This was like the biggest tech drama of 2007, but mostly because Theil successfully ran the journalism company that reported it out of business.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gawker

While I have no sympathy for Thiel, outing someone against their will is just wrong.

Journalism has to be responsible.

This article is a clusterfuck, no pun intended.

So it's 2007. LGBT groups are trying to protect people from getting fired for being gay and legalize gay marriage.

There's a conservative christian billionaire who is actively funding political groups blocking this.

You, a journalist, working at a tabloid, finds out he's secretly gay. Sound like a story?

There's context to all of these things.

Yes it's a story. But the thing I'm most interested in is... Why? Why does he do that?

Because people mostly behave based on their virtues and principles not on greedy self interest

We all have different ones

An optimistic answer. I like it!

But, like, Peter Thiel genuinely thinks life ought to be harder for gay people? He's a good Christian and thinks gay people will go to hell? I still don't really get it.

No. He supported conservative and christian groups because that's who he is. He founded https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Stanford_Review funded by conservative luminary William Kristol. He went on to get a philosophy degree and a JD. He was a clerk and worked for Sullivan and Cromwell, one of the most prominent law firms in the country that defends corporate interests.

He's always worked on the law/capital/property side. The man can't code and has never claimed to be able to.

He's a deeply libertarian conservative christian who happens to get titillated by men.

But that last part is just what he is, it's not really who he is.

Being gay doesn't constrain you to a particular set of beliefs.

There's plenty people active on the right that are all kinds of diverse; hispanic, gay, asian. Look at that recent shooter, a trans person with a history of far right activism with neonazi tattoos who said they were "to the right of hitler" but also, transgendered.

It's really all over the map. Shit's complicated.

> Being gay doesn't constrain you to a particular set of beliefs.

It must be a miserable life to think your very existence is wrong.

But he has the billions to buy him happiness anyway, so, I guess he's OK.

> But he has the billions to buy him happiness anyway, so, I guess he's OK.

That's not at all how happiness works.

Thank you for the explanation. I find the "conservative christian who happens to get titillated by men" hard to grok, but it looks like you're correct.

If journalists were constrained by the consent of every public figure and institution they mention all you'd have is flowery propaganda.

You can see what this would look like already by searching for prnewswire https://news.google.com/publications/CAAqKQgKIiNDQklTRkFnTWF...

Companies pay to place those things and some outfits run them. It'd all look like that.

Anyways, journalist reach out for comment and are supposed to consider the response of the parties involved but that's about it.

Not publishing articles on other people’s sex lives is not “flowery propaganda”. Christ.

That was an awful thing to defend, have a sense of shame and apologise Chris.

No. Finger wag elsewhere. Some journalism looks like TMZ and Business Insider.

You know it’s wrong.

You're litigating something I had no involvement in that happened 20 years ago as if I currently have the moral agency to change the outcome.

I don't know why you're engaging this way but this conversation is definitionally a waste of time.

I’m litigating this conversation - you supported outing somebody and publishing someone else’s sex tape. As an adult human being you know this is wrong. You are mistaken and you know you are mistaken.

No. I support the concept of an open society with an institution of journalism that isn't stultified by powerful forces that seek to control information

Sometimes that's sex tapes and Epstein Island

It's ok. We're not going to resolve things here

I think you believe this stance is standing up to power. But the media is powerful in their own right and nobody needs the details of their sex lives published without their consent- not Peter Thiel, not you, and not me.

Would you then be okay with journalists publishing CSAM images & videos from the Epstein case?

Seriously? Would you be okay with a "journalist" showing the whole world your sextape?

1. I'm not a public figure

2. Sure. Have a great time

1. You don't need to be famous, how do you think blackmail works on non-famous women?

2. freaky

There's a concept of a public figure which also has law definitions.

You're conflation a bunch of things there

I can say, for example, entertainment weekly or the national enquirer is in poor taste but I didn't think they should be chased out of business

What are you trying to say? That any and all invasion of privacy is okay as long as it is in the name journalism?