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posted by martyb on Saturday May 28 2016, @02:59AM   Printer-friendly
from the best-justice-money-can-buy dept.

Two Soylentils wrote in with an update on Hulk Hogan's lawsuit against Gawker. After these stories were submitted, it appears to have been confirmed by The New York Times that Thiel paid $10 million to fund the lawsuit.

Peter Thiel Funded Hulk Hogan's Lawsuit Against Gawker

Peter Thiel, the billionaire Silicon Valley venture capitalist and libertarian who we have reported on several times, reportedly bankrolled former wrestler Hulk Hogan's (real name: Terry Bollea) lawsuit against Gawker. After Gawker published a sex tape featuring Bollea, Bollea sued and was eventually awarded $140 million by a jury. That decision is being appealed.

Thiel has had several run-ins with Gawker's reporting on his political and financial decisions, but the most prominent incident was in 2007, when the website's then-running gossip vertical Valleywag outed Thiel's sexual orientation in a post titled, "Peter Thiel is totally gay, people."

Thiel, who is now open about being gay, later called Valleywag "the Silicon Valley equivalent of Al Qaeda."

Although the exact details of the arrangement between Thiel and Bollea are unknown, if Thiel negotiated for a share of the lawsuit's proceeds, he may get to stick it to Gawker while earning millions of dollars.

[Continues...]

Hulk Hogan's Sex Tape and a Tech Billionaire's Revenge on Gawker

El Reg reports

Hogan's legal team specifically dropped a part of his lawsuit that would have seen Gawker's insurance company pick up the tab. On top of which, Hogan reportedly turned down a $10M settlement offer from Gawker to stop the case going to court.

Increasingly, it looked as though, [rather than compensating Hogan,] the lawsuit's main focus was to ruin Gawker--which does not have $140M in assets and would have to declare bankruptcy if the judgment stands.

Previous: Hulk Hogan Awarded $115 Million in Privacy Suit Against Gawker Media


Original Submission #1Original Submission #2

Related Stories

Colleges Consider "Trigger Warnings" in Curriculum 55 comments

Raw Story summarizes a New York Times report that Colleges across the country this spring have been wrestling with student requests for what are known as "trigger warnings," explicit alerts that the material they are about to read or see in a classroom might upset them or, as some students assert, cause symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder in victims of rape or in war veterans.

The debate has left many academics fuming, saying that professors should be trusted to use common sense and that being provocative is part of their mandate. Trigger warnings, they say, suggest a certain fragility of mind that higher learning is meant to challenge, not embrace. "Any kind of blanket trigger policy is inimical to academic freedom," said Lisa Hajjar, a sociology professor, who often uses graphic depictions of torture in her courses about war. "Any student can request some sort of individual accommodation, but to say we need some kind of one-size-fits-all approach is totally wrong. The presumption there is that students should not be forced to deal with something that makes them uncomfortable is absurd or even dangerous."

Greg Lukianoff, president of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, said, "It is only going to get harder to teach people that there is a real important and serious value to being offended. Part of that is talking about deadly serious and uncomfortable subjects."

A summary of the College Literature, along with the appropriate trigger warnings, assumed or suggested in the article is as follows: Shakespeare's "The Merchant of Venice" (anti-Semitism), Virginia Woolf's "Mrs. Dalloway" (suicide), "The Great Gatsby" (misogynistic violence), and "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" (racism).

Note: The Raw Story link was provided to provide an alternative to the article source, the New York Times, due to user complaints about the NYT website paywalling their articles.

NYT paywall by Anonymous Coward
PayPal Billionaire Peter Thiel Funding Libertarian Seastead 63 comments

Alternet reports:

Paypal billionaire Peter Thiel...has teamed up with the grandson of libertarian icon Milton Friedman, Patri Friedman, to try and develop a “seastead,” or a permanent and autonomous dwelling at sea. Friedman formed the “Seasteading Institute” in 2008, and Thiel has donated more than a million dollars to fund its creation...

they claim a floating city could be just years away. The real trick is finding a proper location to build this twenty-first century Atlantis. Currently, they are attempting to find a host nation that will allow the floating city somewhat close to land, for the calm waters and ability to easily travel to and from the seastead.

In recent years there have been reports of similar efforts, like the Freedom Ship, a floating city designed to house 50,000 people, with a landing strip on top of the vessel.

Such concepts raise the questions, "Can these communities create new social structures when the subconscious societal norms we all grow up with have such a powerful influence on our expectations?" and "Is the ocean really the best place to site these communities, given how powerful, treacherous, and corrosive an environment the sea is?"

Elon Musk and Friends Launch OpenAI 12 comments

Elon Musk, a businessman who has described artificial intelligence development as "summoning the demon", is among the backers of the newly launched non-profit OpenAI:

Elon Musk, Peter Thiel and other technology entrepreneurs are betting that talented researchers, provided enough freedom and money, can develop artificial intelligence systems as advanced as those being built by the sprawling teams at Google, Facebook Inc. and Microsoft Corp. Along the way, they'd like to save humanity from oblivion.

The pair are among the backers of OpenAI, a nonprofit company introduced Friday that will research novel artificial intelligence systems and share its findings. Musk, chief executive officer of Tesla Motors Inc. and Space Exploration Technologies Corp. and Sam Altman, president of the Y Combinator, will serve as co-chairman. The nonprofit has received financial backing from Musk, Thiel, co-founder of PayPal Holdings Inc. and Palantir Technologies Inc., Reid Hoffman and others as well as companies including Amazon Web Services and Infosys.

The group's backers have committed "significant" amounts of money to funding the project, Musk said in an interview. "Think of it as at least a billion."

Also at BBC, NYT, Fast Company, TechCrunch, and Hacker News (note the involvement of Sam Altman).

Internet Would be a Wild and Dangerous Place Without Facebook Says Peter Thiel 74 comments

Alyson Shontell writes at Business Insider that Peter Thiel, a longtime friend and mentor of Mark Zuckerberg, recently gave a talk that imagined what a Zuckerberg-less world would look like and it's pretty grim. According to Thiel, the web would be a not-very-safe, not-very-fun, totally anonymous place and it wouldn't be baked into our social lives at all. "You can imagine an alternate history in which people don't become comfortable using [the Internet] to meet their friends and family," said Thiel. "It could have remained a wild and dangerous place — maybe an exciting place to escape for a while, but maybe not part of your daily social life. Facebook has led a long and subtle but deeply important trend away from mob behavior, away from the kind of nastiness that hides behind masks and rules in shadow."

Thiel added that without Zuckerberg, information would be at the center of the Internet, not people. "If you could go back to the first years of the new millennium in Silicon Valley, you would hear a lot more about 'information' than about people. 'Organizing the world's information' was the idea of the age," Thiel told the audience. "While the implicit goal of computer science had been to build a machine that can do everything a human can do, Facebook has made software that only makes sense as a tool for humans. Its success in doing so has helped to gradually orient software developers away from the mania for replacing people." Thiel made his speech while Zuckerberg received the first-ever Axel Springer Award for being an outstanding entrepreneur (Google translation) in Berlin. Thiel and Zuckerberg have known each other for a long time and Thiel was an angel investor in Facebook who invested $500,000 in Facebook in 2004 and cashed out in 2012 for $1 billion.


Original Submission

Hulk Hogan Awarded $115 Million in Privacy Suit Against Gawker Media 29 comments

Hulk Hogan has been awarded damages of $115 million in a privacy suit against Gawker, which posted a sex tape featuring Hogan (real name: Terry G. Bollea) online:

The retired wrestler Hulk Hogan was awarded $115 million in damages on Friday by a Florida jury in an invasion of privacy case against Gawker.com over its publication of a sex tape — an astounding figure that tops the $100 million he had asked for, that will probably grow before the trial concludes, and that could send a cautionary signal to online publishers despite the likelihood of an appeal by Gawker.

The wrestler, known in court by his legal name, Terry G. Bollea, sobbed as the verdict was announced in late afternoon, according to people in the courtroom. The jury had considered the case for about six hours.

Mr. Bollea's team said the verdict represented "a statement as to the public's disgust with the invasion of privacy disguised as journalism," adding: "The verdict says, 'No more.' "

NYT also has this guide to the case.


Original Submission

Gawker Files for Chapter 11; Won't Pay Hulk Hogan and Peter Thiel 40 comments

Recode (Vox Media) reports

Gawker and owner Nick Denton are making the Chapter 11 filing today, in order to avoid paying Thiel and Hulk Hogan the $140 million judgment they won in Hogan's privacy trial earlier this year.

Update: In a memo to employees, Ziff Davis CEO Vivek Shah says his company has an "asset purchase agreement" to buy seven Gawker titles, and says there is a "tremendous fit between the two organizations".

Previous: Hulk Hogan's Sex Tape and a Tech Billionaire's Revenge on Gawker
Gawker Becomes First Online Media Outlet to Unionize


Original Submission

Univision Wins Bidding for Gawker Media 17 comments

CBS News reports that Univision has won the auction for Gawker Media. Univision bid $135 million for the company. The only other bidder was Ziff Davis. The sale must be approved by a bankruptcy court.

From the article:

Spanish-language broadcaster Univision won an auction Tuesday for Gawker Media, which was put on the block in the aftermath of a $140 million judgment against it in the Hulk Hogan invasion-of-privacy case.

Univision is paying $135 million for the online gossip and news publisher, according to a person familiar with the matter who asked not to be identified because the deal had not been formally announced.

In a statement Tuesday evening however, Gawker's founder confirmed they agreed to sell their business and brand to Univision.

Expanding from its Spanish-language base, Univision has been investing in media properties aimed at young people, including taking a stake in satirical website The Onion in January. In April, it said it was taking full control of Fusion, a TV channel and website aimed at English-speaking young people it had launched with ABC in 2013.

Univision outbid Ziff Davis, the owner of tech and gaming sites, in the auction for Gawker Media. They were the only two bidders, according to a person familiar with the bankruptcy auction. A judge must still approve the sale at a hearing Thursday.

previously:
Hulk Hogan Awarded $115 Million in Privacy Suit Against Gawker Media
Hulk Hogan's Sex Tape and a Tech Billionaire's Revenge on Gawker
Gawker Files for Chapter 11; Won't Pay Hulk Hogan and Peter Thiel


Original Submission

Peter Thiel Makes a Bid for Gawker.com 15 comments

Thiel Makes a Bid for Gawker.com, a Site He Helped Bankrupt

Peter Thiel, the technology billionaire, submitted a bid this week to purchase Gawker.com, the remaining unsold property from the Gawker Media gossip empire that was nearly destroyed in 2016 by a lawsuit largely bankrolled by Mr. Thiel.

If approved, the acquisition could be the last step in a yearslong effort by Mr. Thiel to finish an independent journalism outfit that angered him in 2007 when it reported, without his permission, that he is gay, a fact widely known at the time in Silicon Valley.

Gawker.com has received other offers, and it is not clear if Mr. Thiel, a co-founder of PayPal and an early investor in Facebook, will prevail. A winning bid is expected to be announced in the coming weeks, if representatives of Gawker.com do not take the site off the market.

Previously: Hulk Hogan's Sex Tape and a Tech Billionaire's Revenge on Gawker
Gawker Files for Chapter 11; Won't Pay Hulk Hogan and Peter Thiel
Peter Thiel Wants to Buy Gawker!


Original Submission

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  • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 28 2016, @03:22AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 28 2016, @03:22AM (#351869)

    Assholes battling other assholes, taking up court times. It's like welfare for lawyers.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 28 2016, @03:41AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 28 2016, @03:41AM (#351873)

      Assholes are Peter Thief's favorite thing!

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 28 2016, @03:42AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 28 2016, @03:42AM (#351874)

        And now you know… the rest… of the story?

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 28 2016, @03:38AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 28 2016, @03:38AM (#351872)

    I think the comment totals on the front page are not updating. Yeah, I should probably submit a bug report instead. Yet, it is a proud tradition, at least as proud as not reading TFA or even TFS, for an AC to bitch about shit in a comment.

    • (Score: 2) by paulej72 on Saturday May 28 2016, @04:12AM

      by paulej72 (58) on Saturday May 28 2016, @04:12AM (#351879) Journal

      Should be fixed. We broke the server that was running the background task that updates counts for a bit. It should be working properly now.

      --
      Team Leader for SN Development
      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 28 2016, @01:03PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 28 2016, @01:03PM (#351971)

        Cool! Thanks

  • (Score: 2) by jmorris on Saturday May 28 2016, @04:18AM

    by jmorris (4844) on Saturday May 28 2016, @04:18AM (#351880)

    If true this has to be one of the best revenge tales ever told. Don't get mad, get even!

    I'd love to see most of the legacy media destroyed thus. A nest of vipers all, equally full of an undeserved importance, incompetence and malicious lies.

    • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Azuma Hazuki on Saturday May 28 2016, @04:43AM

      by Azuma Hazuki (5086) on Saturday May 28 2016, @04:43AM (#351884) Journal

      The enemy of your enemy isn't your friend, idiot. This is an awful precedent for the first amendment, and is a further conflation of money with "free speech."

      --
      I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
      • (Score: 2, Disagree) by moondoctor on Saturday May 28 2016, @09:53AM

        by moondoctor (2963) on Saturday May 28 2016, @09:53AM (#351945)

        Have to disagree, not going to call you names though. Gawker fucked Thiel, he found a way to fuck them back with a 'friend' created by their mutual enemy.

        Moreover: This has nothing to do with 'free speech' - this is straight up media ethics and it's consequences in modern society.

        WTF? First Amendment? Some serious misunderstanding around this these days. Much of it manipulated and wilful.

        Free speech is the freedom from prosecution *by the government* and protection for saying stuff people don't like. Society at large is free to treat you however they feel, within the bounds of the law. You are free to say and express stupid and dickish things, but your are not free from the societal consequences of said dickishness. You can say dumb shit in any public space as long as you aren't breaking the law - i.e. being a public nuisance, assaulting people, and so on. But, nobody has to listen to, report on or broadcast that shit if they don't want to.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 28 2016, @10:38AM

          by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 28 2016, @10:38AM (#351953)

          would you be so happy with the results if Thiel had a hard-on for soylent instead of gawker?

          furthermore, thiel is on record saying he does not support democracy, he wants the country to be run by a "great man"

          Pick at any system with enough force and you can make it unravel, should a guy with those kinds of resources and that disdain for our system of government be trusted not to exploit the legal system?

          • (Score: 2) by moondoctor on Saturday May 28 2016, @12:09PM

            by moondoctor (2963) on Saturday May 28 2016, @12:09PM (#351963)

            This is a bitch fight in the media, so it really doesn't matter. It's not a first amendment issue, that's all I'm saying.

            Regarding Soylent, thing is, the target is entirely irrelevant. Peter Thiel's politics are entirely irrelevant.

            And as to the unravelling of the justice system - *Nobody* should be trusted to not exploit the legal system, that's the point of a legal system...

            A just, healthy, and robust legal system is the only solution. As a society we can only strive to get as close as possible to that ideal, and have an obligation to do so.

            Now, nowhere did I ever express being 'happy' about this. Putting words in my mouth is no way to play, son. Gawker lighting itself on fire is a loss for me, not happy about it at all. Jalopnik was pretty much my favourite place for an informed, amusing, civil but lively debate. One of the few places I used to do more than lurk. Gawker's actions finally made me uncomfortable supporting them, so sadly Jalop is gone from my bookmarks. Wasn't that hard really, they were in meltdown mode anyway. I did like IO9, Gizmodo and Jalopnik before they shit the bed. If soylent had pulled some kind of shit on par with what gawker did, then yes I'd be all for it. And that bookmark would go. Not worried about that, though. Thing I really like about this place is that it feels very true to it's principles, and they are principles I'm down with.

            • (Score: 3, Insightful) by JNCF on Saturday May 28 2016, @04:55PM

              by JNCF (4317) on Saturday May 28 2016, @04:55PM (#352008) Journal

              It's not a first amendment issue, that's all I'm saying.

              This is totally a first amendment issue. I don't think the quote I'm about to provide proves that the Supreme Court feels libel laws are always unconstitutional (often seemingly contradictory statements can be found in judicial statements), but I do think it establishes that they see libel laws as being an encroachment on first amendment rights, whether justified or not in a given case. Without further ado, from Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart in Rosenblatt v. Baer:

              The only sure way to protect speech and press against these threats is to recognize that libel laws are abridgments of speech and press and therefore are barred in both federal and state courts by the First and Fourteenth Amendments. I repeat what I said in the New York Times case that ‘An unconditional right to say what one pleases about public affairs is what I consider to be the minimum guarantee of the First Amendment.’

              Whether the punishment is prison or fine, a law restricting speech is a law restricting speech. It doesn't matter if somebody has to launch a lawsuit. I have no respect for Gawker, but I hope they win this one.

              • (Score: 2) by moondoctor on Saturday May 28 2016, @07:29PM

                by moondoctor (2963) on Saturday May 28 2016, @07:29PM (#352025)

                I take your point, and it's a very good one, however I see things slightly different. In my opinion as a privately owned entertainment site Gawker is out of the scope of the first amendment. They deserve no protection from their morally questionable actions. I would argue that the first amendment protections in this situation would come from libel laws that are impeccable and work properly.

                In a nutshell:

                  ‘An unconditional right to say what one pleases about public affairs is what I consider to be the minimum guarantee of the First Amendment.’

                Damn straight. But I don't have publish it on my website and if I do I'm responsible for the consequences. They acted like bitches and got bitch slapped.

                I think for me the grey area arises form the fact that these were private affairs of public figures, so it's more complex.

                • (Score: 1, Flamebait) by JNCF on Saturday May 28 2016, @08:03PM

                  by JNCF (4317) on Saturday May 28 2016, @08:03PM (#352031) Journal

                  You sure do like saying "bitch" a lot; may I suggest you find some other gendered vulgarities to throw around? When I want to problematically imply that someone is acting like I woman, in a bad way, I like to mix up my "bitch"es with the occasional "cunt," and "cum-dumpster," and "pussy," among others. It cuts down on repetition, if not crassness. :P

                  In my opinion as a privately owned entertainment site Gawker is out of the scope of the first amendment.

                  So if I posted the same information on a personal blog, as an individual and not a corporation, would you want the government to hold me financially liable?

                  • (Score: 2) by moondoctor on Saturday May 28 2016, @09:11PM

                    by moondoctor (2963) on Saturday May 28 2016, @09:11PM (#352054)

                    Don't matter... 'Private' in this context means non-governmental, so either your personal blog or a corporate blog is fine. If the libel laws are fair and you are held financially liable by the government then yes, you pay up.

                    Real journalism is held to a higher standard and handled differently. Democracy cannot function without an informed population, so journalism is a fundamental part of the process. The founding fathers understood this. By being an 'entertainment' company many media outlets avoid any responsibility that old-school honest journalists felt a duty to follow. Do no harm is one of the tenets of proper journalism and that site seems to go for the opposite. Fuck 'em.

                    Sorry about the bitches and any offence caused. I meant nasty and malicious.

                    • (Score: 2) by JNCF on Saturday May 28 2016, @09:39PM

                      by JNCF (4317) on Saturday May 28 2016, @09:39PM (#352058) Journal

                      Sorry about the bitches and any offence caused. I meant nasty and malicious.

                      Lulz, it's pretty hard to offend me. I just think that the implications some words have in certain contexts go unexamined sometimes, and I appreciate that you were open to my ribbing criticism instead of becoming defensive! My point was merely that the use of the word "bitch" as an insult is an insult by comparison with women, which seems sort of problematic. I still catch myself using it in spoken conversation sometimes, but I think I've cut it from my writing.

                      'Private' in this context means non-governmental, so either your personal blog or a corporate blog is fine. If the libel laws are fair and you are held financially liable by the government then yes, you pay up.

                      I'm wondering if you see your word use here as being consistent with your earlier statement:

                      In my opinion as a privately owned entertainment site Gawker is out of the scope of the first amendment.

                      Inconsistent word use between comments is totally understandable, I just don't want to be misinterpretting you. Between the two statements, I read this as saying that non-government entities are outside the scope of the first amendment, which doesn't seem reasonable to me given that the Bill of Rights was all about spelling out certain things the government couldn't do to people. I think I must be misunderstanding.

                      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 28 2016, @10:20PM

                        by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 28 2016, @10:20PM (#352064)

                        Don't be such a fucking cunt, bitch.

                        • (Score: 2) by JNCF on Saturday May 28 2016, @11:03PM

                          by JNCF (4317) on Saturday May 28 2016, @11:03PM (#352073) Journal

                          Spoken like a wimpy, whiny fish-taco.

                      • (Score: 2) by Anal Pumpernickel on Sunday May 29 2016, @12:40AM

                        by Anal Pumpernickel (776) on Sunday May 29 2016, @12:40AM (#352095)

                        My point was merely that the use of the word "bitch" as an insult is an insult by comparison with women

                        That depends entirely on the intentions of the person using the word. No words are inherently bad; it depends on how you use them. And of course, a single word can have multiple definitions and uses.

                        • (Score: 2) by JNCF on Sunday May 29 2016, @12:57AM

                          by JNCF (4317) on Sunday May 29 2016, @12:57AM (#352098) Journal

                          I definitely agree that the meaning of a word depends on context, and I did say "as an insult." You're right though, this is still overly broad; I can think of hypotheticals where it isn't an implicit comparison. But I think that if you're using "bitch" to mean "nagging," "whiny," "emotional," etc., or when the term is applied to men who are acting effeminate, I think it's pretty obvious that this use etymologically comes from a comparison to negative female stereotypes. I think the use in question, which referred to a gay Gawker writer outing Thiel as a "bitch fight" and said that Gawker "acted like bitches and got bitch slapped" seems to fall under this umbrella. I'm not accusing anybody of being purposefully sexist or homophobic, I really just see it as unexamined language (now explicitly examined, hopefully to positive affect).

                          • (Score: 2) by JNCF on Sunday May 29 2016, @01:03AM

                            by JNCF (4317) on Sunday May 29 2016, @01:03AM (#352099) Journal

                            P.S.
                            I think you're focusing on conscious intention, and I'm focusing on how the term came about. I think both are interesting, and different, lenses to view it from. I think language can imply something without that thing being intended by the author.

              • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 29 2016, @11:40AM

                by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 29 2016, @11:40AM (#352231)

                This is totally a first amendment issue.

                You are free to wave your arms around as you please but that freedom stops at the end of my nose! You have freedom of speech and expression but cannot yell 'fire' in a crowded theatre! Such negative and anti-social freedoms are restricted.

                The press must responsibly balance the personal privacy of individuals with the public interest. As in the example of a preacher campaigning against homosexuals while engaging in clandestine homosexual relations with young men; there is a demonstrable public interest in exposing the hypocrisy. If there is no public interest then peoples personal lives or lawful sexual proclivities are simply no business of anybody else.

                The unjustifiable violation of others privacy and interpersonal boundaries for personal gain is more accurately termed sociopathy than journalism. In the UK, truth is not a defence against slander or libel. Absent a public interest defence, the only possible intent must be defamatory in nature. Indeed, one of the Gawker properties is actually titled "defamer".

                To summize: The right of individuals to erect advertising billboards throughout your geographic locale that accuse JNCF of fucking stray dogs should not be protected speech.

                • (Score: 2) by JNCF on Sunday May 29 2016, @05:33PM

                  by JNCF (4317) on Sunday May 29 2016, @05:33PM (#352299) Journal

                  To summize: The right of individuals to erect advertising billboards throughout your geographic locale that accuse JNCF of fucking stray dogs should not be protected speech.

                  I would like that speech to be unpoliced. I'm not arguing that the Supreme Court would agree with this desire of mine, only that they would agree that the first amendment is relevant to the case. It's a first amendment issue, whether it stands as protected or not.

          • (Score: 5, Insightful) by wonkey_monkey on Saturday May 28 2016, @12:11PM

            by wonkey_monkey (279) on Saturday May 28 2016, @12:11PM (#351964) Homepage

            would you be so happy with the results if Thiel had a hard-on for soylent instead of gawker?

            If Solyent started making of thing of detailing the personal, private habits of people in the public eye, then yeah, probably.

            --
            systemd is Roko's Basilisk
          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 28 2016, @12:17PM

            by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 28 2016, @12:17PM (#351965)

            What you mentioned should have no bearing on the legal arguments of the case. It doesn't matter if he supports North Korea, doesn't like ice cream, or if his favorite color is black.

          • (Score: 4, Touché) by Tork on Saturday May 28 2016, @01:20PM

            by Tork (3914) Subscriber Badge on Saturday May 28 2016, @01:20PM (#351973)
            There's a reason I come here and not Gawker.
            --
            🏳️‍🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️‍🌈
        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 29 2016, @12:36AM

          by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 29 2016, @12:36AM (#352093)

          Free speech is the freedom from prosecution *by the government* and protection for saying stuff people don't like.

          No, that's the legal implementation of free speech. The concept of free speech--being able to speak freely without being censored, etc.--is much broader than that.

      • (Score: 1) by kurenai.tsubasa on Saturday May 28 2016, @02:19PM

        by kurenai.tsubasa (5227) on Saturday May 28 2016, @02:19PM (#351979) Journal

        Perhaps. The enemy of my enemy is still the enemy of my enemy. You should know why you don't out people. Owen Thomas should have known too. Coming out ends friendships and breaks families apart. It destroys careers. It shouldn't be that way, but it is that way. Sometimes a person gets lucky, and coming out does none of those things.

        Now, there is the Lyin' Ted exception (well, asshole Republican exception), but I don't think that applies here. Seeing as how that one is usually tied to pedophilia or questionable expenses, there's usually not much of a grey area.

        Thomas justifies his article by implying that it was already common knowledge that Thiel was gay:

        I did discuss his sexuality, but it was known to a wide circle who felt that it was not fit for discussion beyond that circle. I thought that attitude was retrograde and homophobic, and that informed my reporting. I believe that he was out and not in the closet.

        I find that self-contradictory. Thomas admits that Thiel's sexual orientation was not fit for discussion beyond a “wide circle,” but then he leaps to presuming that constitutes being out. He essentially asserts that he knew better than Thiel about how to handle knowledge of Thiel's sexual orientation. That strikes me as a dangerous notion.

        As far as free speech, the media needs to be responsible about what they publish. Thiel has a point:

        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 can defend myself. Most of the people they attack are not people in my category. They usually attack less prominent, far less wealthy people that simply can’t defend themselves.

        There is no public interest in outing somebody simply because one thinks they should be out in the interests of some greater good. It's not one's decision to make. If there were credible evidence that Pat McCrory, just to pick on him, were secretly a crossdresser and desired to be a woman, there would be a public interest in publishing that. (Hence the Lyin' Ted exception.)

        It's unfortunate that our legal system is pay to play. I don't know how to fix that. I don't see a conflict here with free speech. As Mary Anne Franks (prof University of Miami School of Law) states in TFA, “If you really do have concerns about the merits of this case, finding out who bankrolled it doesn’t really help you at all.”

        Thiel also gets into his methodology.

        Without going into all the details, we would get in touch with the plaintiffs who otherwise would have accepted a pittance for a settlement, and they were obviously quite happy to have this sort of support….

        I would underscore that I don’t expect to make any money from this. This is not a business venture.

        So it's troubling that we have a pay to play system, but it's also troubling that said pay to play system encourages people to settle for less than being made whole. So whether or not Thiel bankrolled Bollea's lawsuit is immaterial if we're comparing the current system to a hypothetical system where Bollea could have brought the case to trial on his own.

        The one thing that does leave a bad taste in my mouth is that the part of the suit having Gawker's insurance cover the damages was dropped. It would have been the higher road to allow the insurance company to pay out the damages. Then it would be between Gawker and insurance just what the cost of their giant bullhorn is in terms of doing business. It would be much more satisfying for Gawker's big mouth to price them out of the insurance market.

        • (Score: 2) by jmorris on Monday May 30 2016, @03:57AM

          by jmorris (4844) on Monday May 30 2016, @03:57AM (#352481)

          It would have been the higher road to allow the insurance company to pay out the damages.

          Not at all, then it would have just been about the money. Beyond getting the insurance company out of the picture these lawyers have managed to get Gawker's principle held -personally- liable. They don't want the money from some insurance company who would just pass it on in higher rates for everyone. The idea is to break Gawker Media and to break Nick Denton personally, in a very long, public and painful process as an example to others. They don't have anything like $140Mil so the actual money they end up getting will probably pay legal fees and pay for a big party to celebrate. It certainly will not make up for the damage to Hogan's reputation. But they will have provided a great public service by cleaning out a vile hive of scum and villainy.

      • (Score: 2) by GungnirSniper on Saturday May 28 2016, @02:58PM

        by GungnirSniper (1671) on Saturday May 28 2016, @02:58PM (#351983) Journal

        I thought the involuntary outing of any LGBTQ person was on the moral level of a hate crime? Why did Gawker get a pass on betraying Thiel's personal life to get a few clicks? And why are we surprised a billionaire would fight back?

        • (Score: 2, Insightful) by kurenai.tsubasa on Sunday May 29 2016, @02:38AM

          by kurenai.tsubasa (5227) on Sunday May 29 2016, @02:38AM (#352118) Journal

          I consider it as such at least due to the destruction it can cause. Gawker is caught in an SJW paradox. Thomas took judgement of how to best handle the information that Thiel is homosexual into his own hands. As an SJW, Thomas thought he could serve the greater good by announcing Thiel's sexual orientation.

          This is the inherent contradiction of the SJWs. They are beholden to their social justice values, but they are ignorant as to the consequences of their actions on individuals.

        • (Score: 1) by boxfetish on Sunday May 29 2016, @03:00AM

          by boxfetish (4831) on Sunday May 29 2016, @03:00AM (#352123)

          I am not (necessarily) defending Gawker here, but I believe the rationale is that Peter Thiel actively works against LGBTQ rights/causes and is, himself, gay. That is newsworthy as many LGBTQ persons who might otherwise tend to admire him or view him as a role model (blech!) would want to know this.

          • (Score: 2) by jmorris on Monday May 30 2016, @04:00AM

            by jmorris (4844) on Monday May 30 2016, @04:00AM (#352482)

            Translation: The uppity faggot doesn't know his place. Got it.

            Amazing how gays don't know enough to know what they want, women must be told what they want by their betters, blacks who aren't part of the race grievance industry aren't 'authentically black' and so on. One would almost think they are helpless pawns in the political machinations of progressives... but that can't be true, right?

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 28 2016, @07:04AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 28 2016, @07:04AM (#351914)

      "Of course," he said, "you're a new neighbour, aren't you?"

      "And you must be"—she raised her eyes from his professional symbols—"the fireman." Her voice trailed off.

      "How oddly you say that."

      "I'd—I'd have known it with my eyes shut," she said, slowly.

      "What—the smell of kerosene? My wife always complains," he laughed. "You never wash it off completely."

      "No, you don't," she said, in awe.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 28 2016, @08:36AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 28 2016, @08:36AM (#351926)

    Thiel, who is now open about being gay, later called Valleywag "the Silicon Valley equivalent of Al Qaeda."

    So when's he being sued?