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Peter Thiel and the Stanford Review

stanfordpolitics.org

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Re: Peter Thiel and the Stanford Review

#41

Post by ng12 »

danso wrote: post #40
ng12 wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is the fact that he did it privately the issue? I don't see why it should be: why would you have to identify where your lawyer's retainer comes from?

The main issue of concern seemed to be about powerful individuals -- with individual agendas -- being able to wield heavy influence in other parties' legal processes. Being secret about it is not illegal, just made the issue more uncomfortable: https://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/26/business/dealbook/peter-t... > Roy D. Simon, a professor emeritus of legal ethics at Hofstra University School of Law, suggested that the pr…

> The main issue of concern seemed to be about powerful individuals -- with individual agendas -- being able to wield heavy influence in other parties' legal processes.

Why is this an issue? It happens all the time in the other direction -- large corporations who hire leagues of lawyers to draw out proceedings for even the most open-and-shut cases. As quoted elsewhere in this discussion:

The sad take-away from Hogan v Gawker isn't that a millionaire can spend money on a whim to exert justice where he so desires, it's that you need that level of money to seek justice in the first place.

Re: Peter Thiel and the Stanford Review

#42

Post by phil21 »

dtornabene wrote: post #28
nsnick wrote: post #6

How much damage has Peter Thiel done to free speech? This is what Peter Thiel will be remembered for.

sadly you're getting downvoted into gray, but I have a feeling you're wrong for a different reason, Thiel will be remembered for many deeply authoritarian things, one of which will be his assault on the journalism. Gawker was a flawed organization, but they were also doing a fair amount of journalism that no one else would, not the least of which was sexual harassment allegations against people like Louis C.K. that a…

And then proceeded to sexually harass others via their platform.

They needed to go, and they were not a net positive to society.

The best quote on the topic (pretty sure I saved it from a HN comment) I've seen is:

> The sad take-away from Hogan v Gawker isn't that a millionaire can spend money on a whim to exert justice where he so desires, it's that you need that level of money to seek justice in the first place.

Re: Peter Thiel and the Stanford Review

#43

Post by danso »

ng12 wrote: post #41
danso wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The main issue of concern seemed to be about powerful individuals -- with individual agendas -- being able to wield heavy influence in other parties' legal processes. Being secret about it is not illegal, just made the issue more uncomfortable: https://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/26/business/dealbook/peter-t... > Roy D. Simon, a professor emeritus of legal ethics at Hofstra University School of Law, suggested that the pr…

> The main issue of concern seemed to be about powerful individuals -- with individual agendas -- being able to wield heavy influence in other parties' legal processes. Why is this an issue? It happens all the time in the other direction -- large corporations who hire leagues of lawyers to draw out proceedings for even the most open-and-shut cases. As quoted elsewhere in this discussion: The sad take-away from Hogan…

When you ask, "Why is this an issue?", what do you mean by "issue"? Because by "issue", I don't mean anything more concrete than people are bothered (to various degrees). Why exactly? I can't answer for them but people often have different reactions to actions initiated by individuals vs groups.

I provided one example where Thiel being an individual has affected the Hogan v. Gawker legal proceedings. Gawker was able to convince the court that Thiel's relationship to Charles Harder, Hogan's lawyer, was worth investigating, and Thiel/Harder fought hard to block that. Is this something that happens to groups like the ACLU? Maybe, again, IANAL.

Re: Peter Thiel and the Stanford Review

#44

Post by slg »

danso wrote: post #32
slg wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Gawker broke the law. It's great they got ended. Why do so many people ignore this fact? Yes, Thiel funded a lawsuit that bankrupted them. But he won that lawsuit because Gawker committed a crime. I don't see how what Thiel did is any different than when an organization like the ACLU, NAACP, or EFF gets behind a court case that aligns with their political causes. Either we agree that a third party is allowed to fund…

> I don't see how what Thiel did is any different than when an organization like the ACLU, NAACP, or EFF gets behind a court case that aligns with their political cause What lawsuit are you thinking of in which the ACLU/NAACP/EFF/etc privately backed a litigant?

Here [1] is the first result on Google and it is a twofer. You might argue that the ACLU and EFF are publicizing their involvement, but I would argue that is because publicity of their fight is part of their political agenda. Thiel's political motivation was privacy so it makes sense that he wouldn't actively publicize his involvement.

Also while we may know that these organizations are funding this legal battle, we don't know who is ultimately funding these organizations. It is certainly possible that a random billionaire donated money and earmarked it for this specific cause. Would it be more acceptable to you if Thiel created some dummy non-profit, donated money to it, and then had that organization publicly back the lawsuit? That likely would have had the same end result and might have even nabbed Thiel a decent tax break.

[1] - https://www.eff.org/press/releases/eff-aclu-media-conference...

Re: Peter Thiel and the Stanford Review

#45

Post by slg »

jhayward wrote: post #30
slg wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Gawker broke the law. It's great they got ended. Why do so many people ignore this fact? Yes, Thiel funded a lawsuit that bankrupted them. But he won that lawsuit because Gawker committed a crime. I don't see how what Thiel did is any different than when an organization like the ACLU, NAACP, or EFF gets behind a court case that aligns with their political causes. Either we agree that a third party is allowed to fund…

> because Gawker committed a crime What criminal statute was Gawker convicted of breaking? It would behoove everyone to understand the difference between civil and criminal law. A tort is not a crime. They were found to have caused injury to the reputation of a person. That is not a crime.

I am not a lawyer. I was not using a specific legal definition of "crime". I was using the word colloquially and my usage is perfectly fine according the generally accepted definition of the word. [1]

[1] - https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/crime

Re: Peter Thiel and the Stanford Review

#46

Post by dtornabene »

phil21 wrote: post #42
dtornabene wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

sadly you're getting downvoted into gray, but I have a feeling you're wrong for a different reason, Thiel will be remembered for many deeply authoritarian things, one of which will be his assault on the journalism. Gawker was a flawed organization, but they were also doing a fair amount of journalism that no one else would, not the least of which was sexual harassment allegations against people like Louis C.K. that a…

And then proceeded to sexually harass others via their platform. They needed to go, and they were not a net positive to society. The best quote on the topic (pretty sure I saved it from a HN comment) I've seen is: > The sad take-away from Hogan v Gawker isn't that a millionaire can spend money on a whim to exert justice where he so desires, it's that you need that level of money to seek justice in the first place.

Not even sure what I'm supposed to say to "we need millionaires to take out journalists, the only way, really".

As for "sexually harass others via their platform" .... what does that even mean? Who? How, exactly? What a bizarre comment.

Re: Peter Thiel and the Stanford Review

#47

Post by danso »

slg wrote: post #44
danso wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't see how what Thiel did is any different than when an organization like the ACLU, NAACP, or EFF gets behind a court case that aligns with their political cause What lawsuit are you thinking of in which the ACLU/NAACP/EFF/etc privately backed a litigant?

Here [1] is the first result on Google and it is a twofer. You might argue that the ACLU and EFF are publicizing their involvement, but I would argue that is because publicity of their fight is part of their political agenda. Thiel's political motivation was privacy so it makes sense that he wouldn't actively publicize his involvement. Also while we may know that these organizations are funding this legal battle, we…

> We don't know who is ultimately funding these organizations.

990s give some hint, but yes, individual donors aren't revealed (as they are for campaign contributions). OK, but the fact remains that we can see these orgs have, among other things, a bureaucracy. Let's say Soros (or insert your favorite villain here) is the sole funder behind ACLU. The ACLU provides cover for him, but the tradeoff is that there are more moving parts (i.e. the people in the organization) and less efficiency in action. And so this tactic is probably a lot more trouble than it's worth.

In terms of your hypothetical situation of Thiel creating a dummy non-profit org -- is your question rhetorical? Sure, I guess it would "please" the Thiel detractors because doing such a thing properly takes a considerable amount of time and planning (you can't just make up names to add to your 990, for example). And if you were to rush the scheme -- well, as you've already pointed out, that would put Thiel at risk of being nabbed for something tax-fraud related.

Does this help to answer one of your earlier questions (sorry, too lazy to climb the thread tree to look it up) about why some folks have more of an issue with an agenda-driven individual than with an agenda-driven organization? It's hard for an organization to exist as a public entity without stating some kind of agenda. The agenda of an individual is much more opaque. And while it's true that an organization can be completely subverted and controlled by a powerful private individual, there's a lot of work to set that up, and a lot of disadvantages even if you're successful. Hence, it is considered less of a potential problem.

Re: Peter Thiel and the Stanford Review

#48

Post by [deleted] »

dtornabene wrote: post #46
phil21 wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And then proceeded to sexually harass others via their platform. They needed to go, and they were not a net positive to society. The best quote on the topic (pretty sure I saved it from a HN comment) I've seen is: > The sad take-away from Hogan v Gawker isn't that a millionaire can spend money on a whim to exert justice where he so desires, it's that you need that level of money to seek justice in the first place.

Not even sure what I'm supposed to say to "we need millionaires to take out journalists, the only way, really". As for "sexually harass others via their platform" .... what does that even mean? Who? How, exactly? What a bizarre comment.

[deleted]
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