Sure, and let me be totally clear: if Hulk Hogan, himself, had sued Gawker because they posted explicit footage of him having sex, and had gotten a reasonable settlement for them doing something seriously gross, I don’t think anybody (including me) would have any objection. News orgs of any stripe shouldn’t post explicit sex tapes for the sake of driving traffic, which they definitely did. But Peter Thiel secretly funding the case and crafting the case to become a destruction of Gawker as a whole by attacking their ‘newsworthiness’ as an organization, and forcing the court to basically define news, turned it into something far larger than Gawker putting the Hulkster’s dick on their site. It’s kind of a shame that that, of all things, is the hill they died on.
To the people who believe a corporation deserves to be destroyed because of the Hulkster’s penis instead of charges being filed against the individual people who chose to run the pictures: Mr. Thiel thanks you for your gullible complicity in the slow dismantling of the first amendment to the benefit of the wealthy. You’ll receive a gift basket shortly.
The “nuclear option” wasn’t to go for a big pay day, it was to go for a big pay day with a cause of action that excluded the insurance company. Lawyers on contingency are unlikely to do that, because, you know, they like actually getting paid.
I’d say the criticism of Thiel is that while he may not have committed barratry, he’s doing something pretty damn similar. Bollea’s suit was one of at least three Thiel backed against Gawker.
I’d add that the problem for Gawker wasn’t just the verdict, it’s that Florida requires that you put up a bond that covers the damages in order to appeal. That presents a problem when you want to appeal excessive damages. (Though unlike what some have implied, there was minimal forum shopping here. The case was heard in the Florida courthouse of the county Bollea is resident).
To my knowledge Thiel was neither a party to the suit, a client of the attorneys, nor an attorney himself. Between that and the fact that disclosure to a third party can waive privilege, I would not be confident of claims of privilege preventing a deposition of Thiel.
They outed him. Let’s not soft-pedal this, Gawker Media took an ideological stance on sexual expression, and violated the privacy of numerous individuals in the name of proving that they were gay. Outside of this ideology, there’s basically no justification for telling the world that Peter Thiel is gay, unless you want to consider the notion that Gawker was simply making money by indulging the public’s taste for prurient gossip. In fact, there’s a lot of other behavior that Gawker engaged in, including publishing the Hogan sex tape and early Fappening dumps to support the non-ideological motivation of Gawker.
There’s all this sturm and drang about Thiel using his money to take on free expression, which is silly. Gawker wasn’t free expression incarnate, it wasn’t a charity, it was some content verticals published by a rich guy who got sued by another rich guy. As someone who read Gawker, and appreciated it, especially after they had their moment of clarity post-David Geithner, it sucks that it’s gone, but none of this happened in a vacuum.
As for the notion that third parties shouldn’t fund ideology-driven lawsuits on behalf of total strangers, where does that leave the ACLU? Or the EFF? Are we under the illusion that these orgs aren’t also funded by rich people?
Sorry, but no. When the article was published, the only people for whom Thiel was a famous name were people in Silicon Valley and the tech industry, where his sexual orientation had been an open secret for years. The article noted this, praised him for his openness, and encouraged more gay entrepreneurs in the Valley. The article came out years before he became a sugar daddy to the bigots on the alt-right. This was not comparable to the reprehensible David Geithener blind item.
By all accounts, Theil’s vendetta was sparked more by Gawker’s coverage of his investment fund’s bad performance. No-one in the Valley cares about a tech mogul’s sexual orientation, but if he stops making money for them then watch out!
Ideology only figured into this situation tangentially. This was a personal vendetta by an individual billionaire who knew he didn’t have a winning case of his own against Gawker and, as the article indicates, structured his revenge to work through someone who did.
Contrast with ACLU or the EFF, who sometimes represent or file amicus briefs on behalf of clients to whom they’re ideologically opposed. While they’re certainly funded by wealthy people (plural), they don’t sue defendants based on the personal grudges of their donors.
Numerous accounts have Thiel as being beside himself at being outed, I’m not sure where you get the “By all accounts” claim here. Further, if his sexual preferences were known far and wide, what is the news value in publishing Peter Thiel is totally gay, people?
Well, first of all, the ACLU and the EFF, to the best of my knowledge, never hide or misrepresent their involvement in any litigation. That’s a pretty big difference from square one.
But second, and more importantly, if the ACLU or the EFF were involved in litigation to bankrupt a media outlet because of unrelated content they didn’t like but couldn’t sue over, I’d have a pretty big problem with that as well.
He’s a control-freak public figure. He famously hates the idea of any unauthorised article or book being written about him.
Articles I’ve read, people I know in the Valley who know him. They all say it’s about his reputation as a Randian tycoon.
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Further, if his sexual preferences were known far and wide, what is the news value in publishing Peter Thiel is totally gay, people?
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Because the larger point of the author (a gay man himself, IIRC) was that if a high-profile figure in Silicon Valley could be openly gay, other gay tech entrepreneurs should be open and proud as well. The headline was clickbaity, but that’s life in the attention economy (see also Buzzfeed, BoingBoing, etc.)
In the end, it doesn’t matter to those of us concerned about a free press what the source of Thiel’s anger was. What does matter is that he couldn’t win a lawsuit against Gawker based on any of the articles, reducing any of his anger to a personal grudge. What does matter is that he was wealthy enough to put Gawker Media out of business on the basis of that personal grudge, without addressing it directly with them in a courtroom. That creates a chilling effect for other outlets who want to do unauthorised articles about him, because no outlet (including BoingBoing) is immune from winnable lawsuits from others. Perhaps you’re OK with that situations because you have valid reasons for not liking this particular outlet, but i and many others aren’t.
The case against Gawker was won on its merits, and I’m not going to dismiss the result because the person funding the plaintiff lawyers was anonymous. It is frankly insane that what keeps people from winning privacy lawsuits is the amount of money required to prosecute, and that you guys seem to be advocating this bifurcation as a Good Thing.
Privacy is something that can be violated by entities other than The State; as I mentioned earlier, Gawker has violated the privacy of people who were not Hulk Hogan or Peter Thiel, under the thinnest of justifications, and it was basically only a matter of time until they were called to account for it.
I think one of the objections a lot of people had to this case was specifically the amount of money involved. It was an example of a court case that normally would be fairly small and simple (Hulk Hogan rightfully suing Gawker for invading his privacy) which became a company-destroying lawsuit thanks to an infinite supply of anonymous money. It was a clear display of money winning a case and getting the result rich people wanted.
This phrase is doing a lot of work here; what you’re essentially describing is Hogan suing Gawker, and settling, because he wouldn’t have the money to pursue his case over what would surely be a drawn-out litigation. Like what happened here:
In 2012, a young North Carolina woman sued Gawker Media and Deep Dive Media for defamation, accusing both of aggregating a local news article speculating about whether she had exposed herself in a high school yearbook photo. (She was not named in the article.) A district judge denied Gawker’s request to dismiss the suit, and both parties later settled in mediation, according to Chris Mauriello, the woman’s lawyer.
Why is the legal budget of Gawker Media LLC (bought by Univision for $135 M) the limiting factor in who can seek remedy for its violation of their privacy? We’re saying that being unable to pursue legal remedy and being forced to settle privacy violations is a journalistic good?
Not at all. I’m talking about the difference between Hulk Hogan and his lawyers suing them for defamation – which he most definitely would be able to afford, being Hulk Hogan – and a legal case crafted by this “mystery man” and Peter Thiel to attack and discredit the very existence of Gawker as a news organization and bankrupt them, with a larger legal team paid for by Thiel.
I haven’t argued otherwise, at least as regards Hogan/Bollea. Thiel had no case of his own to win, which is why he bypassed the opportunity to settle his own grievance directly.
That’s a separate problem, one that Mr. “Democracy is incompatible with capitalism” isn’t doing anything about now the he destroyed Gawker.
Sure, but being called to account in a defamation suit is a different thing from being destroyed by a billionaire via a proxy (who, as others have pointed out above, probably walked away with less than he would have had Thiel not imposed his own priorities on the case).
Yeah, but your version of being “called into account” is someone filing a lawsuit, being forced to settle, Gawker writing a check, and nobody admitting they did anything wrong. I don’t know if you’ve been paying attention, but that sort of behavior gets toxic after a while.
I’m certainly not happy that it was Mr. Thiel who performed this act of charity-as-arbitrage, but the case against Gawker was made in a court of law, and was not appealed. The testimony of Daulerio and Denton was pretty damning, and IMHO, is why the awarded damages in the case were so high. The plaintiff lawyers were able to make the case that the Hogan tape was part of a string of behavior from Gawker, and that they didn’t take notions of privacy very seriously. I mean, why joke about little kid sex tapes in the middle of deposition?
Then you likely agree with the concerns many of us have with what happened here.
No one is really arguing with you that Gawker should have prevailed in the case, much less that they were noble actors here. That’s not the problem people have with what happened.
That’s what normally happens in a country that values a free press. It’s far from perfect but it’s better than plutocrats who don’t have a solid case instead using money and proxies to destroy outlets they dislike.
That Hogan/Bollea did have a case and that Denton was stupid enough to let a scumbag like Delaurio take the stand uncoached are separate issues everyone here agrees with you about.
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