Does the whole Thiel vs. Gawker thing trouble you?

#1

Post by bitinn » Sat, May 28, 2016, 6:10 PM UTC

First of all, I should admit I live nowhere near SV, nowhere near US, but in a land where censorship is the norm, China.

I have been following reports on Thiel vs Gawker for the past a few days, on Twitter, through a VPN.

And what surprises me is the amount of praise for Thiel's actions.

Their reasoning usually includes:

- Look at what Gawker reports, they are in no way representing good journalism.

- Look at the harm Gawker causes, it is only fair they face this consequence.

Alarmingly, these defenses come from notable VCs, or at least they gladly retweet them in defense of Thiel.

Ignoring the conflict of interests for a moment here: let's assume they all act according to their principles.

You know what this looks like to a Chinese citizen and a Startup founder that thinks highly of SV culture?

US is slowly sinking to Chinese level of thinking:

- Where there are no alternatives, but to silence troubling tabloids.

- Where sacrificing freedom of a few, for stability of the masses, is a good cause.

- Where the best assurance you get, is to trust the people at the top.

And you can expect Chinese media quoting this case one day to prove US billionaires can silence media as well.

Gawker may be nowhere near journalism, but to think they "rise above" others to the point where SV billionaires need to spend millions and stick together to defeat them?

It says more about US than Gawker, isn't it?

And that troubles me, as an outsider.

Re: Does the whole Thiel vs. Gawker thing trouble you?

#2

Post by smt88 » Sat, May 28, 2016, 6:20 PM UTC

The troubling part, to me, is not the case itself. I personally don't believe the sex tape was newsworthy (at least not as much of it as they released).

The troubling part is that we have someone secretly using money to manipulate a case in which he is not a direct participant.

Wealthy people should not be able to weaponize our legal system.

Re: Does the whole Thiel vs. Gawker thing trouble you?

#3

Post by waterphone » Sat, May 28, 2016, 6:29 PM UTC

Yes, it definitely does. There has been a recent shift in the past decade or so among a lot of people, I've been noticing, where respect for strict freedom of speech and press has been in decline. A loss of the ideal of "I may disagree with what you say, but I'll fight to the death for your right to say it".

Re: Does the whole Thiel vs. Gawker thing trouble you?

#4

Post by hirundo » Sat, May 28, 2016, 6:35 PM UTC

It is a strength of the U.S. system that outsiders to a case can contribute toward it. That's as true when the outsider is a private individual with a grudge as when they're the ACLU or Sierra Club. It is a weakness of the U.S. system that a jury has the power to destroy a company with excessive judgments, as in the Hulk Hogan case. I don't have the solutions to this, but I am clear that one of them is not to limit potential plaintiffs to their own resources.

Re: Does the whole Thiel vs. Gawker thing trouble you?

#5

Post by commentzorro » Sat, May 28, 2016, 6:57 PM UTC

I'm loving it because Peter Thiel is a f-ing billionaire who is now publicly showing what the 1% of the 1% are capable of. The power that these 0.01% have is staggering. To see what they're capable of with just a few million dollars is truly awesome. And the very best part is that there absolutely nothing we can do about it anymore. We're now officially owned by the 300!

Re: Does the whole Thiel vs. Gawker thing trouble you?

#6

Post by tdburn » Sat, May 28, 2016, 7:00 PM UTC

There is a big difference here. In China the press is censored by the state. In this case Gawker was allowed full freedom by the state to print what they chose. But the individual who felt his privacy or whatever was damaged sought redress through a Civil trial. The press has many protections for what they write, where an individual has little ability to fight back when they have been wronged. And it takes lots of money to fight such a case, and I bet many such cases fail. And even having a large backer does not guarantee success. This is not a perfect system, but it is not censorship.

Re: Does the whole Thiel vs. Gawker thing trouble you?

#7

Post by sputnikus » Sat, May 28, 2016, 7:12 PM UTC

tdburn wrote: post #6

There is a big difference here. In China the press is censored by the state. In this case Gawker was allowed full freedom by the state to print what they chose. But the individual who felt his privacy or whatever was damaged sought redress through a Civil trial. The press has many protections for what they write, where an individual has little ability to fight back when they have been wronged. And it takes lots of mo…

Charities and nonprofits fund trials againts wealthy opponents all the time. To give people, who can afford it, a chance defend their rights in a trial. Jury and judge make a decision. But when someone with money does the same thing, everybody lose their minds. He only funded Hulk Hogan, his attorneys etc. He didn't bought judge or jury.

Re: Does the whole Thiel vs. Gawker thing trouble you?

#8

Post by smt88 » Sat, May 28, 2016, 9:48 PM UTC

sputnikus wrote: post #7

tdburn wrote: post #6

There is a big difference here. In China the press is censored by the state. In this case Gawker was allowed full freedom by the state to print what they chose. But the individual who felt his privacy or whatever was damaged sought redress through a Civil trial. The press has many protections for what they write, where an individual has little ability to fight back when they have been wronged. And it takes lots of mo…

Charities and nonprofits fund trials againts wealthy opponents all the time. To give people, who can afford it, a chance defend their rights in a trial. Jury and judge make a decision. But when someone with money does the same thing, everybody lose their minds. He only funded Hulk Hogan, his attorneys etc. He didn't bought judge or jury.

My first issue is the "who can afford it" part. People shouldn't get more justice when they're wealthier and less when they're poorer.

My second issue is that more money gives a plaintiff access to legal tricks that can overwhelm an opponent with less money. One example is to bury the opponent with discovery.

My final problem is that Thiel is not using the justice system to get justice for himself. He's sticking his nose into another person's complaint. That isn't how our courts were intended to work.

Re: Does the whole Thiel vs. Gawker thing trouble you?

#9

Post by wmil » Sat, May 28, 2016, 10:29 PM UTC

The thing is that there's already a huge amount of manipulation by billionaires. Read up on George Soros and Carlos Slim.

Thiel funding a lawsuit against a website that specifically wronged him is so mild that it's just not worth getting upset about.

To me the story seems to be that Gawker was wealthy enough to crush libel and slander lawsuits for years. But in the end, there's always a bigger fish.

Re: Does the whole Thiel vs. Gawker thing trouble you?

#10

Post by pythia__ » Sat, May 28, 2016, 11:15 PM UTC

It doesn't trouble me at all from the perspective of this being something Thiel can do that I can't. As long as billions mean something billionaires are going to wield more power than mere morals. From my standpoint, moreover, this is far from the worst use of private donations for an "activist" cause.

As for it being censorship, this event is not properly comparable to the government censorship of speech in China. Read http://www.paulgraham.com/say.html if you haven't. In the US what you can say is restricted through informal, "softer" means like social pressure, which would make it like most places if not for the fact that American cultural institutions are the most powerful in the world; those institutions, in turn, have a complicated relationship with the government. Briefly, American billionaires like Thiel have nothing on the American media or universities in terms of their ability to influence what people think. Government, media and academic opinion form a feedback loop.

There is (thankfully, of course) no Great Firewall of the United States but in practice American thought rarely deviates from the government-approved norms.