Hulk Hogan won a $140 million invasion of privacy suit against Gawker. Come to find out tech billionaire Peter Thiel funded this suit and others against Gawker because founder Nick Denton outed Thiel in 2007. What is the balance of slander & libel versus a billionaire who can hold journalists accountable?
From The Washington Post:
“It’s less about revenge and more about specific deterrence,” Thiel told the New York Times. “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.” Gawker founder Nick Denton disagrees. On Thursday, he posted an open letter to Thiel, in which he wrote, “Your revenge has been served well, cold and (until now) anonymously.”
In the letter, Denton offered his opinion as to why Thiel in particular is funding this litigation:
I can see how irritating Gawker would be to you and other figures in the technology industry. For Silicon Valley, the media spotlight is a relatively recent phenomenon. Most executives and venture capitalists are accustomed to dealing with acquiescent trade journalists and a dazzled mainstream media, who will typically play along with embargoes, join in enthusiasm for new products, and hew to the authorized version of a story. They do not have the sophistication, and the thicker skins, of public figures in other older power centers such as New York, Los Angeles and Washington, D.C.
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