Something really scary that's silently happening is activists taking over well-known/"famous" publications and changing the narrative without changing the name:
- WaPo was bought by Bezos
- Local news stations (Tribune) bought by Sinclair
- WSJ was bought by Murdoch
- Newsweek bought by IAC
- GigaOM was sold off and has new writers
- Gawker now potentially being owned by a guy with a grudge
We trust many of these news organizations because they've been around for years or decades or even centuries. And many times, we don't realize that their priorities have silently shifted.
Let's be clear, here: WaPo is not in the same category as most of your other examples.
It just has a different owner, and the prior owner (the Graham family), while not as rich as Bezos, was still plenty rich. Don Graham famously tried to invest in Facebook as early as 2005: https://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffbercovici/2012/02/02/facebo...
Bezos, while involved, has not changed the basic tenor of its journalism beyond maybe souping up some of its technology. Also, WaPo publishes pieces critical of Amazon and its subsidiaries all the time:
People are realising media is dirt cheap for the power it exerts. For a fraction of your net worth, you can buy big stack or even entire Fox News or Breitbart or Times and change it the way you want. You can not only transmit your ideology on large portion of the population but even propel your commercial agenda. I think sooner or later people will realize that instead of spending big marketing $$, buying up media outright might be more cost effective.
At the same time, what Gwaker did to Thiel is despicable as well. This is truly one of those cases where there is no good guy, just a bunch of bad guys being bad.
I suspect these comments will descend into a pit of chaos within a few minutes as everyone talks past each other... but the principle of this disturbs me. Basically, a billionaire secretly funded a lawsuit against a media organisation he doesn't like, and now that's it has been successful, he wants to scoop up the remains of it and (presumably!) delete it. The free speech implications of that are a little unnerving.
Now, I know the immediate retort to that is "Gawker was garbage", and indeed there's a fair case to made that Gawker wouldn't have been sued if they hadn't opened themselves up to it by doing publishing Hulk Hogan's sex tape. But it isn't just Gawker - Mother Jones was sued by a billionaire for reporting true fact, simply because he didn't like the reporting. He didn't even need to win, he just needed to bankrupt them through legal costs, and he nearly succeeded:
(Thiel followed this same idea by narrowing the suit in such a way that Gawker's insurance would not be able to pay out)
Personally, I'm concerned that the individual factors of this case (i.e. Gawker being Gawker) will overshadow the principle at stake, which feels a lot more important than a gossip site.
A different way to look at it might be that in most cases, an illegal deed might be overlooked simply because someone didn't have the funds to see it through the court system. It's one thing if someone is funding endless lawsuits just to drive someone out of business, it's another for someone like Hogan to have a legitimate case, and for Thiel to fund his lawsuit. Thiel's funding of the case did not influence the judgement against Gawker, it simply allowed it to proceed further than if Hogan ran out of money.
I agree with what I think you're saying, that we should be careful about allowing someone to sue someone out of business simply out of spite; however, I think there's something to be said for someone with deeper pockets funding a legitimate suit. It might be comparable to things that the EFF funds, or that the ACLU takes on -- they have deeper pockets, and can take the financial hit that someone with a legitimate claim may not be able to take.
Imagine if Gawker published the same thing of some average middle-class person. They can't afford a high-priced lawyer, so likely Gawker gets away with something that, if it went to court, they would lose. In this case, the bully ran into someone who actually could fight back. As far as I know, Thiel didn't fund endless lawsuits just hoping to run them out of money. He funded a legitimate lawsuit that ended up with Gawker being found in the wrong for.
IMO the elephant in the room is even more fundamental: the _existence of billionaires_.
There is a disturbing narrative I now notice whenever it appears, specifically, the formulation of "good billionaire X takes on public interest Y."
The subtext is, we should celebrate that some wealthy titan has decided to back an interest aligned with our political interest.
The problem is that our current political and cultural divisions are, if not necessarily solely originating in, primarily–even, almost exclusively–_driven and determined_ by a battle of billionaires.
So long as "normal" people are reduced to pawns in a not so secret chess match between billionaires, our entire civilization is hostage. Our democratic institutions certainly are.
The GOP's contempt for public opinion in pushing through a crappy tax bill which extracts a trillion dollars from the collective future, to further enrich its richest stake holders, is just one more example of the consequences.
And it's getting worse, not better.
The last 40+ years have consistently accelerated the consolidation of wealth. This process gives every appearance of having passed an event horizon, beyond which all political remedies to that consolidation are neutralized, through the simple expediency of the very very wealthy seizing ownership literal and figurative of political process.
The historic solutions to the extreme consolidation of wealth are few and don't offer much road map.
But we solve this, or it looks like we get a 2.5 class society.
An underclass, a 1% overclass–and a frightened buffer class jealous of its limited remaining prerogatives and lottery chances of entering the overclass.
Recognize that last cohort? That's the readership of Hackernews.
“The trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of one's time defending scoundrels. For it is against scoundrels that oppressive laws [actions] are first aimed, and oppression must be stopped at the beginning if it is to be stopped at all.”
Not too mention, Thiel wasn't the least bit disturbed by what Hulk Hogan said about African Americans in the very same case!
Thiel was more concerned about eliminating Gawker. It really reveals what he values as a person: himself.
Peter Thiel, a Silicon Valley VC, financially supported a man, Hulk Hogan, that uttered this:
“I mean, I’d rather if she was going to f-ck some n-gger, I’d rather have her marry an 8-foot-tall n-gger worth a hundred million dollars! Like a basketball player!
That's an interesting take, but not one I'd agree with.
The argument that Thiel acted unethically by funding Hogan's lawsuit is not one that I support. You can picture it as a millionaire throwing his money around to exact vengeance on a company that wronged him if you want, and that certainly feeds the idea of a sort of "chilling effect" where media orgs intentionally avoid printing things about powerful (read: rich) people. I think we can both agree that that would be truly unfortunate and a great loss of speech principles.
However, I don't think that accurately maps to the validity of the case. In an ideal world, Hogan wouldn't have had to get Thiel to fund his lawsuit--he was legitimately wronged. Is a better alternative to this universe one where news/distribution organizations can say whatever they want about anyone all the time and unless you're a billionaire you just have to take it? It wasn't like Gawker was acting ethically here. Compare it to Mother Jones, who was sued frivolously, won, and is still around!
But, of course, that's not really your argument. Your argument isn't that news orgs can be sued and that's a problem, it's that legal battles are often a matter of who has more money to spend on them, and regardless of outcome, can leave even honest organizations out of capital. I agree with this (even though Mother Jones is still around). It's unreasonable to expect MJ to pay up $2.4m to cover fees, especially when margins on online journalism are already so low (forcing worse incentives on them just to compete).
But there's hope! We don't need to wring our hands and lament the death knell of free speech--rather, we can just support anti-SLAPP laws to reduce both the cost and frequency of frivolous defamation suits. The technology exists! In fact, the only reason MJ had to pay up is because their state doesn't have anti-SLAPP statutes.
I'm fundamentally not concerned at all with Thiel buying the decaying corpse of Gawker. They acted in incredibly poor taste, noncompliance of legal orders and vitriolic defiance of journalistic good will, so, they pay the price. Rather, I'm more concerned about two issues: first, valid lawsuits require far too large an initial capital investment, preventing truly wronged but non-rich individuals from seeking justice and second, incredibly wealthy individuals can force frivolous lawsuits onto organizations where their best case scenario is a pyrrhic victory.
this is a good take. id like to add that this is one of the negative externalities of entrusting a single person with an outrageous amount of power by allowing them to have many millions or billions of dollars. there are certainly counter examples, but on the whole it seems very unlikely that billionaires are going to, as a group, do a better job allocating their money for public good than if that money was distributed more widely among the populace. i dont think people should be billionaires basically.
edit: to preempt some questions- my guess is that by raising the marginal tax rate, especially for people who earn alot, we could address this problem to some degree.
Don't forget this when you're contacted to work at a Thiel portfolio company. I always say "No" and provide an explanation for why I would never work at a company affiliated with him. Between Gawker and Palantir, he is disgusting.
just because someone put in a bid, it doesn't mean that the owner of the assets have to sell to the highest bid. In this case, why does the owner have to sell to Thiel just because he has the highest bid?
gawker's remaining assets are being auctioned off by a bankruptcy administrator.
if you're selling your own property because you want to, you can set whatever terms you want, but when you go into bankruptcy because you can't pay your debts (the judgement against you, in this case), you're no longer in full control of what happens.
that said, it looks like the bankruptcy administrator is trying to block thiel's purchase, and maybe there's some grounds for that, unrelated to the interests of the previous owners.
you're not going to mention that he advocated for people to skip college, instead jumping right to startups? there's a conflict of interest here where the billionaire tells the kids what they want to hear (join a startup, become rich) and he benefits (from their cheap, tireless labor).
[+] [-] gkoberger|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] shortformblog|8 years ago|reply
It just has a different owner, and the prior owner (the Graham family), while not as rich as Bezos, was still plenty rich. Don Graham famously tried to invest in Facebook as early as 2005: https://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffbercovici/2012/02/02/facebo...
Bezos, while involved, has not changed the basic tenor of its journalism beyond maybe souping up some of its technology. Also, WaPo publishes pieces critical of Amazon and its subsidiaries all the time:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2017/12/07...
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/is-amazon-getting-to...
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/whole-foods-...
(Also, but on a different note, GigaOM was sold off because it had previously shut down and laid off all its writers.)
[+] [-] sytelus|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] knownothing|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] AnimalMuppet|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] chasing|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] s73ver_|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rufus_2|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ancorevard|8 years ago|reply
To call what they did journalism is an insult to journalism.
[+] [-] thecolorblue|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] untog|8 years ago|reply
Now, I know the immediate retort to that is "Gawker was garbage", and indeed there's a fair case to made that Gawker wouldn't have been sued if they hadn't opened themselves up to it by doing publishing Hulk Hogan's sex tape. But it isn't just Gawker - Mother Jones was sued by a billionaire for reporting true fact, simply because he didn't like the reporting. He didn't even need to win, he just needed to bankrupt them through legal costs, and he nearly succeeded:
http://www.motherjones.com/media/2015/10/mother-jones-vander...
(Thiel followed this same idea by narrowing the suit in such a way that Gawker's insurance would not be able to pay out)
Personally, I'm concerned that the individual factors of this case (i.e. Gawker being Gawker) will overshadow the principle at stake, which feels a lot more important than a gossip site.
[+] [-] JonFish85|8 years ago|reply
I agree with what I think you're saying, that we should be careful about allowing someone to sue someone out of business simply out of spite; however, I think there's something to be said for someone with deeper pockets funding a legitimate suit. It might be comparable to things that the EFF funds, or that the ACLU takes on -- they have deeper pockets, and can take the financial hit that someone with a legitimate claim may not be able to take.
Imagine if Gawker published the same thing of some average middle-class person. They can't afford a high-priced lawyer, so likely Gawker gets away with something that, if it went to court, they would lose. In this case, the bully ran into someone who actually could fight back. As far as I know, Thiel didn't fund endless lawsuits just hoping to run them out of money. He funded a legitimate lawsuit that ended up with Gawker being found in the wrong for.
[+] [-] ikeboy|8 years ago|reply
You'll note that Gawker lost their case, and Mother Jones won.
[+] [-] vvanders|8 years ago|reply
1. Sign contract with game company that all IP/source reverts to publisher on bankruptcy.
2. Start denying milestone payments 3/4 through development(highest burn rate) for frivolous reasons.
3. Dev runs out of money, bankruptcy.
4. Publisher offers to re-hire team at reduced rate + no royalties since they're all now unemployed to complete the game.
5. Profit (for the publisher).
[+] [-] aaroninsf|8 years ago|reply
There is a disturbing narrative I now notice whenever it appears, specifically, the formulation of "good billionaire X takes on public interest Y."
The subtext is, we should celebrate that some wealthy titan has decided to back an interest aligned with our political interest.
The problem is that our current political and cultural divisions are, if not necessarily solely originating in, primarily–even, almost exclusively–_driven and determined_ by a battle of billionaires.
So long as "normal" people are reduced to pawns in a not so secret chess match between billionaires, our entire civilization is hostage. Our democratic institutions certainly are.
The GOP's contempt for public opinion in pushing through a crappy tax bill which extracts a trillion dollars from the collective future, to further enrich its richest stake holders, is just one more example of the consequences.
And it's getting worse, not better.
The last 40+ years have consistently accelerated the consolidation of wealth. This process gives every appearance of having passed an event horizon, beyond which all political remedies to that consolidation are neutralized, through the simple expediency of the very very wealthy seizing ownership literal and figurative of political process.
The historic solutions to the extreme consolidation of wealth are few and don't offer much road map.
But we solve this, or it looks like we get a 2.5 class society.
An underclass, a 1% overclass–and a frightened buffer class jealous of its limited remaining prerogatives and lottery chances of entering the overclass.
Recognize that last cohort? That's the readership of Hackernews.
[+] [-] ellius|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] debt|8 years ago|reply
Thiel was more concerned about eliminating Gawker. It really reveals what he values as a person: himself.
Peter Thiel, a Silicon Valley VC, financially supported a man, Hulk Hogan, that uttered this:
“I mean, I’d rather if she was going to f-ck some n-gger, I’d rather have her marry an 8-foot-tall n-gger worth a hundred million dollars! Like a basketball player!
https://www.foxsports.com/buzzer/story/hulk-hogan-fired-wwe-...
[+] [-] cantrip|8 years ago|reply
Your "personal" concern is an extremely common opinion in a major debate that has been going on for years. There is even a documentary to support it.
[+] [-] sheepmullet|8 years ago|reply
If we take a step back what is the key principle at stake here?
I think the key principle is privacy.
Should we allow a media company to ruin a persons reputation and career by violating his privacy in direct violation of a court order?
The real concern for me is that you need to find a supportive billionaire to be able to put a stop to it.
If the media turns on me tomorrow and invades my privacy I don't have a billionaire friend to turn to.
[+] [-] sov|8 years ago|reply
The argument that Thiel acted unethically by funding Hogan's lawsuit is not one that I support. You can picture it as a millionaire throwing his money around to exact vengeance on a company that wronged him if you want, and that certainly feeds the idea of a sort of "chilling effect" where media orgs intentionally avoid printing things about powerful (read: rich) people. I think we can both agree that that would be truly unfortunate and a great loss of speech principles.
However, I don't think that accurately maps to the validity of the case. In an ideal world, Hogan wouldn't have had to get Thiel to fund his lawsuit--he was legitimately wronged. Is a better alternative to this universe one where news/distribution organizations can say whatever they want about anyone all the time and unless you're a billionaire you just have to take it? It wasn't like Gawker was acting ethically here. Compare it to Mother Jones, who was sued frivolously, won, and is still around!
But, of course, that's not really your argument. Your argument isn't that news orgs can be sued and that's a problem, it's that legal battles are often a matter of who has more money to spend on them, and regardless of outcome, can leave even honest organizations out of capital. I agree with this (even though Mother Jones is still around). It's unreasonable to expect MJ to pay up $2.4m to cover fees, especially when margins on online journalism are already so low (forcing worse incentives on them just to compete).
But there's hope! We don't need to wring our hands and lament the death knell of free speech--rather, we can just support anti-SLAPP laws to reduce both the cost and frequency of frivolous defamation suits. The technology exists! In fact, the only reason MJ had to pay up is because their state doesn't have anti-SLAPP statutes.
I'm fundamentally not concerned at all with Thiel buying the decaying corpse of Gawker. They acted in incredibly poor taste, noncompliance of legal orders and vitriolic defiance of journalistic good will, so, they pay the price. Rather, I'm more concerned about two issues: first, valid lawsuits require far too large an initial capital investment, preventing truly wronged but non-rich individuals from seeking justice and second, incredibly wealthy individuals can force frivolous lawsuits onto organizations where their best case scenario is a pyrrhic victory.
[+] [-] AceJohnny2|8 years ago|reply
Liberties aren't etched away by attacking the just users first. They are etched away by attacking those users most Good People disapprove of.
[+] [-] olfactory|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] the_cat_kittles|8 years ago|reply
edit: to preempt some questions- my guess is that by raising the marginal tax rate, especially for people who earn alot, we could address this problem to some degree.
[+] [-] mrgordon|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] heifetz|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sigstoat|8 years ago|reply
if you're selling your own property because you want to, you can set whatever terms you want, but when you go into bankruptcy because you can't pay your debts (the judgement against you, in this case), you're no longer in full control of what happens.
that said, it looks like the bankruptcy administrator is trying to block thiel's purchase, and maybe there's some grounds for that, unrelated to the interests of the previous owners.
[+] [-] thrillgore|8 years ago|reply
I have zero sympathy for Gawker but I must admit this is troubling. Poetic, but troubling.
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