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

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T

Tripon

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A 2007 article published by Gawker’s Valleywag blog was headlined, “Peter Thiel is totally gay, people.” That and a series of articles about his friends and others that he said “ruined people’s lives for no reason” drove Mr. Thiel to mount a clandestine war against Gawker. He funded a team of lawyers to find and help “victims” of the company’s coverage mount cases against Gawker.

“It’s less about revenge and more about specific deterrence,” he said on Wednesday in his first interview since his identity was revealed. “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.”
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Mr. Thiel said that Gawker published articles that were “very painful and paralyzing for people who were targeted.” He said, “I thought it was worth fighting back.”

Mr. Thiel added: “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.” He said that “even someone like Terry Bollea who is a millionaire and famous and a successful person didn’t quite have the resources to do this alone.”
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Mr. Thiel said that he had decided several years ago to set his plan in motion. “I didn’t really want to do anything,” he said. “I thought it would do more harm to me than good. One of my friends convinced me that if I didn’t do something, nobody would.”

Mr. Thiel has donated money to the Committee to Protect Journalists and has often talked about protecting freedom of speech. He said he did not believe his actions were contradictory. “I refuse to believe that journalism means massive privacy violations,” he said. “I think much more highly of journalists than that. It’s precisely because I respect journalists that I do not believe they are endangered by fighting back against Gawker.”

He continued, “It’s not like it is some sort of speaking truth to power or something going on here. The way I’ve thought about this is that Gawker has been a singularly terrible bully. In a way, if I didn’t think Gawker was unique, I wouldn’t have done any of this. If the entire media was more or less like this, this would be like trying to boil the ocean.” Mr. Thiel said he had not targeted any other media companies.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/26/b...column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news
 
C

Cipherr

Member
Mael said:
Not really, ideally you don't need to bankroll a big lawyer team to win a case as clear as this one.
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Sure, ideally. But thats not a problem with this case, or any of the parties involved, thats a deep rooted problem with the system in this country. It feels pretty offtopic/random.

Mael said:
What does that tells you about the system?
And you have no issue with that?
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I certainly do, but again, I don't really get why that's being discussed? Its a completely different topic.

NYCmetsfan said:
I think a lot of it is snowballed virtue signalling.
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I think a lot of you guys bewilderment comes from a lack of familiarity with some of the scummy shit Gawker has been a part of. I wont necessarily blame you for not reading every inch of the internet and being aware of their bad reputation; but this stuff isn't exactly hard to find.
 
M

MegaManTrigger

Banned
The Jackdog said:
"rich person shuts down journalists he doesnt like" is not a headline you should want to read
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It's reductive to simply insinuate that Thiel is bankrolling to shutdown people he doesn't like. These journalists clearly didn't give two cents about posting someone's sexual orientation without consent, just like how they had the double standard of posting Hogan's sex tape without consent because "M-MUH DEFIANCE!" Maybe if Gawker actually had standards and ethics with their news reporting, they wouldn't have antagonized some powerful people.

If I was a billionaire and someone wrote something about my private life that I did not consent to, damn straight I'm going for their heads.
 
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