
You Won’t Be Able to Sue the Next Gawker - jessaustin
https://medium.com/@CodyBrown/you-wont-be-able-to-sue-the-next-gawker-e6c8a3900969
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_8fjx
The second sentence contains falsehoods:

"Peter Thiel, who is a Facebook board member and Donald Trump delegate,
secretly sued Gawker in a proxy lawsuit and, even though the case is
unresolved, it was enough to bleed and bankrupt the company."

Peter Thiel did not "secretly sue" anybody; he is not the plaintiff. There is
no such thing as a "proxy lawsuit." Paying the legal bills for a plaintiff
whose lawsuit advances your agenda is not unusual; the ACLU, EFF and NRDC do
this regularly.

Saying the lawsuit was "enough to bleed and bankrupt the company" even though
"the case is unresolved" makes it sound like Gawker was bankrupted merely by
the expense of litigation. But the verdict is in and gawker lost. The case is
only "unresolved" in the sense that appeals have not been exhausted.

~~~
kedean
The term 'proxy lawsuit' is completely valid. It means he's bankrolling a
lawsuit someone else is pursuing in absence of the ability to sue for what he
really wants to. The EFF, ACLU, and NRDC bankroll lawsuits because they are
trying to actively set precedent for other cases. Thiel backed this because he
has a personal vendetta against Gawker, but he knew that his own lawsuit
wouldn't succeed because it's not illegal to out a person as gay.

Similarly, when the US supplies rebels in central america against their
country because they know they have no legal grounds for waging war against
that country, it's a proxy war.

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redthrowaway
Why does anybody believe there are constitutional issues with the case?
Freedom of expression explicitly _does not_ cover the sort of revenge porn
that Gawker habitually engaged in. There is absolutely no first amendment
cover for their actions.

Thiel in essence insuring the lawsuit so that an unfavourable verdict would
not harm Hogan is in no way an attack on free speech or the free press.

Something tells me that if Breitbart had decided to host Jennifer Lawrence's
nude pics and gloat about how they were refusing a court order to remove them,
liberals would not be engaging in this hand-wringing.

~~~
jessaustin
I think the culture will eventually change so that both JLaw's selfies and the
Hulkster's closet porn will be covered by the First Amendment, but I agree
that at this time, at least the former are not so covered. I also agree that
what's sauce for the gander ought to be sauce for the goose, so until that
changes the latter are also not so covered.

~~~
chrismcb
I'm not sure what you are saying. JLaw's selfies are covered by the first
amendment. They are also covered by the Constitution. That is she can release
them, but some one with out rights can't. The first doesn't say you can use
someone else's words.

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jbob2000
The article came off as a disjointed rant at Peter Thiel. Why won't I be able
to sue the next Gawker? That wasn't really answered in the post.

~~~
seangrant
It was answered in the post:

>Thiel just crucified the most notorious dissenter of Silicon Valley and
called it ‘philanthropy.’ If this is how Silicon Valley billionaires are going
to treat their dissenters, then dissenters have no choice but to go
underground.

>If the price of dissent in Silicon Valley is too high, dissent will find a
darker avenue. The next ValleyWag is likely to be more like WikiLeaks. It
could be anonymous. It could be outside the jurisdiction of The United States.
And it could use all the shiny tools of the web, Tor, bitcoin financing,
Zeronet, the blockchain, to exist above the law.

The author is saying that if you legally shut down businesses through proxy
lawsuits, the businesses will no longer operate on legal means to remain
online and as such, the next Gawker can very well become something
unstoppable.

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codybrown
hey HN. I wrote this. hit me up with any questions and I'll answer them here.

~~~
jessaustin
My question is, why did HN flag this into oblivion? Mysterious.

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drivingmenuts
Frankly, it's too late for Thiel. We know who he is and his tactics. The next
Gawker will be ready, if not to destroy, then at least counter.

Of course, the perfect option would be to ignore his private life, but laser-
focus on his business.

