There's always a bigger fish.
Peter Thiel, Tech Billionaire, Reveals Secret War with Gawker
11–20 of 335 posts
Re: Peter Thiel, Tech Billionaire, Reveals Secret War with Gawker
#12Earlier quoted context omitted.
His stated goal, "deterrence," is the exact thing people talk about when they worry about a chilling effect. The fact that people are applauding because it's someone they disagree with whose ox is getting gored is really disappointing for a community that espouses such strong freedom of speech principles.
Freedom of speech does not imply freedom of consequences from speech.
I must admit, it is funny seeing the inversion on this from the usual free speech absolutists :)
Re: Peter Thiel, Tech Billionaire, Reveals Secret War with Gawker
#13Bad policy. If you don't like what they are doing based on moral grounds, then use your money and influence to educate people on why what they are doing is bad. That has a better chance of stomping out this problem for good. Taking a vendetta like this by trying to sue them out of business is just playing whack a mole. Another company will rise out of their ashes.
You might as well be educating Russian malware spammers on why emailing people phishing scams and keyloggers is wrong.
We could get some ethics professors to write a monograph on the subject; maybe that would enlighten them.
Re: Peter Thiel, Tech Billionaire, Reveals Secret War with Gawker
#14Thiel claims to despise "massive privacy violations" on the part of groups like Gawker, yet he was one of the co-founders of Palantir. These people are just narcissists who want revenge for someone splashing mud on their boots. They're not fighting for our privacy, or for the common good. Sorry buddy, you are worth more than 99.999% of us. That makes you a significant figure and thus newsworthy. Your sexual orientation gives people some insight into whether you would support a certain political party, activists groups, etc. I'm just astonished at the tone deafness of this guy's comments.
Re: Peter Thiel, Tech Billionaire, Reveals Secret War with Gawker
#15>He added: “It’s not for me to decide what happens to Gawker. If America rallies around Gawker and decides we want more people to be outed and more sex tapes to be posted without consent, then they will find a way to save Gawker, and I can’t stop it.” An important reminder of exactly what conduct, on Gawker's part, people are defending. They have no moral high ground, noble principles, or higher purpose. They're scum…
An important reminder of exactly what conduct, on Gawker's part, people are defending. This is a lousy strawman. It's possible to both find Gawker abhorrent and think that Thiel's conduct is deeply unethical.
All I see are slippery slope arguments claiming that, next time, Thiel might go after someone who didn't unarguably deserve it.
Re: Peter Thiel, Tech Billionaire, Reveals Secret War with Gawker
#16Josh Marshall, from John Gruber:
It all comes down to a simple point. You may not like Gawker. They’ve published
stories I would have been ashamed to publish. But if the extremely wealthy,
under a veil secrecy, can destroy publications they want to silence, that’s a
far bigger threat to freedom of the press than most of the things we commonly
worry about on that front. If this is the new weapon in the arsenal of the
super rich, few publications will have the resources or the death wish to
scrutinize them closely.
Re: Peter Thiel, Tech Billionaire, Reveals Secret War with Gawker
#17Earlier quoted context omitted.
An important reminder of exactly what conduct, on Gawker's part, people are defending. This is a lousy strawman. It's possible to both find Gawker abhorrent and think that Thiel's conduct is deeply unethical.
All I see are slippery slope arguments claiming that, next time, Thiel might go after someone who didn't unarguably deserve it.
Why do you think the wealthy should be able to stop the free press from publishing things they don't like?
Re: Peter Thiel, Tech Billionaire, Reveals Secret War with Gawker
#18Nothing new here. People with power, money and influence can do shady things. Facebook with trending news, Peter Theil with funding suit against Gawker...they are all the same.
Re: Peter Thiel, Tech Billionaire, Reveals Secret War with Gawker
#19Josh Marshall, from John Gruber: It all comes down to a simple point. You may not like Gawker. They’ve published stories I would have been ashamed to publish. But if the extremely wealthy, under a veil secrecy, can destroy publications they want to silence, that’s a far bigger threat to freedom of the press than most of the things we commonly worry about on that front. If this is the new weapon in the arsenal of the…
> But if the extremely wealthy, under a veil secrecy, can destroy publications they want to silence,
Is there some method of 'destruction' that isn't reported on here, other than Peter Thiel financing Hulk Hogan's lawsuit? I think you are going to be hard-pressed to find people that think Gawker should be able to publish a 'sex tape', ignore a court order to take it down, because it's 'journalism'.
Re: Peter Thiel, Tech Billionaire, Reveals Secret War with Gawker
#20>He added: “It’s not for me to decide what happens to Gawker. If America rallies around Gawker and decides we want more people to be outed and more sex tapes to be posted without consent, then they will find a way to save Gawker, and I can’t stop it.” An important reminder of exactly what conduct, on Gawker's part, people are defending. They have no moral high ground, noble principles, or higher purpose. They're scum…
As long as we're quoting someone with an obvious vested interest, how do you feel about what Gawker points to: "Hillary Clinton’s secret email account, Bill Cosby’s history with women, the mayor of Toronto as a crack smoker, Tom Cruise’s role within Scientology, the N.F.L. cover-up of domestic abuse by players and just this month the hidden power of Facebook to determine the news you see.” It's not so cut and dry, wh…
In the absence of a regulator, something needs to keep the 'press' in check.