Conspiracy: Peter Thiel, Hulk Hogan, Gawker, and the Anatomy of Intrigue

by Ryan Holiday

On the day of the verdict, the New York Times editorial section would publish a debate of experts, asking about the implications of the case. Two of the three experts would come down against Gawker and for Hulk Hogan, underscoring Thiel’s early goal to predicate the dispute on privacy, not press freedom. One, a law professor and former journalist, wrote, “When human dignity is degraded by depictions of sex, nudity or medical conditions the ‘journalism’ should not be called newsworthy.” The next day the former assistant general counsel of the New York Times would be quoted in another piece published in the paper: “I think the damages are crazy, but I just don’t see this as a terrible blow to the First Amendment.” The dean of the law school at UC Irvine would follow in the same story: “I think this case establishes a very limited proposition: It is an invasion of privacy to make publicly available a tape of a person having sex without that person’s consent. I don’t think it goes any further than that and I do not see a First Amendment basis for claiming that there is a right to do this.” What had begun as a petty squabble between two similar, strange men had become something bigger, a chance to draw the line about what was allowed in the public sphere. Thiel had set out to destroy this thing that he thought was destroying an important part of society, of culture. There was revenge in this, too, absolutely. Nick Denton had said, “Peter Thiel makes me sick,” and the feeling wa...