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> Litigation finance is typically a business venture. It doesn’t become charity because a wealthy person uses it as a template for a personal crusade and then i

• Kristine1975 10y ago
  >These articles attacking Thiel framed as billionaire versus journalists doesn't even mention this fact. This one does though: >As for Gawker, it disseminated a sex tape of a retired pro wrestler. Let’s not pretend that the website did it as part of a great journalistic mission. Gawker did it to lure eyes to its website while smugly saying the First Amendment sheltered it. The author's beef isn't with Thiel using his money to help sue Gawker, but with him considering this to be philanthropic: >The problem isn’t the way Thiel used his money. It’s his pretensions about it.
  • bko 10y ago
    Are more leaked sex tapes used for commercial purposes in the public interest?
    • Xylakant 10y ago
      Nobody pretended so - which is the whole point. Thiel could have given his money to a foundation that openly sponsors lawsuits for media victioms. That would haven been for the public good. Instead he chose to sponsor the lawsuit (and other lawsuits) against gawker in secret because he feels wronged by them with the intent of punishing them. And that's not in the public interest because it can be considered a form of vigilantism.
      • will_brown 10y ago
        Bollea had a valid legal cause of action and Thiel backed the lawsuit financially...no matter what Thiel's motives isn't working within the confines of the law and availing oneself to their legal rights the complete opposite of vigilantism?
      • vintermann 10y ago
        I agree he should rather have been open about it. But for one, it doesn't appear to have been a terribly well-kept secret, and for another, he could easily have hid behind a foundation too.
      • kelseyfrancis 10y ago
        >it can be considered a form of vigilantism No. Vigilantism is extralegal. A lawsuit is by definition not vigilantism.
        • Artistry121 10y ago
          Boom! Exactly. He did something good using available means. Pragmatism is the ultimate move to make good things happen in the short term and he did it. Had he not the risk of other people's information being leaked for the entertainment of the masses could be higher.
      • bko 10y ago
        Maybe he did so in secret because he didn't want it to be framed 'billionaire vs journalist' Perhaps he felt that he was wronged by them and that may be petty, but it doesn't mean that the lawsuit he did participate in is unjust or an unworthy cause.
      • icebraining 10y ago
        So the US courts are so corrupt that going through them is considered vigilantism?
      • eli_gottlieb 10y ago
        If Thiel's action was vigilantism, the use of private combat or violence to punish perceived injustice, then maybe the real problem is that our legal system has become a form of trial by financial combat.
  • saiya-jin 10y ago
    this is getting too much into "... and he said, and then she said...". was something wrong done? is there some sort of justice being done? no need to go deeper than this, unless it's one's hobby to discuss famous people's private lives
    • roghummal 10y ago
      Thanks for contributing! It's rare that someone contributes without adding anything worth reading. YOU are BETTER. RARE isn't just how you take your eggs. You're not a hypocrite. You're a trendsetter. It's so lame to discuss famous people's lives. Especially when they aren't SF-famous! You have set the tone for this thread and HN is better for it. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
      • saiya-jin 10y ago
        well, thank you too :)
  • koolba 10y ago
    > The author's beef isn't with Thiel using his money to help sue Gawker, but with him considering this to be philanthropic: >> The problem isn’t the way Thiel used his money. It’s his pretensions about it. But it is philanthropic, it just doesn't align with the author's idea of philanthropy.
    • madgar 10y ago
      Just like how it's philanthropic if I tape bum fights and make them freely available on YouTube.
      • themartorana 10y ago
        Except in Thiel's case, there seems to be a strong concurrence of moral justice behind him. Your example would get none of that. Philanthropy assumes a common/public good.
      • drumdance 10y ago
        Because getting a settlement for invasion of privacy is exactly the same? False equivalence. Hulk Hogan may not be my favorite celebrity, but he deserves privacy more than Gawker deserves page views.
    • OldSchoolJohnny 10y ago
      What?! You have a seriously messed up idea of the definition of the word philanthropic.
      • dpark 10y ago
        >the desire to promote the welfare of others, expressed especially by the generous donation of money to good causes. If Thiel believes that sponsoring this lawsuit improves the welfare of others, then it is by definition philanthropy.
• threatofrain 10y ago
  I don't think the problem is the fact that Peter Thiel tossed money in the direction of a lawsuit. The issue is that money matters in justice, and that Peter Thiel coincidentally put his money somewhere did not make this so. People are focusing shame on Peter Thiel today but that's the wrong place. There will always be rich people.
  • vintermann 10y ago
    Now, I agree with that. But it's not the argument other people are making. People are saying this is an attack on journalism, and complaining that Thiel could have bankrupted Gawker just by attrition. Yeah, he could. But that was not in fact what he did. Gawker didn't lose by attrition, they lost a particular case they damn well deserved to lose. On the other hand, Thiel says Gawker's former victims have been forced to settle for a pittance because of attrition on their end. That sounds entirely plausible. Money matters in court, by default that favours corporations (including media corporations like Gawker, and their $200-million owner Nick Denton) over all but the richest of individuals. That's the status quo, now the media are upset that it didn't work in their favor for once.
    • atonse 10y ago
      Yes, Gawker deserved to lose that case. However, the Thiel involvement produced a vindictive and revenge-based strategy to try the case in such a way that Gawker couldn't use their insurance to pay the damages. So I don't think anybody's arguing that Gawker shouldn't have lost that case. But it's clear the motive here wasn't just punishment, it was to put Gawker out of business. And I used to hate Gawker because of all this Valleywag nonsense they did, but they have a lot of good sites today.
      • whamlastxmas 10y ago
        Like the site that sold that bought a stolen iPhone and bragged about it? If Gawker has any good content it's coincidence and not because they actively attempt to make it good.
• samirillian 10y ago
  The fact that Gawker sucks is not a matter of debate, and it was not the topic of the article. The fact that you, without irony, see fit to compare Thiel's actions to those of the EFF proves the relevance of the article.
  • jerguismi 10y ago
    Do you have anything other than ad hominem argument? I fail to see myself as well the irony in the comparison, does it mean that I am stupid?
    • samirillian 10y ago
      Let me rephrase: the fact that the top comment on this thread fails to see irony in analogizing Thiel to EFF is proof of the relevance of the article. Just because EFF and Thiel share one superficial similarity it does not make what they do categorically similar. The comparison is absurd.
• wrsh07 10y ago
  Neither side here looks great. It's reasonable for someone to sue Gawker because of what they publish. It's a bit scary to have someone attempt to take down a publishing company just because of a long-held grudge. That's a template for private censorship by the rich.
  • maratd 10y ago
    > That's a template for private censorship by the rich. No. Contrary to popular opinion, you can't sue somebody out of existence if they've done nothing wrong. The courts frown on attempts to do that. For you to do something wrong, you had to cause clearly defined harm. If you're causing harm, why shouldn't you be sued out of existence? The injustice here isn't that the rich can eliminate bad actors ... it's that the rest of us can't!
    • deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]
    • CPLX 10y ago
      > Contrary to popular opinion, you can't sue somebody out of existence if they've done nothing wrong. That's absolutely incorrect. There is ample precedent of people using the civil legal system to suppress the media. Perhaps you heard of these guys: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientology_and_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientology_and_law
      • maratd 10y ago
        I was explicitly talking at the US legal system, so the proper link is this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientology_and_law#Cases_in_the_USA https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientology_and_law#Cases_in_t... Read that over. They did not have a lot of things go their way.
        • CPLX 10y ago
          Perhaps. As far as I can tell though they successfully kept the news that they were running a financially fraudulent cult completely out of the mainstream media for decades, until the invention of the internet made that goal increasingly impossible.
• ThomPete 10y ago
  There is a difference between winning a lawsuit to right a wrong and then to go further and actually try to take down a paper. Whatever Gawker did to Theil it's not worth doing what he is doing but thats up to him. The problem though is that as extreme wealth gets put into fewer hands it allow them to basically bleed anything skeptical to this out. Furthermore and as a sidenote. I find it ironic that Theil of all people, a libertarian who claims we more or less don't need government end up kind of illustrating exactly why we do. Thats of course on top of his funding of Palantir a company who's based on government work. I like some of his thinking but I think he is showing some major flaws.
  • lake99 10y ago
    Anarcho-capitalists advocate private courts and private enforcement, but that is impossible (at least for cases like this one) to put into practice when an existing government has already established a monopoly on this. Unless the government is abolished, using its facilities is a perfectly reasonable way to settle conflicts. Not only that, in some cases, using government facilities becomes mandatory, whatever your political beliefs. For example, if someone gets murdered in his house, and he is the sole witness, he is bound by law to report it. (At least, this is how I understand the law.)
  • randallsquared 10y ago
    > I find it ironic that Theil of all people, a libertarian who claims we more or less don't need government end up kind of illustrating exactly why we do. I also find his actions ironic, but maybe for the opposite reason. In funding this lawsuit, Thiel appears to be funding the initiation of force -- bringing the power of government to bear against a private organization which hasn't used force or the threat of force (as far as I know). I would have assumed that as a libertarian, Thiel would be against this sort of thing, as you say, but apparently the temptation to use the State to crush someone he didn't like was too great. I would disagree with you that his actions illustrate that more of this is exactly what we need, though.
    • ThomPete 10y ago
      the "off what we need" comment has to be understood in the context of wealth moving towards the ultra rich. What then is left in a ancap/libertarian society to defend those who aren't wealthy? The whole base of a democratic government, for all it's flaws, is to provide rights to the individual regardless of heir wealth and to defend those on your behalf.
• arca_vorago 10y ago
  Precisely the issue is that equality under law is farcical these days. When you have to have tons of money or know lawyers/judges to get any kind of legal projection or justice, the Constitutional principles of the fourteenth amendment are being undermined. Lawyers and judges benefit and perpetuate it, an increasingly militarized police force profits and pushes it, along with their municipalities. I just wish people would remember the Constitution every god-damn once in a while, especially seing as almost all of them swore oaths that they are then breaking. Can anyone tell me what the legal punishment/repercussion for breaking the oath of office is? "The powers of the States in dealing with crime within their borders are not limited, but no State can deprive particular persons or classes of persons of equal and impartial justice under the law."... as long as you have money to feed the fucked up system. What this is really about is class warfare, and the rich are winning. Also, the bankers have always been the real robber barons, so I don't like this halfassed attempt at claiming a few tech billionares are even close to comparable in power level.
• bduerst 10y ago
  The subject of the case is a red herring. Typically in these situations, a settlement is reached or insurance covers the damages. That didn't happen. Thiel had an axe to grind against Gawker, invested $10m in the litigation, and pushed the case past settlement offers - even removing a claim that allowed insurance to cover damages. It focused on maximizing the damage to Gawker, which isn't what civil court is typically supposed to do. Thiel was out for blood, and he used his money in someone else's case to get it.
  • GCA10 10y ago
    Let's not forget that Gawker monied up ahead of the trial, too. In a January 2016 staff memo, Gawker CEO Nick Denton described an investment by Columbus Nova (controlled by Russian oligarch Viktor Vekselburg) as a way to make sure his company had the resources for a full-stakes court battle. The judge in the case had recommended mediation, but both sides really wanted a big trial. So they got one.
    • bduerst 10y ago
      Was Nova involved in the court case, or have a personal vendetta against Hogan?
    • internaut 10y ago
      Interesting. Can you provide sources and also what do you think the end game is? Did Nick Denton know he was going to lose and go ahead anyway? Or was he just unable to conceive of losing?
      • GCA10 10y ago
        Glad to oblige on sources. Here's a copy of Nick Denton's memo announcing the investment and its relevance to the Hogan litigation: http://jimromenesko.com/2016/01/20/gawker-takes-outside-money-for-the-first-time/ http://jimromenesko.com/2016/01/20/gawker-takes-outside-mone... And here's a Fortune story with a little more background on the investors: http://fortune.com/2016/01/20/gawker-funding/ http://fortune.com/2016/01/20/gawker-funding/ On the "endgame" question, it's worth noting that Gawker's new backer is one of the world's 100 richest people, with an estimated $9.8 billion net worth, according to Forbes. Thiel checks in at just $2 billion or so. If both billionaires want to keep battling, this case could rattle around in a lot of different courts for a long time. We may not know yet who ultimately wins/loses.
• oxryly1 10y ago
  Note that the only entities complaining about this are themselves journalists. They're just closing ranks.
  • sangnoir 10y ago
    > Note that the only entities complaining about this are themselves journalists. They're just closing ranks It would have been hilarious if someone had similarly casually dismissed the uproar software engineers were making over Oracle v Google: Note that the only entities complaining about API copyrights are themselves developers. They're just closing ranks
    • internaut 10y ago
      Would that not be true? We do have our opinions and they do stem how we do work. Therefore we have interests, received opinions and such.
      • sangnoir 10y ago
        It wouldn't be true for me (as a software engineer). I would like to believe as a person more familiar with how the sausage is made, so to speak, I am more sensitive to potential threats to the industry than the layperson. Terming my concerns as "closing ranks" is a disservice because you are dismissing them without consideration or critical thinking - it's ad-hominem-lite
        • internaut 10y ago
          I believe you, but from the outside, from the public's perspective it looks like the same thing. You've said as much yourself with your comparison. As a general heuristic, your interests are aligned with those of your community. Whether this is bad or good depends on context, usually depending on whether you've thought about the issue yourself from first principals and come to your own conclusion. Every field probably has wrongheaded ideas about something. In engineering this alignment may be mostly pragmatic e.g. what works, what doesn't, but in some industries e.g. Hollywood, the Media, anything social, there's a different sort of pragmatism where you're expected to believe in some general themes about the world that need have no basis in reality. Being up to date with these 'stories' e.g. what beliefs about transgender bathrooms a proper person should have, is basically a peacocks tail feathers. It's pointless but shows you're a member of the tribe. You're talking of informed opinion, but again, from the perspective of an outsider, this all looks like the same thing. The tribe can hang together either because it makes sense or because they punish those who are outliers.
• wpietri 10y ago
  > Why? Many cases brought by individuals or groups on moral grounds have led the way to better governance. Intent matters. One of capitalism's great powers is harnessing the greedy and power-hungry and getting them to at least sometimes work for society. (It's not perfect, but it's better to have Bill Gates trying for a monopoly than starting land wars.) But that doesn't make them great-souled public benefactors. (Although later they do sometimes become that as well.) Here we can infer intent from design. If Peter Thiel's goal was to help out defenseless individuals harmed by thoughtless journalists, that suggests one set of structures. E.g., a public nonprofit that does advocacy while funding the occasional suit from someone without money or power. The structure actually chosen was to secretly fund a series of suits against a single publisher with the apparent intent of driving them out of business. The first plaintiff chosen was already rich (net worth, $25m) and famous. And if you talk to journalists, the result isn't to make them generally more careful. It's to make them more afraid of Thiel and other billionaires. [1] So either A) Thiel is a kind-spirited public benefactor who's just not very competent or B) he's getting exactly the effect he wanted, which was to hopefully crush Denton and scare anybody who plans to write about him, even when the articles they write are perfectly legal. He seems like s smart guy, so I'm giving him the benefit of the doubt and going with B. [1] e.g.: http://www.wired.com/2016/05/three-cheers-for-peter-thiel/ http://www.wired.com/2016/05/three-cheers-for-peter-thiel/
  • dpark 10y ago
    > If Peter Thiel's goal was to help out defenseless individuals harmed by thoughtless journalists, that suggests one set of structures. E.g., a public nonprofit This has popped up several times in this thread, and I don't see why it's true. There's no obligation, legal or moral, that philanthropy be coordinated through a nonprofit. The only reason for the nonprofit is to get tax advantages. If you're donating tens of million of dollars to a nonprofit, it'll be to one where you wield significant control (officially or not). If Thiel's actions here were inappropriate, they'd be exactly as inappropriate if managed through a nonprofit.
    • wpietri 10y ago
      "E.g." means "for example". By which I mean: there are a bunch of ways he could do this, and I was suggesting one. Also note that I said other words than "nonprofit" that are part of the example that I expected people to generalize from. But to yield to your nitpicking for a moment, your last sentence is wrong. Nonprofits have public disclosure requirements and state audits to make sure that they are acting to actually benefit the public. So him putting tens of millions into a nonprofit would be a) inherently less wrong, because they would not have been secret, and b) likely to be yet less wrong, in that they would have had to face substantial scrutiny from public servants.
• internaut 10y ago
  The media sees Silicon Valley as a competitor. A natural enemy. The Valley after all deals with distribution of information on a massive scale. Traditionally this was a position held by either the Government or the Media. The state is still in the game for the usual reason of having access to unparalleled force on demand. The media on the other side has been much diminished by the Net, which is not what you'd expect if you thought they were information gathering and disseminating organizations. They deplore it! In fact their power stems from the ability to form opinion and synchronize the mood of mass numbers of people. If the world is the Middle Ages then the Media is the Witchfinder General. If the Witch is a person, the tabloids typically deal with it. If the Witch is an idea, the broadsheets do it while congratulating themselves on their distinction to the tabloids. This is all natural behavior of people, but it becomes focused like a laser on the whims of the opinion making classes. Sometimes journalists, typically of the Harvard School, sometimes those paying them to direct the faucet like advertisers or 'secret source' officials. The media has a similar role to the owner of a military garrison at a strategic river bend. The river and its traffic are wholly natural but the garrison is used to regulate it. Suppose that the media were not the opinion forming organs of the people. What then? Chaos? Anarchy? Dogs and cats living together? No. In fact people would naturally talk to each other on the new medium of information. We'd continue to develop tumblrs and 4chans. Thousands of small communities gossiping away about whatever they believe concerns them. Sometimes they would go overboard, but groups have an instinct for self preservation and mostly self regulate. What would be diminished is the synchronization of opinion. Themes would still exist, perhaps more strongly than before, still a left and a right. Notice how the social justice advocates and NRX formed themselves organically. Neither of these groups can be integrated into the mainstream politics today. It's not that they are too extreme, it is that they evolve too quickly to be controlled at the same rate as before (it's like biology, smaller entities evolve faster). The connection between low church and high church is severed. Gamergate is some evidence for my hypothesis, just in microcosm. We see a smaller community with one narrative crushed by the larger one with a different narrative. The Media does not like competition.
  • hellbanner 10y ago
    Hi, have you read http://degree180.com/8686-2/ http://degree180.com/8686-2/ ? Founder of a business for identifying cyber-bullies threatened by one "Zoe Quinn" that continuation of their campaign would result in harassment.. According to the author, no complaints were received prior to this threat. After this threat, user complaints resulted in killing their kickstarter.
• abalone 10y ago
  > The question should be why you need a billionaire to fund a lawsuit to get some sort of justice. Exactly. You shouldn't need $10M to sue someone for a grave invasion of privacy. It's also true that groups such as the EFF are funded in large part by corporations and billionaire foundations (although not exclusively). However, there is a crucial distinction between the EFF and what Thiel did. The EFF is an issue-driven organization. They issue position statements and operate in public. Their lawsuits are specific to the issues they advocate. The public has the ability to debate these issues and ultimately evolve the law around them. They have that balance of power. Thiel's objective was simply to run Gawker out of business. He pursued a variety of lawsuits on a diversity of claims that were united only in their goal of censoring a publication. That is not principled philanthropy. Operating in secret and without a principled issue focus, he does not face a balance of power from the public. If Thiel funded a privacy-advocacy foundation that gave legal aid to victims and engaged in principled public debate, that would be one thing. But that's not what he did here.
• criley2 10y ago
  >"Gawker wasn't speaking truth to power and criticizing individuals. Gawker posted an illegally obtained sex-tape. " Nice deflection! No one cared about the sex tape, they cared about the racist rant contained therein. Tony did not sue Gawker because of a sex tape (although that was the vector Thiel's lawyers chose), he sued them for exposing a racist rant of his. To claim that exposing his racist rant isn't criticizing a public individual is quite the massive deflection!!
  • lhnz 10y ago
    There wasn't a racist tirade in the video posted by Gawker. Your facts are wrong. The racist tirade was published by two completely different publications much later on by July 24, 2015. As far as I remember, by this point, Hogan had already been suing Gawker for releasing the sex tape for quite a while.
  • jdminhbg 10y ago
    As another poster noted, you have the facts backwards. Gawker posted the racist rant as retribution for Hogan's lawsuit. The sex tape was published because it was a sex tape of a famous person.
• rayiner 10y ago
  > The question should be why you need a billionaire to fund a lawsuit to get some sort of justice. You don't need a billionaire to get "some sort of justice." Bollea could have found someone to do this on contingency. But you may need a billionaire if your goal is to destroy a multi-million dollar media organization.