
An Open Letter to Peter Thiel - taylorbuley
http://gawker.com/an-open-letter-to-peter-thiel-1778991227
======
forgottenacc56
Thiel aspires to a political career doesn't he?

This level of vindictiveness towards the media does not bode well.

Imagine all billionaires behaving like this, a war on the media by the rich.

Imagine all US Senators conducting long term campaigns to bankrupt companies
that they don't like.

And why stop at attacking media? Maybe you have a company that competes with
Thiel.... he has now seen he can destroy companies with lawsuits.. Maybe in
future this will be the strategy for destroying competition.

~~~
internaut
> vindictiveness towards the media

The 'media' that is wrapping itself in 'Freedom of Speech' so it can
distribute videos of Hogan/Terry's cock and ignore direct orders from the
courts?

This must be some weird John Lennon song.

Imagine all the witch hunts by hyper socialized ninnies destroying people's
lives. At least 4chan recognizes what it's actually trolling for outrage when
it goes on raids.

I've seen so much handwaving in the last 24 hrs.

Everything is about what 'could' happen. Well it hasn't. Now what is your
argument? Chilling effects? Well people with a similar position to yours are
also arguing that he was acting as a clandestine puppet master pushing cats
paws around. Bit of a mixed metaphor but you get the picture. Secretly
perverting democracy and the public interest, no matter which option is
chosen. Then apparently the argument becomes he broke laws of Anglo-Saxon
England. Yeah.... I wouldn't continue pulling on that thread if I were you.

Your tribe cannot be pulling for two contradictory arguments like this. The
reality is that a rapidly going out of business media conglomerate is trying
to pull anybody into the ditch with them so they can distribute the mud
they're so adept at raking.

You must at least concede the possibility of the public interest and a private
interest being the same.

------
chipotle_coyote
It's a little dismaying that the HN community seems to be so universally, 100%
supportive of Thiel in this matter. As I wrote in another comment, we should
perhaps be thinking less of the specifics of this case than of the precedent.

"The precedent that if you write scandalous gossip about someone, your company
can be destroyed? What's wrong with that?"

Well, first off, _scandalous gossip_ is a little subjective, and as Denton
correctly points out, Gawker's sites aren't all trashy gossip in the first
place. But, second and more importantly: no. That's not the precedent. The
precedent is a billionaire who doesn't like what's being written about him
funding _other_ lawsuits to take down a media company.

"But look at the Hogan case. They were found guilty. Thiel had to find a case
that could be won, because Gawker really is that bad!"

No. I mean, yes, maybe Gawker really _is_ that bad, but Thiel--or anyone
following in his footsteps--only has to find cases that are _good enough to
get to court._ He could effectively cripple or destroy Gawker with cases that
_weren 't_ winnable, as long as they were expensive enough to defend against
and just kept coming. All our "philanthropist" needs is enough money.

The thing is, maybe the next target _isn 't_ going to be a site like Gawker.
Maybe it's going to be the Intercept, or the Atavist, or Mother Jones (which
has already been threatened with similar suits, IIRC), or Reason. Maybe the
philanthropist _won 't_ be someone we're all quite so willing to give the
benefit of the doubt to.

Look: these sort of cases are very often _not_ ones that are over tasteful
stories written by people you'd be comfortable sharing an elevator with. I'm
not a fan of Gawker-the-site (although I'm a fan of some of Gawker's other
properties, which these discussions seem to keep eliding). But I'm still,
however reluctantly, on their side in this.

The world will survive just fine without Gawker, sure. But what if the press--
not just Gawker, but _any_ site that's got Gawker-level resources or less--has
to start thinking, "If someone rich enough and vindictive enough to start
funding libel lawsuits against me hates what I write, can I defend myself
against them even if they're frivolous?" Do you really think there's no chance
that won't make journalism a little more timid? A little more risk-averse?

Do you really think that's a good thing?

~~~
internaut
> It's a little dismaying that the HN community seems to be so universally,
> 100% supportive of Thiel in this matter.

It is so simple. Thiel is right! Pragmatically. Ethically. Preventing
character assassinations of blameless people is the work of somebody stopping
a bully in the playground. If the bully whines he's being bullied because he
can't bully others I'm sorry, we don't have too much sympathy for the
argument.

Gawker is not just a tabloid. It is a tabloid motivated by political thinking
associated with the social justice fanatics. It has been using its press and
money to act as a political actor.

------
coffeevradar
I wonder how many others feel so uncomfortable visiting Gawker that they'll
debate whether to click this link.

I did click it, and read the letter in its entirety. I found it utterly
unconvincing: a last-ditch moral appeal from someone with absolutely no moral
credibility.

~~~
BinaryIdiot
> I found it utterly unconvincing: a last-ditch moral appeal from someone with
> absolutely no moral credibility.

Meh, didn't really seem like that to me. I mean if what they wrote is 100%
true I still wouldn't expect Peter to "debate" them. It's just another news
piece targeted at one of their enemies. I don't think it's much more than
that.

I do get the impression that they're going to drag Peter into their court
cases. That should be...interesting.

------
kaleidic
So disingenuous. Clarium was a bit ... volatile, but as I understand it
generated 8 percent and change compounded returns over the life of the fund,
and it likely wasn't that correlated with other funds in your portfolio, which
means the idiosyncratic volatility was less of a concern than it might have
been investing in a guy that ran with the herd.

A fund that does well can shape its returns, but you cannot control investor
behaviour. So talking about a 90 percent loss of assets without mentioning the
compounded return of the fund is really a sign that you aren't trying to be
fair, but just stick the knife in. Or, throw enough mud and some of it will
stick.

------
kelvintran
"A.J. Daulerio, author of the 2012 story on Hulk Hogan, is out of work and
unable to pay the $100,000 in punitive damages awarded by the jury."

Odd that Gawker wasn't (isn't?) covering its journalists under its libel
insurance policy, and is now relying on its failure to do so to justify
publishing arguably libelous, or at least close to libelous, material.

