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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

#91

Post by rhizome »

darawk wrote: post #24
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…

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…

If you are putting forth the argument that merely financing a lawsuit is a corruption of the public trust, then we have much more serious problems with our legal system than Peter Thiel having it out for Gawker

Larger crimes don't excuse smaller ones, which is also known as the Fallacy of Relative Privation. I'm also having trouble figuring out (or even learning) what public interest is served by this result? Does a rich guy shutting down a publication enter into it at all? I think it does.

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

#92

Post by eudox »

Spooky23 wrote: post #75
eudox wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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.

I keep that in mind. And this court decision was not made on the basis of how repugnant, malicious or vicious Gawker or Nick Denton are.

If Gawker goes bankrupt, it won't be because they're horrible people, it will be because they overstepped the bounds of the law.

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

#93

Post by ojbyrne »

darawk wrote: post #24
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…

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…

The moral problem I see with this, is that actually pursuing a lawsuit is so inordinately expensive, that someone like Hulk Hogan, who presumably earned some cash in his life, can't pursue it on his own.

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

#95

Post by djrobstep »

darawk wrote: post #28
zorpner wrote: post #8

Earlier 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.

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

A libertarian using the power of government to crush free speech is pretty hypocritical if not unethical.

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

#96

Post by partiallypro »

pkinsky wrote: post #4

>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…

I just imagine the scenario of Gawker being the outlet that leaked the "Fappening" and seeing everyone currently defending Gawker turn an about face. In reality, what they did to Hulk Hogan was more or less, the same, possibly worse than what several women in the Fappening went through.

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

#97

Post by dang »

nefitty wrote: post #14

Thiel 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 orientati…

I think Hacker News users can expect to be held to a higher standard than this comment, which adds no information, calls a lot of names ("these people are just narcissists who want revenge"—you can't possibly know that), and lacks decency (someone's sexual orientation is fair game because they're rich? no, it's not). If you have an argument to make, you're welcome to make it neutrally and respectfully. But you're not welcome to spew rage here, popular though it is.

The above is not a defense of Thiel, Palantir, or narcissists, whoever those are.

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

#98

Post by NamTaf »

darawk wrote: post #24
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…

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…

My issue is that by selectively choosing what he does and does not finance, he is influencing things in his personal favour.

I would far prefer the bllionaires in our society financing a big pool of money that then indescriminately funds the 'little guy' against the big corporation, so that the bias of money is removed from our legal system. Instead, this current process of being able to selectively target lawsuits means that the rich can indeed influence things in a biased fashion via their money.

I'm all for Thiel to have it out with Gawker, but should that not be on his own valid legal claims? By funding this lawsuit in particular, he's negatively impacting other suits by omission.

Basically, if money can't be kept out of the legal system then the money shouldn't be able to selectively enter it either, because either result produces a bias of the optimal situation where two equally strong legal teams debate a case in front of an impartial judge on its merits.

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

#99

Post by zardgiv »

saint_fiasco wrote: post #87
zardgiv wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They specifically dropped the part of the case that would allow an insurance payout. Typically, people who don't want to destroy an organization will prefer to get the more assured money from insurance.

Should Gawker be able to publish a 'sex tape', ignore a court order to take it down, then pay a slightly higher insurance premium which to them is just 'cost of doing business' at this point, just because they are 'journalists'?

I don't know, should they? What if they had a billionaire secretly funding them ;-)

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

#100

Post by partiallypro »

nikcub wrote: post #76

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 T…

Probably because Theil wants Gawker dead after they were the outlet that outed him as homosexual. I wouldn't necessarily blame him. Just tying the publication up in court and legal fees could sink it.
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