"It’s not for me to decide what happens to Gawker. "I figured it would eventually come out,” he said. Which brings us back to last night and Thiel's interview with The Times. Hogan is being represented by Charles Harder, a prominent Los Angeles-based lawyer," Forbes writes. Hogan, brought against New York-based Gawker. "According to people familiar with the situation who agreed to speak on condition of anonymity, Thiel, a cofounder and partner at Founders Fund, has played a lead role in bankrolling the cases Terry Bollea, a.k.a. The very next day after Denton speaks to The Times, Forbes reports that Thiel funded the lawsuit against Gawker. I have no idea if it’s true but it sure would explain a lot of the seemingly inexplicable in this already bizarre case." What if said person wanted to see Gawker suffer even at significant cost to him/her? We received a tip that certain Tampa lawyers believe a benefactor agreed to cover Hogan’s legal fees in some capacity. I don’t understand the psychology of people who would kill themselves and blow up buildings, and I don’t understand people who would spend their lives being angry it just seems unhealthy."ĪBC News chief legal analyst Dan Abrams writes on his site Law Newz: "What if someone was encouraging Hogan and his attorneys not to settle. I think they should be described as terrorists, not as writers or reporters. Thiel added, "It’s terrible for the Valley, which is supposed to be about people who are willing to think out loud and be different. I actually think it’s sort of the psychology of a terrorist, where it’s purely destructive and that Valleywag is the Silicon Valley equivalent of Al Qaeda," he told the site. I simply think he’s an asshole for doing it, and a coward for having attempted to do it in secret."Maybe I’m wrong and did something terrible to them, but I’m not particularly flattered by being targeted. I, for one, don’t dispute Peter Thiel’s right to back Hogan’s case. Willick’s defense of Thiel strikes me as being of a piece with the view that the super rich are an aggrieved, rather than privileged, class.
#Peter thiel gawker free#
And now commentators who are appalled are free to express their outrage at Thiel, perhaps embarrassing him and making it less likely that he or others of similar super-wealth will do this in the future. But Gawker founder Nick Denton was free to air his suspicion that Hogan had a billionaire Silicon Valley backer, and Forbes was free to out Thiel as said backer. Thiel was free to secretly back (and apparently strategically steer) Hogan’s case against Gawker. Gawker-sympathizers hand-wave about how the wealthy contrarian is Not and should not be in dispute, no matter how much And that means Peter Thiel’s right to back Hogan’s cause is Regardless of where they reside on the left-wing privilege totem Our First Amendment protects the speech rights of everyone, My counter to Willick, though, is that it’s possible to be outraged and/or alarmed by Thiel’s behavior without proposing any sort of new legislative barrier to prevent this sort of thing.įortunately, this debate does not needs to be resolved, because Willick’s argument is that Thiel’s bankrolling of Hogan’s case against Gawker is within the bounds of free speech. Worried about the superrich harassing critics with genuinelyįrivolous lawsuits - as, yes, authoritarian characters likeĭonald Trump have attempted to do - they would have more successīacking tort reform measures to limit litigiousness overall thanĪttacking Thiel for contributing to a legitimate cause he has good Would also represent a far greater threat to free expression thanĪ court-imposed legal liability for the non-consensual publication Put the ACLU and any number of advocacy groups out of business. Put caps on the amount of money peopleĬan contribute to legal efforts they sympathize with? That would It’s also not clear what policy response Gawker’s outragedĭefenders would recommend. Jason Willick, writing for The American Interest in defense of Peter Thiel: Peter Thiel, Gawker, and Freedom of Speech Wednesday,
0 kommentar(er)
