Which is all fine. In that one case. But do some poking around. Thiel, or at least his legal proxy is involved in a bizarrely large number of past and present legal actions against Gawker. Most of them clearly spurious, or where Gawker is clearly in the right. Hogan is/was a lucky hit. Thiel happened to bankroll a particularly winable case, in a particularly friendly court, and Gawker happened to drop the ball badly (serious go find somewhere to read the defenses testimony or excerpts). And many observers, most of them actual lawyers, have said the decision in that case is a bad one at odds with legal precedent. But Gawker are currently being sued over a rather well regarded, well reported, and entertaining investigative piece on Trump’s hair piece by the same lawyer. On behalf of the hair replacement company in question. Among other really weird cases.
This doesn’t seem to be a case where Gawker clearly violated the law. And some one (Hogan) was looking to sue them for $140m. And Thiel just happened to notice and offer to fund it for spite/a cut. Hogan settled with the guy who convinced him to fuck his wife, secretly filmed it, then deliberately leaked it for $5k. It looks increasingly like Thiel went looking (through the lawyer in question) for anyone who could sue Gawker. No matter how tenuous the case. And prompted them to do so, with assurances that he’d cover the cost. That looks like an attempt to bankrupt Gawker with spurious law suits. File so many that even when they are dismissed, or Gawker prevails (something that’s happened in a few cases Thiel may have bankrolled) they go broke anyway. Kind of the shotgun approach.
So like I said Hogan was a lucky break. He unexpectedly won. From what I’ve read because Gawker/Denton seriously screwed the pooch defending themselves. And while Gawker does have a bad habit of doing wrong, hugely unethical, indefensible things. For profit. It isn’t clear that any of them have amounted to an out and out violation of law. Given Thiel’s approach they could have been 100% right, 100% legal, 100% unimpeachably magically Jesus. And still would have ended up just as bankrupt on a long enough time line.
Basically Thiel’s involvement and the Hogan shit show are 2 different but intersecting issues.
