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Peter Thiel, Tech Billionaire, Reveals Secret War with Gawker

nytimes.com

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Re: Peter Thiel, Tech Billionaire, Reveals Secret War with Gawker

#71

Post by elevenfist »

capkutay wrote: post #32
darawk wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a poorly thought out argument. He isn't doing anything under-handed or illegal to destroy Gawker. He isn't fabricating evidence against them or paying off cops. He's simply financing a non-spurious lawsuit, which the courts have decided was legitimate. This is exactly what I want the billionaires in our society doing. He may be acting in his own self-interest, but it also happened to align with the public int…

Basically any influence by 'extremely wealthy' is automatically viewed as an attack on 'freedom'. It's a straw-man political argument.

No one gave him the authority to control speech. He has money, but we didn't give him the authority to do this. I honestly hope you are wealthy and this viewpoint supports some sort of authoritarian self-interest. Or you're not American I guess.

Re: Peter Thiel, Tech Billionaire, Reveals Secret War with Gawker

#72

Post by Camillo »

madeofpalk wrote: post #16

Josh 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…

A: "Thiel financing the lawsuit against Gawker is a thread to freedom of the press."

B: "Twitter, Facebook etc. 'curating' political viewpoints is not a threat to free speech because it's not the government."

The intersection of people arguing A and people arguing B.

Re: Peter Thiel, Tech Billionaire, Reveals Secret War with Gawker

#73

Post by zardgiv »

GrumpyYoungMan wrote: post #67
zardgiv wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was directly replying to the comment that "They have no moral high ground, noble principles, or higher purpose." Actually reading the context would make the logic much less baffling.

Okay, your argument then seems to be "They do have a moral high ground, noble principles, or higher purpose some of the time but the rest of the time they break the law". That's not much improvement, I would think.

I don't feel like you're really trying to engage critically here.

Re: Peter Thiel, Tech Billionaire, Reveals Secret War with Gawker

#74

Post by eudox »

lazaroclapp wrote: post #49
darawk wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a poorly thought out argument. He isn't doing anything under-handed or illegal to destroy Gawker. He isn't fabricating evidence against them or paying off cops. He's simply financing a non-spurious lawsuit, which the courts have decided was legitimate. This is exactly what I want the billionaires in our society doing. He may be acting in his own self-interest, but it also happened to align with the public int…

I don't know enough about the case at hand to comment specifically, but arguing that it is always fair to use "augmenting the resources of someone with a legitimate legal claim" as a tactic is not uncontroversial in the general case. Keep in mind that selectively punishing common legal violations is a common censorship tactic in many places. Consider this case in Mexico: "On 12 March 2015, two journalists from MVS, D…

The kind of situation you mention is more likely to happen in situations where the laws are so numerous, anyone who is an enemy of the government can be legally imprisoned for something.

And while the US certainly is in that situation, this is clearly not such a case, because Bollea v. Gakwer was not arguing some obscure legal esoterica.

Re: Peter Thiel, Tech Billionaire, Reveals Secret War with Gawker

#75

Post by Spooky23 »

eudox wrote: post #36
madeofpalk wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you think the wealthy should be able to stop the free press from publishing things they don't like?

"The free press" is rather a grandiose title for a rag like Gawker. If Gawker counts as part of "the free press" -- the people Americans trust with the privilege of mediating their access to much information -- then yes, "the press" deserves whatever it gets.

Unpopular and distasteful speech is the entire purpose of press freedom and free speech.

Keep in mind that while many people would agree with you that Gawker is scum, various communities take offense and find tasteless all sorts of other things.

Freedom is either near absolute or useless.

Re: Peter Thiel, Tech Billionaire, Reveals Secret War with Gawker

#76

Post by nikcub »

Thiel is also apparently financing Shiva Ayyadurai's lawsuit against Gawker. He is the guy who claims to have invented email as a 14 year old. Both Techdirt[1] and Gawker[2] wrote about his nonsense claims, but Shiva and Thiel are suing Gawker.

The sex tape is a little more black and white as a moral argument, but i'd love to hear justifications for defending a man who is clearly so full of shit in a case that with Thiel's support he'll likely win.

[0] http://fortune.com/2016/05/12/gawker-lawsuit-shiva-ayyadurai...

[1] https://www.techdirt.com/blog/?tag=shiva+ayyadurai

[2] http://gizmodo.com/5888702/corruption-lies-and-death-threats...

Re: Peter Thiel, Tech Billionaire, Reveals Secret War with Gawker

#77

Post by Natsu »

lazaroclapp wrote: post #49
darawk wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a poorly thought out argument. He isn't doing anything under-handed or illegal to destroy Gawker. He isn't fabricating evidence against them or paying off cops. He's simply financing a non-spurious lawsuit, which the courts have decided was legitimate. This is exactly what I want the billionaires in our society doing. He may be acting in his own self-interest, but it also happened to align with the public int…

I don't know enough about the case at hand to comment specifically, but arguing that it is always fair to use "augmenting the resources of someone with a legitimate legal claim" as a tactic is not uncontroversial in the general case. Keep in mind that selectively punishing common legal violations is a common censorship tactic in many places. Consider this case in Mexico: "On 12 March 2015, two journalists from MVS, D…

> arguing that it is always fair to use "augmenting the resources of someone with a legitimate legal claim" as a tactic is not uncontroversial in the general case.

In which specific cases is it illegitimate? The only answer I've been able to come up with is "when you don't like the person or cause."

I mean, if anyone wants to condemn the general case, please remember that you'll be condemning the EFF, ACLU and many similar organizations.

He could not have done anything at all to them if the cases were not meritorious. Now, there is a serious problem wherein access to the courts is effectively gated by wealth, but I don't think anyone can seriously argue that Gawker was unable to afford lawyers.

One can, however, point to their violation of court orders, along with their admission in court that they would publish sex tapes for anyone over 4, as evidence that they have no one to blame but themselves for their loss in court.

Re: Peter Thiel, Tech Billionaire, Reveals Secret War with Gawker

#78

Post by [deleted] »

argonaut wrote: post #66
lazaroclapp wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know enough about the case at hand to comment specifically, but arguing that it is always fair to use "augmenting the resources of someone with a legitimate legal claim" as a tactic is not uncontroversial in the general case. Keep in mind that selectively punishing common legal violations is a common censorship tactic in many places. Consider this case in Mexico: "On 12 March 2015, two journalists from MVS, D…

But what's the solution to this problem? Ban wealthy people from financing lawsuits? That's never going to happen. What about ban people with malicious intent from financing the lawsuits? You'll rarely be able to prove the intent.

[deleted]

Re: Peter Thiel, Tech Billionaire, Reveals Secret War with Gawker

#79

Post by darawk »

gph wrote: post #64
darawk wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly what is unethical about his conduct here? I really don't understand what problem anyone has with this.

I don't think Thiel is being unethical and I think the decision in this case was valid. That said I do in general have a problem with all this. I mean what does it say about our justice system when a millionaire needs a billionaire to help seek justice for himself. Is that how it's going to be in the future? If you find yourself wronged by some massively wealthy or powerful entity you now have to find an equally mass…

Ah, in that sense I agree, yes. His help should not have been needed in the first place.

Re: Peter Thiel, Tech Billionaire, Reveals Secret War with Gawker

#80

Post by greatnorthz »

android521 wrote: post #65

Why did Peter Thiel supports Trump? It is unimaginable.

Trump has support in a lot of places that you wouldn't expect, few will admit supporting him in public because they get responses like it is 'unimaginable'. Thiel has the money/power so there's nothing for him to fear.
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