/e47c2d/32.png) [@urban1a](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/urban1a)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2016, 1:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/peter-thiel-vs-gawker-should-i-be-glad-about-this-or-worried/755766/10 "2016-05-27T01:19:51Z")
So, you all think that a news organization, no matter how upstanding, should make sure that none of the news they print be controversial just in case someone is going to sue them. While I agree that Gawker, is somewhat shady, so are all of the tabloids that line the supermarket checkout lines. The first amendment protects Gawker, and those tabloids as well as the New York Times and the Washington Post. Bob ---
**Author:** ![octopus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/octopus/32/3716_2.png) [@octopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/octopus)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2016, 1:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/peter-thiel-vs-gawker-should-i-be-glad-about-this-or-worried/755766/11 "2016-05-27T01:22:23Z")
> [@TheSeaOtter](#): > > So, this is much in the news today. Here’s a piece from the Times: [http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/26/business/dealbook/peter-thiel-tech-billionaire-reveals-secret-war-with-gawker.html](http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/26/business/dealbook/peter-thiel-tech-billionaire-reveals-secret-war-with-gawker.html) > > Summary: > Ten years ago, Facebook board member, PayPal co-founder and all-round Silicon Valley rich guy Peter Thiel was outed as gay by Gawker news, and has spent ten years waiting for the chance to utterly destroy the company. He’s now near to accomplishing that goal - he financially backed not only the headline-grabbing Hulk Hogan sex tape lawsuit, but multiple other, smaller suits. > > Gawker is (or ‘was’, since it looks like they’re rapidly headed for the past tense) an awful, tabloid-esque company. Thiel, in the linked article, says that they “ruined people’s lives for no reason”, and aside from pointing that the reason was ‘to generate views, because money’, I can’t really disagree. They are clearly bad people who did bad things. > > So I should be glad about this, right? Well, not so fast… > > Thiel, for his part, is a billionaire using his immense wealth to shut down a company that said things he didn’t like. He claims to be a Libertarian (how he squares this with being a pledged delegate for Trump is unclear to me), but seems to have no problem using the government (the court system, in this case) to destroy his enemies. He wasn’t able to hit them on the thing they actually said about him (because it was true), but now, even if they were to prevail on appeal in this particular suit, he has the resources to simply wear them down, defending against an unending torrent of lawsuits. As a free-speech advocate, I can’t exactly condone that kind of behavior either. > Is there someone here I should be rooting for? Or, failing that should I regard this apparent outcome as a positive thing? Well if free speech has consequences, with regards to the fallout regarding the Hulkster, then free press has consequences. I consider this karma. ---
**Author:** ![octopus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/octopus/32/3716_2.png) [@octopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/octopus)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2016, 1:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/peter-thiel-vs-gawker-should-i-be-glad-about-this-or-worried/755766/12 "2016-05-27T01:23:32Z")
> [@HMS\_Irruncible](#): > > Gawker is/was has been wrong and irresponsible in outing people, and they ought to pay for that. However IMO society should not allow a person without standing to fund someone else’s lawsuits, because that creates a serious imbalance of power. Imbalance of power? That’s too damn bad. ---
**Author:** ![HMS\_Irruncible](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hms_irruncible/32/7394_2.png) [@HMS\_Irruncible](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HMS_Irruncible)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2016, 1:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/peter-thiel-vs-gawker-should-i-be-glad-about-this-or-worried/755766/13 "2016-05-27T01:27:36Z")
> [@octopus](#): > > Imbalance of power? That’s too damn bad. So it’s cool with you if a person with money can just jump into any lawsuit they please, regardless of standing, and influence the outcome? Just want to make sure we’re getting you right here. ---
**Author:** ![WillFarnaby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/willfarnaby/32/514_2.png) [@WillFarnaby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WillFarnaby)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2016, 1:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/peter-thiel-vs-gawker-should-i-be-glad-about-this-or-worried/755766/14 "2016-05-27T01:28:25Z")
We have a government that prosecutes journalists and keeps courageous figures like Ed Snowden on the run and people are worried about a scary libertarian with money taking down a website seemingly obsessed about where famous people are putting their dicks. Wow. ---
**Author:** ![PastTense](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pasttense/32/14550_2.png) [@PastTense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PastTense)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2016, 1:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/peter-thiel-vs-gawker-should-i-be-glad-about-this-or-worried/755766/15 "2016-05-27T01:58:05Z")
> [@Larry\_Borgia](#): > > I’m sure you can think of some potential unfortunate consequences if Thiel’s tactics become a general tactic every time a wealthy person is annoyed by a news organization, even one as shitty as Gawker media. Sure there are unfortunate consequences. But this is already happens so frequently that it is not news to virtually everyone–and the news media have adapted so they seldom offend the rich and powerful. ---
**Author:** ![octopus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/octopus/32/3716_2.png) [@octopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/octopus)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2016, 4:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/peter-thiel-vs-gawker-should-i-be-glad-about-this-or-worried/755766/16 "2016-05-27T04:12:50Z")
> [@HMS\_Irruncible](#): > > So it’s cool with you if a person with money can just jump into any lawsuit they please, regardless of standing, and influence the outcome? Just want to make sure we’re getting you right here. It’s cool with me that people can spend or give their money to people or causes as they see fit. Plus how is your idea even enforceable? There are hundreds of loopholes that would be impossible to close. And it doesn’t bother you that in practically every law suit one side has more resources than the other? ---
**Author:** ![coremelt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/4491bb/32.png) [@coremelt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/coremelt)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2016, 5:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/peter-thiel-vs-gawker-should-i-be-glad-about-this-or-worried/755766/17 "2016-05-27T05:14:34Z")
> [@urban1a](#): > > The first amendment protects Gawker, and those tabloids as well as the New York Times and the Washington Post. > > Bob What you’re arguing is that it’s ok for someone to record a tape of you having sex without your knowledge and consent and then distribute that and make money off it? Do you think the first amendment allows that? So if a hotel installs hidden cameras in all their guest rooms and sells the resulting footage to porn sites that should be legal and first amendment protected? Thats exactly equivalent to what you are arguing. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Strangelove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.strangelove/32/6613_2.png) [@Dr.Strangelove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Strangelove)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2016, 5:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/peter-thiel-vs-gawker-should-i-be-glad-about-this-or-worried/755766/18 "2016-05-27T05:43:06Z")
> [@Larry\_Borgia](#): > > YI’m sure you can think of some potential unfortunate consequences if Thiel’s tactics become a general tactic every time a wealthy person is annoyed by a news organization, even one as shitty as Gawker media. Do you think there are a bunch of billionaires about to come out of the woodwork, thinking “Well, it used to be distasteful to launch lawsuits against publications I don’t like, but now that Thiel’s done it the floodgates are open”? There’s no legal precedent being set here. Whether these hypothetical future lawsuits against non-shitty organizations happen has nothing to do with Thiel’s behavior. ---
**Author:** ![Measure\_for\_Measure](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/measure_for_measure/32/557_2.png) [@Measure\_for\_Measure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Measure_for_Measure)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2016, 6:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/peter-thiel-vs-gawker-should-i-be-glad-about-this-or-worried/755766/19 "2016-05-27T06:01:13Z")
> [@HMS\_Irruncible](#): > > Gawker is/was has been wrong and irresponsible in outing people, and they ought to pay for that. However IMO society should not allow a person without standing to fund someone else’s lawsuits, because that creates a serious imbalance of power. Solution: permit Theil to do this anonymously so we don’t have to know about it. (Done. Yes, I kid.) > [@Grumman](#): > > So there is zero evidence that this is anything more than a figment of your imagination, and this is Peter Thiel’s fault why? Not just a figment. Mother Jones was hit by a bullshit lawsuit by a zillionaire: MJ and their insurance company ended up paying $2.5 million in legal fees. Not sustainable. This sort of thing used to be illegal. Before market fundamentalism took over, it was understood that the rich could potentially use the court system as an harassment tool, regardless of whether they won or not. > **[Even Gawker haters should fear the strategy Peter Thiel is using to destroy...](https://www.vox.com/2016/5/26/11772856/peter-thiel-gawker-war)** > > Vox is a general interest news site for the 21st century. Its mission: to help everyone understand our complicated world, so that we can all help shape it. In text, video and audio, our reporters explain politics, policy, world affairs, technology,... > **[Billionaire’s Bogus Legal Tactics Against Bloggers Threaten Free Speech](https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2012/03/billionaires-bogus-legal-threats-against-bloggers-threaten-free-speech)** > > Recently, Salon’s Glenn Greenwald reported that Idaho billionaire and CEO of Melaleuca, Inc., Frank VanderSloot, has been engaged in a systematic campaign to silence journalists and bloggers from publishing stories about his political views and... Re: the OP. You should be glad and worried. Glad because Gawker has made some pretty loathesome decisions. Worried, because this opens the door to all manner of billionaire nonsense, stuff that has been kept in check by fast eroding social norms. ---
**Author:** ![coremelt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/4491bb/32.png) [@coremelt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/coremelt)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2016, 9:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/peter-thiel-vs-gawker-should-i-be-glad-about-this-or-worried/755766/20 "2016-05-27T09:17:21Z")
> [@Measure\_for\_Measure](#): > > Worried, because this opens the door to all manner of billionaire nonsense, stuff that has been kept in check by fast eroding social norms. No it doesn’t. Gawker would have been completely free to publish an interview with Heather Clem where she describes having sex with Hulk Hogan. They could even hire a Hulk Hogan look alike, get Heather Clem to re-enact what she did with hulk and publish a video of that. All first amendment protected. They did not have a right to publish a sex tape of Hulk Hogan recorded without his knowledge or consent. That’s why he won the case. Anyone that cares about privacy should be happy about the outcome of this case. The rights to your own recorded image (when in private) are a separate but related issue to first amendment rights. In this case copyright comes into it. When Clem’s husband recorded the sex tape without Hulk Hogan’s knowledge in private, that means he doesn’t own the copyright to that recording, so he has no right to sell it to Gawker and Gawker has no right to publish it. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/peter-thiel-vs-gawker-should-i-be-glad-about-this-or-worried/755766.md?page=2)