Billionaire Backer Of Palantir & Facebook Insists He's Bankrupting Journalists To Protect Your Privacy

from the bullshit-peter dept

Tue, Aug 16th 2016 9:37am — Mike Masnick

We've already made it quite clear where we stand on Peter Thiel financing a number of lawsuits against Gawker Media as some sort of retaliation for some articles he didn't like. Lots of people who really hate Gawker don't seem to care how problematic Thiel's actions are, but you should be concerned, even if you dislike Gawker -- in part, because many of the lawsuits Thiel appears to be backing are clearly bogus and just designed to bankrupt the company, which happened a couple months ago.

This week is the auction to see who ends up with Gawker, and Thiel is taking a weird victory lap with a silly and misleading oped in the NY Times where he argues that this was really all about making a stand for privacy and has nothing to do with shitting on the First Amendment. There's a lot in the article that's bullshit, and it deserves a thorough debunking, so here we go.

First off, positioning himself as a champion of privacy seems laughable. After all, this is the guy who put the first money into both Palantir and Facebook. Palantir, of course, is the datamining operation used by governments and law enforcement around the globe to snoop through various databases and try to find magical connections. Palantir is rumored to be in trouble lately, in part because its technology isn't that good, and it may have built a multi-billion dollar business on convincing clueless government officials that by sniffing through a variety of databases, it could magically find important "connections." But Palantir is an entire business based on the idea of helping governments undermine citizens' privacy. And then there's Facebook.

As for Facebook, I actually think the company has something of an unfair reputation as a "privacy destroyer," but it is true that the FTC dinged Facebook for a series of "unfair and deceptive practices" around respecting the privacy wishes of users, and the company is required to go through regular FTC privacy audits for a 20 year period over it. Whether this was due to carelessness or malfeasance (I believe the former, though many believe the latter), Facebook isn't exactly known as a paragon of protecting people's privacy wishes.

Thiel remains on the board of both companies. If he were truly about standing up for people's privacy -- why not start with those two companies?

From there, he talks about the Hulk Hogan lawsuit, Thiel insists that Gawker's editorial decision in publishing a heavily edited clip of a sex tape involving Hogan was "beyond the pale." Personally, I agree. I wouldn't have done it. But there were editorial reasons why Gawker did so, and as I've stated, I have tremendous concerns about juries retroactively determining if editorial decisions were appropriate or not. That seems to go very much against the First Amendment -- as a few courts have already found in the Gawker/Hogan case (though, yes, the judge and jury in the current case disagreed -- but if the case actually makes it to appeal, there's a fairly high likelihood of the original ruling being overturned).

Sure enough, in October 2012 Gawker did something beyond the pale: They published a sex tape without the consent of the people in the video. Unfortunately for Gawker, they had targeted someone who was determined to fight back. Terry Bollea is better known as the wrestler Hulk Hogan, a fact that Gawker claimed justified public access to his private life. Mr. Bollea disagreed. At first he simply requested that Gawker take down the video. But Gawker refused. It was getting millions of page views, and that was making money.

A few things on this. I think that Hogan would have a legitimate legal gripe against whoever filmed the sex tape, if it were truly done without his knowledge (there's some dispute on this), and possibly with whoever leaked it. But the decision to publish a few clips from it is protected by the First Amendment. Whatever privacy violation occurred, if there was one, was done by whoever filmed the video.

Second, the reason that Hogan was willing to "fight back" was that he didn't have to pay for the lawsuit, and instead had a vindictive billionaire with an axe to grind to help him finance it. Not only did Hogan reject a supposed $10 million settlement offer from Gawker, his lawyer (who an organization owned by Thiel was paying regularly) deliberately made decisions designed to bankrupt Gawker, including dropping a specific claim to get an insurance company out from covering the lawsuit (which is the opposite of how these things normally work, where plaintiffs want the insurance company involved in order to get more money).

Third, it's ridiculous to argue that Gawker kept the video up solely because it was making money. I'm sure that was part of the calculation, but it's pretty clear that they kept it up based on the principle of the thing -- which is that we live in a country that values freedom of the press, and you don't back down when someone doesn't like your coverage. It's the same thing we do when we receive bogus legal threats. We don't keep stories up because of "the clicks" but because we don't give in to bullies demanding we take down stories.

Four years later, the financial calculus has changed. Gawker Media Group has put itself up for sale (bids are due Monday afternoon) in part to satisfy the legal judgment of a unanimous jury that ruled against Gawker and assessed damages of $140 million, proving that there are consequences for violating privacy. Mr. Bollea could not have secured justice without a fight, and he displayed great perseverance. For my part, I am proud to have contributed financial support to his case. I will support him until his final victory — Gawker said it intends to appeal — and I would gladly support someone else in the same position.

Yeah, the calculus has changed due to a deliberate gaming of the judicial system by Thiel. As for Thiel being "proud to have contributed financial support" that's again misleading in the extreme. Thiel specifically had a law firm basically on retainer and told to go searching for lawsuits to bring down Gawker. It was not about "securing justice" for anyone. It was about destroying Gawker.

And it's odd that someone so proud of funding such lawsuits hid that fact for many years until some reporters finally broke the story that he was behind it.

As for the "gladly support someone else in the same position," Thiel has already noted that he's funding other lawsuits against Gawker, and as we've noted, if you look through all of the other lawsuits against Gawker, most of them are absolutely ridiculous including the patently silly lawsuit by Shiva Ayyadurai against Gawker for accurately reporting that Ayyadurai did not invent email, no matter how many times he insists he did.

As a site that has regularly reported on Ayyadurai's ridiculous claims ourself, the fact that Thiel may be supporting his lawsuit against Gawker certainly hits home for us. And how the fuck does that have anything at all to do with "protecting privacy"? Ayyadurai has basically been a publicity hound for the last decade or so, effectively demanding credit for something he did not do.

From there, Thiel shifts tone and pretends that he's a supporter of press freedoms -- despite the fact that he's funding a series of cases designed to destroy a media outlet.

The defense of privacy in the digital age is an ongoing cause. As for Gawker, whatever good work it did will continue in the future, and suggesting otherwise would be an insult to its writers and to readers. It is ridiculous to claim that journalism requires indiscriminate access to private people’s sex lives.

This is ridiculous on multiple levels. First off, it's crazy for Thiel to suggest here that Gawker's writers will "continue" to do what they do in the future when he's actively working to bankrupt them. Just last week, in the Hogan lawsuit, the reporter AJ Daulerio told the court that he was down to last $1,500 and Hogan (via Thiel funded lawyers) was trying to get whatever they could from him. Because of Gawker's bankruptcy, Daulerio could no longer rely on Gawker's lawyers, and he admitted that he could not afford to get his own. It appears that Thiel is doing the same thing to Sam Biddle, who worked at Gawker and is now at the Intercept. Personally, I think Biddle is one of the absolute worst reporters on the tech beat. He frequently confuses some basic things, draws connections that don't exist, exaggerates fiercely and misleads readers consistently. And yet, I'd side with him every day on the Thiel-funded lawsuits against him. And that's because that's how press freedom works. Even if I think Biddle is a terrible reporter, he should have every right to publish his terrible reporting without fear of being driven into bankruptcy by a vindictive billionaire.

And, again, if this were just about "sex lives", why do so many of the other lawsuits against Gawker, that appear to be funded by Thiel (using the same lawyer, Charles Harder), have absolutely nothing to do with privacy or sex lives? And, also, the claim that this is about "indiscriminate access to private people's sex lives" is simply false. It's a false statement that Thiel has every right to publish because of the freedom of the press that he's currently spitting on. Gawker made it clear that they published the story because Hogan -- a very public person -- had a history of bragging publicly about his sex life. That's what made it newsworthy. Nowhere did Gawker claim that it would publish just anyone's sex tapes.

A free press is vital for public debate.

That must be why he told a law firm to find lawsuits with the specific goal of bankrupting a media company he disliked.

Since sensitive information can sometimes be publicly relevant, exercising judgment is always part of the journalist’s profession. It’s not for me to draw the line, but journalists should condemn those who willfully cross it.

Wait. Thiel is totally claiming to draw the line in this very article. And he put his money behind his line drawing. Shouldn't we all be a little concerned when a billionaire gets to decide which reporting is on which side of the line?

The press is too important to let its role be undermined by those who would search for clicks at the cost of the profession’s reputation.

I'd argue that the press is too important to let its role be undermined by a petty and vindictive billionaire who would then totally misrepresent the truth later (after hiding his involvement). This is why we have anti-SLAPP laws.

And, from there, Thiel makes a weird pivot into backing an almost certainly unconstitutional anti-revenge porn bill put forth last month by Rep. Jackie Speier.

The United States House of Representatives is considering the Intimate Privacy Protection Act, a bipartisan bill that would make it illegal to distribute explicit private images, sometimes called revenge porn, without the consent of the people involved. Nicknamed the Gawker Bill, it would also provide criminal consequences for third parties who sought to profit from such material.

First of all, it's not nicknamed the Gawker Bill. I've been following both the Gawker lawsuits and various efforts to get revenge porn bills passed for years and until reading this article, I've never once heard anyone refer to it as the Gawker Bill. Even Rep. Jackie Speier has denied that anyone has called it the Gawker Bill.

On top of that, as mentioned, the bill is almost certainly unconstitutional. In the last few months we've seen a few state revenge porn bills dumped as unconstitutional, and should Speier's bill actually go anywhere, it too would almost certainly be declared unconstitutional too.

So now we have Thiel not just pretending to support the First Amendment, but he's both suing to kill a media property and supporting a law that is unlikely to live up to First Amendment scrutiny.

This is a step in the right direction. Protecting individual dignity online is a long-term project, and it will require many delicate judgments.

Those "delicate judgments" include suing a publication for accurately calling out a guy for pretending to invent email? Really? And for personally destroying the lives of reporters? Those don't seem like very good judgments. And, again, this sudden concern for "individual dignity" is coming from the guy who put the first money into both Palantir and Facebook.

We can begin on solid ground by acknowledging that it is wrong to expose people’s most intimate moments for no good reason. That is the kind of clear moral line that Gawker and publishers like it have sought to blur. But they can’t do it if we don’t let them.

I think it's wrong to try to stifle a free press. I think it's wrong to misrepresent the reasoning behind editorial decisions. I think it's wrong to pretend you support privacy when you're responsible for funding two multibillion dollar businesses built on doing the opposite.

Here's the thing: until all of this came out, I had a lot of respect for Thiel. I thought he was one of the more interesting and principled entrepreneurs out there. I thought that his views on investments and entrepreneurship were a lot more intriguing and insightful than many gave him credit for. But these actions and this bogus after-the-fact justification for his actions are just a bunch of cowardly bullshit. Thiel should just admit that he set out to destroy Gawker because he could. There's nothing principled or honorable about it.

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Filed Under: aj daulerio, first amendment, freedom of the press, peter thiel, privacy, sam biddle
Companies: facebook, gawker, palantir

43 Comments

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Reader Comments

The First Word

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Funny how rich vindictive people justify their actions as being for the benefit of society.

—Anonymous Coward

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Anonymous Coward, 16 Aug 2016 @ 9:58am

For all the "many lawsuits," it only took one (that was not bogus).
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PeterScott (profile), 16 Aug 2016 @ 10:17am

Laughable to call Gawker journalism.
What they did with Hogan was right up there with revenge Porn.
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Anonymous Coward, 16 Aug 2016 @ 10:29am

Funny how rich vindictive people justify their actions as being for the benefit of society.
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Drew (profile), 16 Aug 2016 @ 10:32am

Strange approach
I find it odd that he spends millions to sue them out of existence. Of course, we could be talking about wildly different numbers, but couldn't he have simply purchased Gawker himself to begin with? It would've been an investment, rather than the huge money sink of paying a team of lawyers to throw everything against the wall to see what sticks. I know he's got money to burn, but it just seems like an odd way to do it; it's like he's intentionally choosing to burn the money in such a way as to guarantee that he gets nothing out of it.
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Anonymous Coward, 16 Aug 2016 @ 10:42am

You forgot to mention that Thiel is totally gay. And don't pretend like that has nothing to do with this vindictive rampage.
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Anonymous Coward, 16 Aug 2016 @ 10:43am

Re: Laughable to call Gawker journalism.
Hulk Hogan didn't think it was comparable to revenge porn. He cared about the racist remarks he was making in videos getting out.

But that's the point about freedom of the press. You (and a jury) don't get to determine what is newsworthy. There's a reason this was a civil suit and not a criminal one. There was no law broken.
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Thad, 16 Aug 2016 @ 11:09am

Re: Re: Laughable to call Gawker journalism.
But that's the thing: Gawker *didn't publish* the part of the video where he made the racist remarks.

Ironically, I think Gawker would have had a much easier case if it *had* published the part of the video that actually went on to damage Hogan's career, because it would have been easier to make the argument that its disclosure was in the public interest.
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Anonymous Coward, 16 Aug 2016 @ 11:11am

Re:
Yawn.
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Anonmylous, 16 Aug 2016 @ 11:24am

Be wary there Thiel...
Yeah they outed you as gay or whatever in a day and age when being gay is not the life-ending event it used to be. Sure you felt violated and your privacy invaded. But you are dealing with a class of people who love to go digging into things. Streisand effect doesn't begin to describe what you are setting yourself up for by making yourself an enemy of the media.

You coulda just let it go, called it done. But you wanted revenge. That never works the way people want it to.
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Thad, 16 Aug 2016 @ 11:32am

Branding!
Adding: Man, Palantir is either the most or the least self-aware choice of surveillance branding since that Total Information Awareness logo of an eye in a pyramid watching the entire world.

"Let's name our business after the thing that the Dark Lord Sauron used to communicate with Saruman and drive Denethor to suicidal madness."
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PRMan (profile), 16 Aug 2016 @ 11:38am

Re: Re: Re: Laughable to call Gawker journalism.
And they could post audio instead of video in that case. Just as newsworthy, but not as damaging to his privacy.

This is pretty much exactly what happened with the Clippers owner Donald Sterling.
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Trish, 16 Aug 2016 @ 11:46am

Money, sex, revenge. This story has it all. Man, apparently this guy is gay and that's why this "honorable" endeavor came about? He wanted to stay in the closet? I wonder if Peter Thiel prays to his own ego.
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Anonymous Coward, 16 Aug 2016 @ 12:40pm

'Billionaire Backer Of Palantir & Facebook Insists He's Bankrupting Journalists To Protect Your Privacy'

yeah! right! protecting his bank balance and identity more like! i bet our privacy is as high on his list as the last investment crash he had
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Anonymous Coward, 16 Aug 2016 @ 1:38pm

"I have tremendous concerns about juries retroactively determining if editorial decisions were appropriate or not."

When do judges and juries, and by their representation, society get to determine if journalism crosses the line?
The use of "retroactively" confuses me.
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Mark Wing, 16 Aug 2016 @ 2:12pm

Thiel is like a petty, vindictive version of Jesus.
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Anonymous Coward, 16 Aug 2016 @ 2:30pm

Retroactive v Proactive [was Re: ]

I have tremendous concerns about juries retroactively determining if editorial decisions were appropriate or not.
The use of "retroactively" confuses me.
When judges “proactively” make editorial decisions —via injunction in advance of publication— we tend to call that a prior restraint.
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Anonymous Coward, 16 Aug 2016 @ 5:31pm

So if the principle of free speech allows anybody to publish any true fact about anybody else (even private video such as a sex tape) why are we worried about the government invading our privacy?

Ever tried to keep a personal secret? It always gets out, so what's the difference between the NSA routinely sniffing and a blogger publishing info you consider private? Free speech seems to argue it's not your decision to keep your info private - anybody can publish anything.

Is there a point to privacy protection if free speech eliminates implied confidentiality? There must be some lines we have to draw, right?
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Derek Kerton (profile), 16 Aug 2016 @ 5:50pm

Re:
Just like the dunking machine at my high school fundraiser.

Sooner or later, the Principal gets soaked. It just takes one hit.

That's what's so evil about Thiel's crusade. If resources are unlimited, and no quarter is offered, then eventually, Gawker will lose, guilty or not.

Similarly, if a billionaire offered everyone in the country to support their lawsuit against you, for any claim...sooner or later you would lose one. And you'd be bankrupted by legal claims soon enough anyways.

It's abuse of the system.
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Derek Kerton (profile), 16 Aug 2016 @ 5:52pm

Re: Strange approach
But so doing would reward Nick Denton with millions.
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Anonymous Coward, 16 Aug 2016 @ 6:59pm

The issue here isn't that Thiel is able to ruin gawker's day using the power of money, it's that it takes being as rich as Thiel to do so. Gawker soundly deserved the thrashing it got long before Thiel took 'em down.
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he got his, 16 Aug 2016 @ 8:18pm

denton deserved all he got. i dont care about the morality of lack of thiel's reasons. denton finally found a p#ick that was every bit as ruthless as he was.
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Sargas, 16 Aug 2016 @ 8:56pm

Re:
So if the principle of free speech allows anybody to publish any true fact about anybody else (even private video such as a sex tape) why are we worried about the government invading our privacy?

Speaking is not the same as spying.
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Anonymous Coward, 16 Aug 2016 @ 8:58pm

Re:
And maybe you'll get your's someday.
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techflaws (profile), 16 Aug 2016 @ 10:12pm

Re: Re:
Still,

Whatever privacy violation occurred, if there was one, was done by whoever filmed the video.

you don't think that spreading a video of someone having sex isn't violating their privacy just because you didn't film it yourself?
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bshock, 16 Aug 2016 @ 10:50pm

Guilt by association in this case
I don't know a lot about Peter Thiel. I've only read a few articles about him.

But I know he's associated with both Palantir and Facebook, two of the most unethical, invasive, pestilential companies in the U.S. today. Any claims he might make about protecting "our" privacy are about as valid to me as claims arch-patent troll Nathan Myhrvold might make about advancing technology or benefiting consumers.
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JMT (profile), 16 Aug 2016 @ 11:26pm

Re: Laughable to call Gawker journalism.
"Laughable to call Gawker journalism"

Gawker is a lot more than just one story and Gawker Media (who've been forced into bankruptcy) is a lot more than just the website Gawker. It's laughable to say Gawker Media doesn't do journalism.

"What they did with Hogan was right up there with revenge Porn."

Whether or not that's true (and I'm not entirely in disagreement), the $140M verdict is unjustifiable and likely to be overturned, and Thiel's actions set an extremely dangerous precedent. Try to look at the bigger picture beyond the narcissistic has-been celebrity.
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That Anonymous Coward (profile), 17 Aug 2016 @ 12:20am

Remember when we first talked about Palantir, how they were selling destroying targets to the highest bidder?
(yes they were totally inept at that too)
Any questions why he backed them?
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Anonymous Coward, 17 Aug 2016 @ 1:24am

Re:
Unless a hidden camera was used, the third party doctrine applies. When you let someone video or witness your acts, then you have no expectations of privacy..
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KJ (profile), 17 Aug 2016 @ 4:43am

Re: Re:
Yes you do. Or at least, I do.
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Anonymous Coward, 17 Aug 2016 @ 5:25am

Re: Re: Re: Laughable to call Gawker journalism.
> But that's the thing: Gawker *didn't publish* the part of the video where he made the racist remarks.

That's right. They probably decided to held it back as blackmail, in case Bollea objected to the treatment. So Bollea got a judge to tell them to take down what they had put up and not publish any more of it.

Then the part with the racist term was mysteriously leaked! Who did that, I wonder?!

People shouldn't worry about this as a threat to journalism, because Gawker could probably even have gotten away with it if they hadn't decided to piss off judges again and again.
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Anonymous Coward, 17 Aug 2016 @ 6:03am

Re: Re: Re:
Perhaps I should have said, you have no case against whoever receives the information you give a third party. That is the third party doctrine is intended to shield recipients of information from your wrath, but not whoever passed on that information.
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Anonymous Coward, 17 Aug 2016 @ 7:39am

His beef against Gawker is probably personal
Obviously he doesn't care about the privacy issue so my guess is his beef with Gawker is personal. They probably wrote something unflattering about him at some point and now he wants to get even.
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That Anonymous Coward (profile), 17 Aug 2016 @ 7:49am

Re: His beef against Gawker is probably personal
IIRC He is very conservative & they outed him as gay.
This caused everyone to freak out.
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John Fenderson (profile), 17 Aug 2016 @ 8:54am

Re:
"Is there a point to privacy protection if free speech eliminates implied confidentiality?"

But it doesn't do this.

Let's say I tell a secret to you under the terms of a contract that binds you to keep the secret. If you then reveal the secret, I have recourse against you for that.

The concept of "free speech" in no way affects that.

If you told my secret to, say, the press and they then published is -- that's fair game. The press never agreed to keep the secret, and their right to report it is totally a free speech issue.

I should have no recourse against the press. My recourse is against you. And the amount of damage your breach of contract caused (including the damage from the press reports) affects the amount of recourse I get.
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John Fenderson (profile), 17 Aug 2016 @ 8:56am

Re:
Whether or not Denton deserved it is 100% irrelevant.
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Anonymous Coward, 17 Aug 2016 @ 12:38pm

Re: Re:
Yes, except his evil crusade ended after exactly one lawsuit was concluded, and Gawker was guilty.

Oops.
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Anonymous Coward, 17 Aug 2016 @ 5:16pm

Re: Re:
"If you told my secret to, say, the press and they then published is -- that's fair game. The press never agreed to keep the secret, and their right to report it is totally a free speech issue."

So anybody can publish any fact about me as long as they didn't agree to keep it quiet? ANY fact? Anybody can write a blog with my bank details, credit and medical history, SSN and anything that occurs in my bedroom as long as they were given the info third-hand.

Are there no limits?

If this is the case then privacy is dead but not because of our governments. If you've got nothing to hide then have nothing of worth. At least NSA won't tell the world and ruin my family's life just to get a few more clicks. Google doesn't index the NSA's databases so I'm safer if I'm of no interest to them.

Not that I'm a fan of govt surveilence. They are not the only one's watching but they appear to be they only people who want tell everybody for a dollar no matter what the effect on people's lives.
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Anonymous Coward, 17 Aug 2016 @ 5:28pm

Re: His beef against Gawker is probably personal
Fair game then. Free speech does not mean free from consequences. Pete has a right to sue. The journalists at Hawker still have right to freely published publish what they like so no rights were violated.

Oh, unless there new employers don't want them publishing anything too sensitive, but then that's up to the new owners not Peter. Peter still doesn't get to tell them what not to write.
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bullshit, 17 Aug 2016 @ 6:32pm

I'm glad your fine with the whole "journalistic freedom" thing
Its fine - until it happens to one of you. if you didn't authorize a video /and/or authorize it's release to ANYONE.. and you ask for it to be taken down - and the site basically tells you to fuck off..

Your saying that it's perfectly fine -and that your right to sue is gone?
they are the ones monitizing it.. i sincerely doubt that "if" and when the person who photographed/made the video is even identified - (good luck with that sometimes) - that they wouldn't have any assets that were even worth anything to sue over ....

The whole thing is that this was a popular website - and some folks are all bent out of shape because now they probably will have to go find some other site for their bullshit news.

Sue the flipping pants off them all. maybe then we'll get some journalistic integrity back.. That's something that is SEVERELY lacking these days.
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Thad, 17 Aug 2016 @ 8:11pm

Re: Re: His beef against Gawker is probably personal
Pete *didn't* sue. He secretly funded somebody *else's* lawsuit.
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Thad, 17 Aug 2016 @ 8:18pm

Re: I'm glad your fine with the whole "journalistic freedom" thing
I'm not a public figure.
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John Fenderson (profile), 17 Aug 2016 @ 8:47pm

Re: Re: Re:
"So anybody can publish any fact about me as long as they didn't agree to keep it quiet?"

It depends on how you count, but conceptually yes. The reason that it's not an unequivocal "yes" can be best illustrated by explaining why doxing is illegal.

Doxing is illegal, by the way. However, the laws it breaks aren't about the plain act of publicly revealing private information. It's because doxing is almost always part of stalking and harassment.

It seems to me that this is the way to approach the issue without unduly infringing on free speech rights. Don't focus on the speech itself, focus on the larger issue.
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Derek Kerton (profile), 24 Aug 2016 @ 11:24am

Re: Re: Re:
I'm not sure what you're arguing, if at all.

But do know that the Hulk Hogan was by no means the first, nor only Thiel-backed lawsuit against Gawker or its writers.
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