<story><title>Peter Thiel Has Been Funding Hulk Hogan&apos;s Lawsuits Against Gawker</title><url>http://www.forbes.com/sites/ryanmac/2016/05/24/this-silicon-valley-billionaire-has-been-secretly-funding-hulk-hogans-lawsuits-against-gawker/#fa8140778057</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>Analemma_</author><text>&amp;gt; but Gawker seems to very clearly be in the wrong here&lt;p&gt;That&amp;#x27;s not really relevant to my point. Even if Gawker was completely wrong to do what they did, why did Thiel pick that case to donate to? Plenty of people file lawsuits just as valid as Hulk Hogan&amp;#x27;s every day. Or why didn&amp;#x27;t he file an amicus curiae? This is clearly an attempt to destroy press he has a grudge against, which is alarming even if the specific lawsuit he picked was a valid one and the defendants were &amp;quot;Gawker bloggers&amp;quot;. Look at the bigger picture.</text></item><item><author>DKnoll</author><text>Please do not equate publishing the sex tape of an unwitting victim with freedom of the press... or Gawker bloggers with journalists, for that matter.&lt;p&gt;I don&amp;#x27;t agree or disagree with your statements about Thiel as I don&amp;#x27;t know enough about him to form an opinion, but Gawker seems to very clearly be in the wrong here. If Thiel in any way helped justice to be served here, for whatever motive, good on him.</text></item><item><author>Analemma_</author><text>(Reposting here since I&amp;#x27;m not sure which submission on new is going to &amp;quot;win&amp;quot;)&lt;p&gt;Sure does make this line in Thiel&amp;#x27;s Wikipedia page a bit awkward: &amp;quot;The Thiel Foundation is also a supporter of the Committee to Protect Journalists, which promotes the right of journalists to report the news freely without fear of reprisal&amp;quot; Oh, but I&amp;#x27;m sure this wasn&amp;#x27;t reprisal against Gawker (and specifically Valleywag, which was always extremely critical of libertarian VC techbros in general and Thiel in particular), he was just so moved by the plight of a pro wrestler suffering immensely from a leaked sex tape.&lt;p&gt;Look, I&amp;#x27;ll get out in front of people accusing me of bias and just say it: I&amp;#x27;ve always hated Thiel. I hate his politics, the behavior of &lt;i&gt;several&lt;/i&gt; of the companies he founded, and his smarmy &amp;quot;drop out of college!&amp;quot; advice. But even if you don&amp;#x27;t share my bile, you should be deeply disturbed by the fact that at least one Silicon Valley billionaire is talking about freedom and innovation with one side of his mouth, while using his money to try and destroy insufficiently sycophantic press outlets. We&amp;#x27;re moving ever-closer to a world where our industry leaders are not very distinguishable from 19th century robber barons (maybe not to you, but increasingly to the general public)</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>MichaelBurge</author><text>It doesn&amp;#x27;t matter. You don&amp;#x27;t need logical certainty(&amp;quot;If you violate the law, you will be punished&amp;quot;), just some statistical possibility(&amp;quot;If you violate the law, there&amp;#x27;s a small chance you might be punished&amp;quot;).&lt;p&gt;The small chance that someone somewhere might file a lawsuit against you could be enough to frighten future Gawkers, which protects even the small-time people who can&amp;#x27;t afford their own lawsuits.&lt;p&gt;And if some Gawker executive says to himself, &amp;quot;Let&amp;#x27;s do a risk assessment on this person to see if he&amp;#x27;s likely to get outside support to fight back.&amp;quot; Well, there&amp;#x27;s now the risk of leaving a paper trail demonstrating intent.</text></comment>
<story><title>Peter Thiel Has Been Funding Hulk Hogan&apos;s Lawsuits Against Gawker</title><url>http://www.forbes.com/sites/ryanmac/2016/05/24/this-silicon-valley-billionaire-has-been-secretly-funding-hulk-hogans-lawsuits-against-gawker/#fa8140778057</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>Analemma_</author><text>&amp;gt; but Gawker seems to very clearly be in the wrong here&lt;p&gt;That&amp;#x27;s not really relevant to my point. Even if Gawker was completely wrong to do what they did, why did Thiel pick that case to donate to? Plenty of people file lawsuits just as valid as Hulk Hogan&amp;#x27;s every day. Or why didn&amp;#x27;t he file an amicus curiae? This is clearly an attempt to destroy press he has a grudge against, which is alarming even if the specific lawsuit he picked was a valid one and the defendants were &amp;quot;Gawker bloggers&amp;quot;. Look at the bigger picture.</text></item><item><author>DKnoll</author><text>Please do not equate publishing the sex tape of an unwitting victim with freedom of the press... or Gawker bloggers with journalists, for that matter.&lt;p&gt;I don&amp;#x27;t agree or disagree with your statements about Thiel as I don&amp;#x27;t know enough about him to form an opinion, but Gawker seems to very clearly be in the wrong here. If Thiel in any way helped justice to be served here, for whatever motive, good on him.</text></item><item><author>Analemma_</author><text>(Reposting here since I&amp;#x27;m not sure which submission on new is going to &amp;quot;win&amp;quot;)&lt;p&gt;Sure does make this line in Thiel&amp;#x27;s Wikipedia page a bit awkward: &amp;quot;The Thiel Foundation is also a supporter of the Committee to Protect Journalists, which promotes the right of journalists to report the news freely without fear of reprisal&amp;quot; Oh, but I&amp;#x27;m sure this wasn&amp;#x27;t reprisal against Gawker (and specifically Valleywag, which was always extremely critical of libertarian VC techbros in general and Thiel in particular), he was just so moved by the plight of a pro wrestler suffering immensely from a leaked sex tape.&lt;p&gt;Look, I&amp;#x27;ll get out in front of people accusing me of bias and just say it: I&amp;#x27;ve always hated Thiel. I hate his politics, the behavior of &lt;i&gt;several&lt;/i&gt; of the companies he founded, and his smarmy &amp;quot;drop out of college!&amp;quot; advice. But even if you don&amp;#x27;t share my bile, you should be deeply disturbed by the fact that at least one Silicon Valley billionaire is talking about freedom and innovation with one side of his mouth, while using his money to try and destroy insufficiently sycophantic press outlets. We&amp;#x27;re moving ever-closer to a world where our industry leaders are not very distinguishable from 19th century robber barons (maybe not to you, but increasingly to the general public)</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>DKnoll</author><text>I am looking at the bigger picture, and what I see is that those who wield extraordinary power, whether it be financial, political or otherwise, rarely use it purely in defense of the &amp;#x27;greater good.&amp;#x27; However, sometimes their pragmatism serves it by coincidence and I&amp;#x27;m willing to celebrate when that happens.</text></comment>