There are ways to try to justify these sorts of posts, and in many cases if you read them you’ll find they’re more thoughtful and less vicious than their headlines make them sound. His own grudge crystallized around a 2007 Valleywag post headlined “ Peter Thiel Is Totally Gay, People,” published over Thiel’s threats and objections, but there are more recent examples. He’s right that both sites have published some ugly stories whose connection to the public interest is tenuous at best. Yet even setting aside the valuable work of all of Gawker Media’s properties, Thiel is mistaken in his assessment of Gawker and Valleywag. (Thiel happens to be a Facebook board member.) Their demise-or sale to Russian oligarchs-would be a serious loss for online media, no matter what you think of Valleywag or the company’s founder and CEO, Nick Denton. They include Deadspin, Jezebel, Kotaku, Lifehacker- Lifehacker!-and the tech blog Gizmodo, which recently broke the Facebook bias story. Meanwhile, Gawker Media also includes a slew of other influential blogs on much different topics, not all of which are driven by snark, but all of which could be collateral damage if Thiel’s campaign succeeds. Like Valleywag, Gawker often strikes a pugnacious stance and gossipy tone, but it also publishes a far broader range of news, opinion, and essays, many of which are deeply thoughtful, witty, original, and important. More significant is Gawker itself, the media- and celebrity-focused blog that published the Hogan sex tape in 2011. But the real flaw in his justification lies in his misunderstanding of Gawker’s place in the media landscape-a misunderstanding that seems to be widely shared by his fellow tech founders and venture capitalists, to judge from their reactions to the story.įirst of all, Valleywag-the main target of Thiel’s ire and probably the first thing his peers in Silicon Valley think of when they hear the name Gawker-was a small part of Gawker Media even when it existed, which it no longer does. It’s also hard to fully buy his avowed revulsion to attention-getting bullies, given that he’s a pledged delegate for Donald Trump and has supported the stunt journalism of James O’Keefe. “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.”įraming his intentions in terms of “deterrence” is not likely to help Thiel’s cause, given that the most persuasive criticism of his actions is that they establish a dangerous road map for billionaires to muzzle unfriendly media coverage. “It’s less about revenge and more about specific deterrence,” he told the New York Times.
#GAWKER HYPOCRISY PRO#
Confronted this week with the revelation that he has been bankrolling lawsuits by the pro wrestler Terry Bollea, aka Hulk Hogan, and others against Gawker, Thiel sought to justify his vendetta by casting the online media organization as a “bully” and himself as a heroic vigilante.
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