
Does the whole Thiel vs. Gawker thing trouble you? - bitinn
First of all, I should admit I live nowhere near SV, nowhere near US, but in a land where censorship is the norm, China.<p>I have been following reports on Thiel vs Gawker for the past a few days, on Twitter, through a VPN.<p>And what surprises me is the amount of praise for Thiel&#x27;s actions.<p>Their reasoning usually includes:<p>- Look at what Gawker reports, they are in no way representing good journalism.<p>- Look at the harm Gawker causes, it is only fair they face this consequence.<p>Alarmingly, these defenses come from notable VCs, or at least they gladly retweet them in defense of Thiel.<p>Ignoring the conflict of interests for a moment here: let&#x27;s assume they all act according to their principles.<p>You know what this looks like to a Chinese citizen and a Startup founder that thinks highly of SV culture?<p>US is slowly sinking to Chinese level of thinking:<p>- Where there are no alternatives, but to silence troubling tabloids.<p>- Where sacrificing freedom of a few, for stability of the masses, is a good cause.<p>- Where the best assurance you get, is to trust the people at the top.<p>And you can expect Chinese media quoting this case one day to prove US billionaires can silence media as well.<p>Gawker may be nowhere near journalism, but to think they &quot;rise above&quot; others to the point where SV billionaires need to spend millions and stick together to defeat them?<p>It says more about US than Gawker, isn&#x27;t it?<p>And that troubles me, as an outsider.
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tdburn
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.

~~~
sputnikus
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.

~~~
smt88
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.

~~~
sputnikus
It's still no different from charities and nonprofits, they don't get justice
for themselfs either. Thiel saw, that Hogan has a strong case and he's willing
to fight for it (but doesn't have enough money to do so). [1] "One example is
to bury the opponent with discovery." You think Gawker is so poor it can't
afford first class lawyers? Don't hate the player, hate the game.

[1] [http://observer.com/2016/05/peter-thiels-reminder-to-the-
gaw...](http://observer.com/2016/05/peter-thiels-reminder-to-the-gawker-
generation-actions-have-consequences/)

------
pythia__
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](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.

------
hirundo
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.

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smt88
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.

~~~
tsmffh
> someone secretly using money to manipulate a case in which he is not a
> direct participant.

What manipulation was there?

3rd parties funding lawsuits is not a new, it's been happening for centuries.

~~~
smt88
So is political corruption. My criticism is the same no matter how common it
is. Thiel is a bad actor to me, even if he's one of a crowd of bad actors.

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waterphone
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".

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commentzorro
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!

~~~
tsmffh
The 0.1% can fund a lawsuit because you published a sex tape.

>We're now officially owned by the 300!

That's a steep slope.

~~~
commentzorro
_> The 0.1% can fund a lawsuit because you published a sex tape._

The point of the article is that the .01% can fund a series of unrelated
lawsuits because you publish an article unflattering of their industry,
political stance, ideology, or just stating that cats or better than dogs.

For the 300 it's a trivial amount of money. Like us spending $1000 to shut
down a web site we didn't like. _(using them to us as 1,000,000,000 :
10,000,000 = 100,000 : 1,000)_

My points are that first, this is both really scary because of how relatively
few people are in this position and second, we've gone too far: there's no
longer any way to stop these people from essentially doing anything they want
to control us. They've become effectively gods who will allow us to live out
our insignificant lives only if we don't annoy them.

\-- Edit (to continue the metaphor cuz fun). --

Remember, the infraction wasn't posting the video on Gawker. The infraction
that pissed of this god was being outed as gay. Essentially, this god was
angered by being outed. He opened up a portal to our world via the Hulk Hogan
video. His lightning bolts were the series of lawsuits he had lined up.

It's also worth noting that this is a god doing battle with a demi-god. Could
you imagine the trivial amount of power (= money) (= free speech) that he
would need expended to take out one of us antlike mortals.

If you could shut down breitbart or the drudge report (or your least favorite
liberal sites) you wouldn't because you're a benevolent god. But then one day
you wake up and find that they've passed judgement on you. Well, they can't
pass judgement on a god. So you wave your hand and take them out without so
much as making the most minor impact in your existence. "I'll show those
mortals how judgement is passed! Talk bad about me, will they." That's the
real issue here.

~~~
tsmffh
If you are truly worried about power, look no further than the government. The
power to use force is actual power.

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wmil
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.

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auganov
The only unsettling part to me is the cost of litigation.

Assuming the legal system is just, I don't have a slightest problem with
whoever funding or managing a lawsuit, revenge-seeking or not.

And comparing an invasion-of-privacy (or libel and slander) lawsuit to opaque
state censorship is a huge stretch.

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kqia040
I feel like hes allowed to do what he wants with his
influence/money/connections. If I fell victim to defamation by a news outlet
and I had the ability to put a stop to it, I would.

~~~
lovelearning
If you fell victim to defamation by a news outlet and you had the ability to
put a stop to it, why would you sue the defamer anonymously through a proxy
and not directly?

~~~
internaut
You answer your own question.

It's a news outlet.

They can use/abuse their position to make hay in ways nobody else can.

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xbmcuser
The problem is not that Thiel financed Hogan the problem is that Hogan needed
the money to do so that's where us justice system seems as fucked as anywhere
else in the world.

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matttheatheist
Good old-fashioned revenge. What's not to like?

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max_
Nick Denton kicked the hornet's nest with his article on false claims of Peter
Thiel being gay.

Now he is going to get stung.

~~~
commentzorro
_> false claims_???

Explain the false part please.

~~~
max_
“I saw Gawker pioneer a unique and incredibly damaging way of getting
attention by bullying people even when there was no connection with the public
interest. . . . I thought it was worth fighting back.” - Peter Thiel

Peter Thiel was not hiding his sexual orientation, but Gwaker made it look
like so.

[https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2016/05/27/...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2016/05/27/peter-
thiel-had-no-reason-to-be-angry-at-gawker-for-writing-that-hes-gay/)

