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