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NYTimes: Peter Thiel (Paypal) Is Said to Bankroll Hulk Hogan’s Suit Against Gawker

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T

trembli0s

Member
Mael said:
Where did I say that?
I described them as news media because they're in that business, how successful they are at this and how some people (because otherwise they would have folded already) view them change nothing.
e: my issue is with the major difference in court outcome depending on the money you pour in the system.
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And what exactly? This is exactly how the system works. Good lawyers are worth their weight in gold, as are good facts.

If Denton had not been such a shit lord and a weasel running the world's worst "journalism" there would be no issue.
 
M

Mael

Member
trembli0s said:
And what exactly? This is exactly how the system works. Good lawyers are worth their weight in gold, as are good facts.

If Denton had not been such a shit lord and a weasel running the world's worst "journalism" there would be no issue.
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Again Denton got what's coming to him, no argument here.
You have no issue with someone being right being shafted he doesn't enough to pay for good lawyers or someone being wrong getting off scot free because he had enough resources to pay for good lawyers?
Great!
 
B

B-Dubs

No Scrubs
Mael said:
Again Denton got what's coming to him, no argument here.
You have no issue with someone being right being shafted he doesn't enough to pay for good lawyers or someone being wrong getting off scot free because he had enough resources to pay for good lawyers?
Great!
Click to expand...

That isn't really an issue in this case though. For once the legal system worked exactly as it should.
 
formasymphonic

formasymphonic

Member
There are no heroes in this. Only bad implications on both sides and lesser evils.

That said though, you can't just out someone's sexuality and not spect them to be angry about it. Being gay isn't a crime, and not telling people when you aren't ready to isn't one either.

If Theil wants to "enemy of my enemy" with Hogan, is anyone surprised? Removing claims to prevent Gawker being able to use insurance is some chess-tier play though. Some cold shit - someone should definitely use that in a movie.
 
O

Oregano

Member
Mael said:
Again Denton got what's coming to him, no argument here.
You have no issue with someone being right being shafted he doesn't enough to pay for good lawyers or someone being wrong getting off scot free because he had enough resources to pay for good lawyers?
Great!
Click to expand...

That's exactly the opposite of what happened though. Gawker would have got away scot free because the Hulkster wouldn't have been able to afford the lawsuit. They didn't because they happened to piss off a billionaire years ago.
 
T

trembli0s

Member
Mael said:
Again Denton got what's coming to him, no argument here.
You have no issue with someone being right being shafted he doesn't enough to pay for good lawyers or someone being wrong getting off scot free because he had enough resources to pay for good lawyers?
Great!
Click to expand...

You can't actually think that Denton couldn't afford to hire good lawyers.

This isn't at all analogous to a minority being railroaded by the power of the state while he has some horribly overworked public defender representing him.
 
T

TheSlySoul

Member
BronsonLee said:
I'll drop this in here since this seems like the new thread for this stuff

Judge Campbell denies Gawker's motion for a new trial. She will not reduce the $140m damages at all. #hulkvsgawk
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Oh dang, Gawker not coming out so hot.
Cannot be sympathetic though because they are no better than World News.
The Hobo said:
I think Gawker need to put up $50 million in order to appeal. They can't afford it.
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That's a lot, I think in my state it is you have to put up ~15% of damages to appeal.
 
J

jaekeem

Member
Tripon said:
It's the same judge from the the trial. The next step is to appeal to a higher court
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Don't they need a percentage of the damages stored in an account to even get that appeal?

I recall reading something vaguely along those lines. May be wrong.
 
andythinkpad

andythinkpad

Member
Mael said:
If you remove Thiel from equation it's doubtful we get to this situation.
I'm not arguing on the value of the lawsuit, Hogan rightfully won if I had an issue with that I would be commenting on the relevant thread.
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Give me a break. If some rich guy didn't bankroll it Hogan could have afforded the lawyer fee himself.

Even better, he could have kickstartered his legal fee and make it a biggest media circuit.

Also, paying money to support your political cause is the fucking AMERICA WAY. This is how American interest groups system work. It's not legal in a lot of other countries. But it's explicitly allowed in United States

1. You don't get to decide if they're news media or not, they're absolutely not worse than whatever shitty rag you can see this side of Walmart that pass for news. If National Enquirer gets to be called news, Gawker is certainly not worse.
2. That's not the point.

Heck as far as I'm concerned this quote is enough to get them to close :
.
If you're under the jurisdiction of the judge ordering you to do something, this is the stupidest defense line ever.
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BibiMaghoo

BibiMaghoo

Member
Fhtagn said:
He thinks women shouldn't have gotten the right to vote, for one thing, so yes.
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Does he?

Since 1920, the vast increase in welfare beneficiaries and the extension of the franchise to women — two constituencies that are notoriously tough for libertarians — have rendered the notion of “capitalist democracy” into an oxymoron.
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One site reported it the same way you phrased it. That site was Gawker.
 
I

Infinite

Member
This whole thing is entirely shitty. You have a lawsuit filed by a shitty racist which was funded by a shitty billionaire with a grudge against a shitty and unethical media corp
 
E

ExVicis

Member
Infinite said:
shitty racist
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He was shitty because he never inflicted his racism on anyone and kept it at home as a private opinion he never expressed anywhere else during his 60-some years alive? Yeah being racist is fucking awful but I'm not going to act as if he deserves to be pariah if he has never acted on his racism anywhere but in the privacy of his own thoughts and opinions in a bedroom.
 
F

fanboi

Banned
You who think it is wrong by this PayPal fella to help hulk, would it be better that justice wasn't served due to not having enough cash?
 
P

patapuf

Member
Mael said:
Again Denton got what's coming to him, no argument here.
You have no issue with someone being right being shafted he doesn't enough to pay for good lawyers or someone being wrong getting off scot free because he had enough resources to pay for good lawyers?
Great!
Click to expand...

Ironically that's exactly how Gawker got away with doing what it did for so long.

For once, they were on the shorter end of the money stick.
 
M

Mael

Member
B-Dubs said:
That isn't really an issue in this case though. For once the legal system worked exactly as it should.
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Not really, ideally you don't need to bankroll a big lawyer team to win a case as clear as this one.
Oregano said:
That's exactly the opposite of what happened though. Gawker would have got away scot free because the Hulkster wouldn't have been able to afford the lawsuit. They didn't because they happened to piss off a billionaire years ago.
Click to expand...
What does that tells you about the system?
And you have no issue with that?
trembli0s said:
You can't actually think that Denton couldn't afford to hire good lawyers.

This isn't at all analogous to a minority being railroaded by the power of the state while he has some horribly overworked public defender representing him.
Click to expand...
What makes you think I'm talking about Denton here?
andythinkpad said:
Give me a break. If some rich guy didn't bankroll it Hogan could have afforded the lawyer fee himself.

Even better, he could have kickstartered his legal fee and make it a biggest media circuit.

Also, paying money to support your political cause is the fucking AMERICA WAY. This is how American interest groups system work. It's not legal in a lot of other countries. But it's explicitly allowed in United States
Click to expand...
What does politics even have to do in court case between a private citizen and a media organization?
 
Z

Zaptruder

Banned
Mael said:
Where did I say that?
I described them as news media because they're in that business, how successful they are at this and how some people (because otherwise they would have folded already) view them change nothing.
e: my issue is with the major difference in court outcome depending on the money you pour in the system.
Click to expand...

You're uneasy because a billionaire helped to take down a corrupt media outlet.

IMO, this should be more common place - media outlets should be incentivized to act ethically or actually face real consequences.

That the system is such that these consequences can only be realistically brought to bear by self-interested billionaires is what annoys me.
 
M

Mael

Member
Zaptruder said:
You're uneasy because a billionaire helped to take down a corrupt media outlet.

IMO, this should be more common place - media outlets should be incentivized to act ethically or actually face real consequences.

That the system is such that these consequences can only be realistically brought to bear by self-interested billionaires is what annoys me.
Click to expand...

The bold is entirely everything I see wrong with the situation.
 
T

TarpitCarnivore

Member
The Fusion piece on this touches on the implications of a billionaire inserting themselves into a case. There is definitely a bit of a difference between a think tank / group / body of people and a single wealthy billionaire.


And let's not forget that Theil supports Trump, the very same guy who is trying to change libel laws.

http://fusion.net/story/306927/peter-thiel-gawker-dangerous-blueprint/

But Thiel has just upped the stakes. Back in 2006, he promised that he would rain destruction on Denton and his associates if Gawker ever outed him as being gay, which they did, the following year. But he didn’t sue Gawker over the articles that they wrote about him. Instead, he just sat, and waited, and waited, for years, as Gawker published thousands and thousands of articles about thousands and thousands of people, most of whom were entirely unrelated to Thiel.
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And so Thiel knew that, if he just had patience, eventually he’d be able to seize his chance, and make good on his threats. He hired a legal team, told them to look for promising cases, and then started funding them with millions of dollars.
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Hogan could have accepted a substantial financial settlement; he could also have made it much more likely that he would get paid, by suing in such a manner as to make Gawker’s insurance company liable for any verdict. Instead, he refused all settlements, and withdrew the insurable complaints, to ensure that the company itself would incur as much damage as possible.
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D

Dennis

Banned
Hogan could have accepted a substantial financial settlement; he could also have made it much more likely that he would get paid, by suing in such a manner as to make Gawker’s insurance company liable for any verdict. Instead, he refused all settlements, and withdrew the insurable complaints, to ensure that the company itself would incur as much damage as possible.
Click to expand...

hehe I love it
 
N

NYCmetsfan

Banned
TarpitCarnivore said:
The Fusion piece on this touches on the implications of a billionaire inserting themselves into a case. There is definitely a bit of a difference between a think tank / group / body of people and a single wealthy billionaire.


And let's not forget that Theil supports Trump, the very same guy who is trying to change libel laws.

http://fusion.net/story/306927/peter-thiel-gawker-dangerous-blueprint/
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This is why I'm so scared at the support. I mean i get peoples hate of gawker but a single billionare trying to bring them down and one who supports a presidential candidate who supports such cases?

The first amendment supports idiots like gawker and a few horrible posts where they haven' broken any laws shouldn't lead to them getting shut down by in essence rich people suing them into non-existence

The precedent this sets is scary
 
G

God Dayumm

Banned
Infinite said:
This whole thing is entirely shitty. You have a lawsuit filed by a shitty racist which was funded by a shitty billionaire with a grudge against a shitty and unethical media corp
Click to expand...

You almost make it sound as if both sides were equally bad. Also, everyone benefits from Gawker going down. They support libel, harassment and bullying, those things affect more than just old racist Hogan. This whole thing is a very good thing
 
Bitmap Frogs

Bitmap Frogs

Mr. Community
Fhtagn said:
So, you're ok with billionaires throwing their weight around to shut down sites that report on them? Sure, Gawker's done a fair amount of awful shady shit over the years, but it's hard to call this unreservedly good for the future of democracy when it's actually a pretty scary development.
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Outing someone as gay is not journalism. They were not reporting about tax dodging or other stuff. Talking about Gawker as if they were a site doing hard-hitting investigations on the rich and powerful smh....
 
E

Erevador

Member
Soyongdori said:
I had no idea people hated Gawker with a burning passion.
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NYCmetsfan said:
I think a lot of it is snowballed virtue signalling.
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There are literally hundreds of cases of people who have had their public reputations needlessly ruined or seriously tarnished by Gawker. They recklessly post rumors and innuendo with a kind of viciousness that is fairly unique.

They've been a terrible influence on the culture and they richly deserve to face the consequences that are now being visited upon them.
 
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