Gawker Media, bankrupted by a lawsuit regarding the website's release of a sex tape involving Hulk Hogan, is up for auction today, and the New York Times is using the occasion to offer Peter Thiel, the enigmatic Silicon Valley billionaire who funded Hogan's lawsuit, a chance to explain his sometimes confusing views of the free press. In an opinion piece titled "The Online Privacy Debate Won’t End With Gawker," Thiel defends his use of the legal system, explains how he felt personally victimized by Gawker, whose blog Valleywag outed him in 2007, and argues for a bill in Congress called "the Intimate Privacy Protection Act."

Thiel first brings up his speech at the Republican National convention, where he endorsed that party's problematic nominee Donald Trump. He called himself proud to be gay, invoking in his opinion piece, as he did then, the "fake culture wars" that serve to "distract." Thiel also sets the stage for his argument by noting that "lurid interest in gay life isn’t a thing of the past," citing the now-retracted Daily Beast article of last week that outed a number of closeted Olympic athletes from anti-gay countries. While he doesn't pretend the situations are analogous, Thiel says he relates: "In 2007, I was outed by the online gossip blog Gawker," he writes. "It wasn’t so many years ago, but it was a different time: Gay men had to navigate a world that wasn’t always welcoming, and often faced difficult choices about how to live safely and with dignity. In my case, Gawker decided to make those choices for me. I had begun coming out to people I knew, and I planned to continue on my own terms. Instead, Gawker violated my privacy and cashed in on it."

Eventually, that brings Thiel to the Hogan case and his involvement in it: "Terry Bollea is better known as the wrestler Hulk Hogan, a fact that Gawker claimed justified public access to his private life... At first he simply requested that Gawker take down the video. But Gawker refused. It was getting millions of page views, and that was making money." In the end, it would be the media company's undoing.

Four years later, the financial calculus has changed. Gawker Media Group has put itself up for sale (bids are due Monday afternoon) in part to satisfy the legal judgment of a unanimous jury that ruled against Gawker and assessed damages of $140 million, proving that there are consequences for violating privacy. Mr. Bollea could not have secured justice without a fight, and he displayed great perseverance. For my part, I am proud to have contributed financial support to his case. I will support him until his final victory — Gawker said it intends to appeal — and I would gladly support someone else in the same position.

Gawker founder Nick Denton has defended his company's editorial decision to treat Thiel as a public figure in the past, observing that "A Silicon Valley billionaire is a hundred times, a thousand times more powerful than a Congressman," and arguing that journalists should cover him and people like him "even if the billionaires don't like it."

Thiel writes that "it is ridiculous to claim that journalism requires indiscriminate access to private people's sex lives," and he's totally right because that is ridiculous and no one is asking for that. Instead, and more accurately, he writes that, "sensitive information can sometimes be publicly relevant, exercising judgment is always part of the journalist’s profession." While saying "It’s not for me to draw the line," that does feel a lot like what Thiel did, exerting his financial might. And let's not forget that Thiel is a board member of Facebook, whose massive power in the future of publishing is not to be overlooked.

Thiel concludes with a plug for a bill: "The United States House of Representatives is considering the Intimate Privacy Protection Act, a bipartisan bill that would make it illegal to distribute explicit private images, sometimes called revenge porn, without the consent of the people involved." Though he says it's "nicknamed the Gawker Bill," a Google search shows it's rarely called that, and the first reference is here, on a small, far-right blog that touts itself as being featured on Sean Hannity and rush Limbaugh.

Like fights about privacy and freedom of the press, Thiel speculates that Gawker isn't really going anywhere — "suggesting otherwise would be an insult to its writers and to readers," he writes. So, does that mean he's made a bid to buy the company? It could use, you know, a transfusion of capital, and maybe, you know, some new blood.

Related: Billionaire Trump Supporter Peter Thiel Wants The Blood Of Young People

"Paypal mafia" tech billionaire and Facebook board member Peter Thiel was awfully secretive about funding Hulk Hogan's lawsuit against the media company Gawker (over, it would appear, an article drawing attention to Thiel's seemingly open-secret sexuality). By contrast, Thiel has made much less of a secret of his support of Donald Trump, for whom he is a pledged delegate. Now, Gawker asks, has Thiel once again attempted to silence their news outlet, now on his favorite subject? Could this be his latest act of so-called "philanthropy?" Read on.

In a devastating and lengthy investigation that published the same day as news of Thiel's involvement in the suit against Gawker broke, Ashley Feinberg, a writer for Gawker, asked perspicaciously: "Is Donald Trump’s Hair a $60,000 Weave?" Well, is it? In the piece, she points (very convincingly, if I may say so) to the idea that Trump's strange coiffure is "a little-known, patented hair restoration treatment called a 'microcylinder intervention.'" Her main piece of evidence is circumstantial but persuasive: The fact that a company performing the procedure operated from the "private floor reserved for Donald Trump’s own office."

Allegations that Trump's hairdo is, in fact a “cotton candy hairspray labyrinth" led to backlash from none other than Thiel's lawyer in the Hogan case against Gawker, Charles J. Harder. Of that, Gawker writes that "Harder’s demands included the immediate removal of the story from Gawker, a public apology, the preservation of 'all physical and electronic documents, materials and data in your possession related' to the story, and, notably, that we reveal our sources."

Gawker points out that Thiel's fingerprints aren't necessarily on this case, and this, they write, is part of the issue. It's "a savvy strategy for a publicity-averse billionaire. By refusing to disclose which other lawsuits his money has touched, Thiel is able to publicly embrace PR victories (such as the Hogan case ) while distancing himself from litigation that would expose him to criticism."

Data wizard and future forecaster Nate Silver's prediction? This stinks. Previously, he's implied Facebook should drop Thiel from its board.

Previously: Will Peter Thiel's Secret Funding Of Gawker Lawsuit Jeopardize His Facebook Board Seat?
Silicon Valley Billionaire Peter Thiel Secretly Funded Hulk Hogan V. Gawker Suit
Peter Thiel Calls Funding Hulk Hogan v. Gawker Lawsuit 'Philanthropic'

Nick Denton, the Gawker founder whose suspicions were confirmed last month that a thin-skinned Silicon Valley billionaire offended by unflattering coverage was bankrolling Hulk Hogan's devastating case against his media company, spoke out on the subject at Recode's conference yesterday. Questioning Denton was the no-kiddding-for-serious future mayoral candidate and Recode co-founder Kara Swisher, and beside them sat an empty chair for Hogan's benefactor slash Gawker's malefactor, Peter Thiel, the Paypal co-founder and filthy rich out gay Trump delegate. Thiel declined requests from the publication and Denton to debate ideas of free speech, third-party litigation funding, etc.

That sentiment echoes one expressed by New York Times writer Stephen Marche, a man who has twice been included in Gawker's list of "least important writers" rankings and once achieved the pantheon of the worst 100 white men, yet still defended the media company's tabloid streak.

"Whether Gawker should have posted the Hulk Hogan sex tape I will leave to the care of finer souls than mine," Marche wrote. "I will say this: No one could possibly object if that were the tape of a congressman. But even a pathetic D-lister like Hulk Hogan has more power to shape the world today than most congressmen. The world we live in has made a presidential nominee out of a reality television star. This is the world that Gawker predicted and took up arms against."

Incidentally, one detail lacking from much coverage of the Gawker coverage of Hogan is that Hogan, whose given name is Terry Bollea, made a number of racist remarks on the sex tape in question, aired by Gawker, and those statements prompted his removal from the WWE. Hmm.

Related: Sheryl Sandberg Says Peter Thiel Will Remain On Facebook Board Despite Attack On Gawker

Providing an answer to a question asked by us and other news organizations last week, Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg today confirmed that Peter Thiel will remain on Facebook's board — despite the recent revelation that he has secretly waged a ten-year-long battle against Gawker Media.

As reported by Buzzfeed, Sandberg told an audience gathered at tech conference Code that not only would he remain on the board, but that she felt no need to even issue a statement about the matter. “There’s been no implication that [Thiel] was doing this for Facebook, so we didn’t have to comment.”

Sandberg was apparently pressured to make some sort of statement, however, as a reporter with Forbes tweeted out the following exchange.

When pressed if it would be acceptable for Thiel to direct his significant financial resources at destroying other news organizations or even specific journalists, Sandberg reportedly replied that "it's hard to answer all these hypotheticals."

“Peter did what he did on his own, not as a Facebook board member,” Forbes reports Sandberg as noting. “We didn’t know about it. We have very independent board members with very independent thoughts that they share publicly.”

“Those strong people make really good board members because they have strong views," she continued, "and they’re not afraid to think differently than other people, which has served Facebook well."

Thiel, of course, secretly funded a lawsuit against Gawker brought by the retired wrestler Hulk Hogan. The Guardian reports that Hogan, whose real name is Terry Bollea, was fired from the WWE for making racist remarks that were caught on film. It was a portion of this very film, which not so incidentally was also a sex tape, that Gawker posted online that sparked Hogan's lawsuit against the company.

Previously: Will Peter Thiel's Secret Funding Of Gawker Lawsuit Jeopardize His Facebook Board Seat?

Last week, here on SFist, I got a little mad at Gawker editor Hamilton Nolan for stepping into a discussion about San Francisco's housing crisis — a discussion in which he really does not belong, especially not after this topic has been well covered for several years now, and a blog editor in New York responding to a Times piece and calling us assholes with a reductive and uninformed opinion is about as useful to our housing problem right now as a Donald Trump presidency would be to Mexican immigrants. I even used some crude language to throw the argument back at Nolan, given that Gawker's only job right now should be staying afloat amid a major defamation lawsuit from Hulk Hogan and monitoring the every move of former Laguna Beach star Kristin Cavallari. It turns out that the piece, for obvious reasons, pissed a lot of people off, including Planning Commission vice-commissioner Dennis Richards — a Duboce Triangle resident who is likely going to run for Scott Wiener's supervisor seat in District 8. Richards, though, took to Twitter over the weekend to react very angrily to all the naysayers, and caught the attention of C.W. Nevius.

To be clear to all the commenters who don't understand otherwise, I am well aware that San Francisco screwed itself on multiple levels over multiple decades in terms of housing density. This is not, simply, a preservationists and NIMBYs versus new people argument, though NIMBYs and anti-development activists certainly bear some blame. My biggest point was that Gawker didn't need to be jumping into the fray so late in the game to say something bombastic and dumb from a place of almost total ignorance of the situation on the ground. It's not as if housing production stopped, there is a lot being built now which, sure, still won't be enough, but as San Francisco weathers this storm, some jerk in New York need not write us all off as a bunch of provincial assholes.

Richards really couldn't contain himself, though, and he stands behind his rage by not deleting any of the tweets — despite becoming, potentially, a political candidate in the near future. Afterwards he told Nevius he regrets the outburst slightly, saying, "This is the first time I’ve done it. Once you send out the first one you feel better. Then you send the second one. And you think, well that wasn’t very professional, but it definitely felt good at the time."

Nolan, of course, is just amused by the whole thing, saying, "I saw that he was having a hissy fit. A lot of people do that on Twitter, but usually not government officials — which is what makes it fun.”

Observe:

Though the spot on the Planning Commission is an appointed one, Richards will need to take it down a notch, publicly, if he wants to be a supervisor. We all remember how London Breed got sucked into the Twitter-rage fray once upon a time? Her Twitter composure is a whole lot more measured and boring these days, after this happened. These days, she says, "I hate Twitter. I hope it goes away and never comes back."

Previously: Now Gawker Scolds San Francisco For Not Building Enough Housing

OK, can we all agree that, at the very least, New Yorkers and Angelenos can stop telling us how stupid we've been, collectively, as the city of San Francisco in not preparing for our current population boom and housing crisis? It's all been said, and The Atlantic writes something new on the topic every couple of months, and we're working on it and it's not that simple, alright? Maybe it's not happening fast enough, and you can say that City Hall still isn't doing enough, but you can also say that this isn't exactly the kind of problem you can wave a magic wand at — housing development takes years, and the larger scale it is, the longer it will take. Were we ill prepared for a sudden influx of new people? Sure. But at this point, I don't think the city is putting up any serious barriers to development except for continuing to require that all market-rate developers set aside some units for affordable housing, or contribute to an affordable housing fund.

So, at this late date, we hardly need Gawker — fucking Gawker — telling us what our problem is in a post today titled "San Francisco: Build More Housing, Assholes."

Brilliant. Thanks for the tip.

Editor Hamilton Nolan merely rehashes, again, things that have been written since 2012 by people who know a whole lot more about the issues, about how SF's development controls and rent control laws are to blame for our misery and the high cost of everything. Also, he reduces it even further than SPUR director Gabriel Metcalf did in this piece last July blaming progressives for being insular preservationists who are afraid of newcomers.

Look, we all like complaining about people who moved somewhere more recently than us. They are the worst! Are they not? So corny! I highly recommend this as a lively topic of conversation. I love talking shit about people other than me! But then, when it is all done, it is grown-up time, and people need a place to live, so the grown-ups need to figure out a place for people to live...

Thanks to the political efforts of people who consider themselves real hardcore lefties! Thanks a lot, motherfuckers! Enjoy the beautiful houses you purchased real cheap in 1970 while you rail against the development that might one day allow middle class people to live in your lovely city again!

Thank you, kind New Yorker, for summing it all up so succinctly.

Now, kindly go back to your pizza rat scams and complaining about how you'll all be stuck in Williamsburg forever when that L train tunnel has to close. Sorry that all our lives suck so hard. City living sure is tough.

Also, motherfucker, has your city experienced a new Gold Rush and a flood of new, eager bodies in the last five years? No? Does New York have enough spare apartments lying around to house 50,000 brand new people if they just showed up one day? Actually, if we make that proportional to the relative difference in the sizes of these two cities, does New York have enough spare spots to house 500,000 new people who just showed up all of a sudden?

Oh and you know how dyed-in-the-denim New Yorkers love to complain about how gentrification has basically ruined every part of the city, including the Bronx, at this point? Well, San Franciscans take that shit seriously, and we don't let the person with the most money bulldoze whatever the fuck they want and build something new, and if that means we have some growing pains and things have to reach Manhattan-level prices for a while, then I guess that's how it will be.

We will get through this. We're starting to wrap our heads around living in a denser place. We're fighting it out, and people are actually building some really huge housing projects, none of which have happened overnight.

So, shut the fuck up already. And tell Brooklyn to shut the fuck up too. As they say over there, mind ya business. Assholes.

Previously: How Many San Franciscans Are Rooting For The Tech Economy To Tank?
San Francisco Has Always Been A Pretty Expensive Place To Live

For those of you who watched Britney's birthday on Good Morning America, which we'll assume is all of you, Four Seasons resident and Google VP Marissa Mayer graced Today this morning. The multi-millionaire chatted to Matt Lauer about this year's top Google search words (Obama, Facebook, McCain) and queries on the tanking economy (e.g., people are cooking at home more). Her voice is much more raspy/sexy than we had assumed. Because we judge people based off of their hair color. But you'll have to see her appearance over at Valleywag. (Sir Owen Thomas gets granted the secret embedded code. We were not.)

We begged our boss for a nap room (or contemplated sleeping beneath our desk) while working in the cubicle jungle, but now this is scientific proof that we are predisposed to naps in the early afternoon. Just don't tell them that you really need a nap to sleep off that nasty hangover you earned last night. You won't earn any points with that one.

Pic by Flickr/Sir Mervs.

Oh, the East Coast. It tickles us ever so.

Last year Cornell University's
Erin Geld wrote something or other about the Cosby's neighborhood as a bastion of coke-fueled cool, and all of the hipsters freaked the fuck out on her via the comment thread on a Gawker post. It seems that Geld trashed Brooklyn and its allegedly (un?)cool scene, so people went batshit. Or something like that. (Being a story about NYC and Ivy Leaguers, we're sure it's much more complicated than we could possibly understand.)

Anyway, her feelings we hurt so much by the angularly-haired that she moved here to San Francisco. (Welcome, Erin!) Here's what she says in Newsweek online about living among the hipsters in Baghdad by the Bay:

So, I eschewed the Ithaca-to-Williamsburg trend and went west to San Francisco. It is, surprisingly, almost more packed with bandanna babies than Brooklyn. They lounge in Dolores Park with organic sandwiches and two-buck Chuck as if it were stale bagels and PBR on Bedford Avenue. They are similar: name-dropping obscure bands, writing novels "secretly" and being endearingly vain. But in the Mission’s sweet-smelling cloud of tolerance, hipsters are relaxed and just a bit more lovable.

Rejoice, space believers! For there is finally - yes, finally! - someplace you can go on l'Internet to read about such sci-fi-ness (excuse us, "science fiction-ness" for all of you purists) ranging from Samuel R. Delany to Joss Whedon to Small Wonder. Io9, a Bay Area-based blog care of Gawker, launched yesterday, and we couldn't be more thrilled. That is, until we read about their editor, Annalee Newitz.

Newitz seems like a fantastic piece of work. In her bio she says that, "[t]he first time I saw Star Wars I got so excited that I threw up." What's more, she wrote a book about monsters while she was lecturer at UC Berkeley, was obsessed with ending user license agreements while she was a policy analyst at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and has an RFID tracking device implanted in her arm. Wow. What a dork. (She grew up in O.C.!) We think we're in love with her. Just awesome. (At last, someone new for us to stalk!)

Find out what on earth io9 means after the jump.

The Holiday season is in full swing in NYC, with holiday lights in Brooklyn, a giant snow globe in Bryan Park and Chanukah specials for ham. One citizen decided to go vigilante on annoying car alarms, a murder suspect used a fake Asian accent on the stand and a video of a man being beaten up by teenage girls on a subway shocked the city. And we interviewed soon-to-be-leaving-Gawker editor Choire Sicha, who said, "Wouldn't a kinder, gentler Gawker be hideously unreadable? No, we never talked about that. It would be hysterical but we haven't."

Londonist was proud to announce the winner of this year's Turner Prize was Mark Wallinger who made long-standing London protester Brian Haw a work of art, after he has previously been made into a sort of law due to his lengthy banner-waving vigil outside parliament. The strength of the pound made real in the form of a 25 foot high coin on a quiet patch of the Thames river bank, aiming to inspire all Londoners in a publicly voted decision on spending £50 million Lottery money. Perhaps some new play projects for London kids who, for the lack of youthful entertainment, are trying to amuse themselves by collecting prostitute calling cards, which are worryingly rigged and booby-trapped. And for those who are anticipating a lovely fat check from a great-aunt this Christmas and wondering what to spend it on, the London Marathon will need a new sponsor after 2009. How does The Londonist London Marathon sound?

Bostonist ducked and covered when a gas tanker tipped over and exploded in the nearby town of Everett. No one got hurt, but cars and homes were destroyed in the blaze. Making matters worse, the driver of the tanker had a few smudges on his record. Bostonist was then agog as their former governor, who usually doesn't hang out in Massachusetts that much, made the news in every possible way. Mitt Romney gave a speech about every religion except his own. However, several other individuals were more interested in the news that Romney still had illegal immigrants working at his mansion. In other Mitt-free news, transit police put out the alert for a "Green Line Groper" who had been making the lives of high-school teens extremely unpleasant. Bostonist also joined a polyamory club and found out that polyamorous people are a lot like normal people, only with more variety.

We're both flattered an saddened by our witty betters at Gawker -- flattered that they stole our idea to spotlight comments (not that we're especially innovative in doing so, but still); a little saddened that theirs is already so much better in its execution. Depressing, yet we soldier on, because many of your thoughts deserve to be read a second time.

Quick note: we'd also like to remind you guys that while you're welcome to leave meta-commentary in the comments sections, an easier way to get an answer about issues relating to SFist itself and related policy is to just email one of the editors or writers (contact info for specific individuals can be found on the staff page).

Here's this week's Top 5:

1) Wow, a reader asked about gyms to go to, and you guys really responded. Tons of helpful suggestions from a score of readers; we'll certainly take this thread into consideration when it's time to re-up in January.

2) mariconsoy was both super-informative (this note is almost a PSA), insightful, and amusingly (and preemptively) bitchy in the "meter maids assaulted" thread. Well done, as always, mariconsoy.

3) We liked AJ's question because we know the answer: that famous picture of Daly can be found here, on the site of the fine, award-winning news photographer that took it, Jason Doiy. Check out the rest of his work while you're there as well.

4) We don't usually like to do more than one "read the whole damned thread," as a comment of the week pick, but the commentary accompanying Matt's piece on the Tenderloin Housing Clinic was extremely moving and informative.

5) We enjoyed MalcoveMagnesia's perspective on Apple and its products, especially the part where he reminds us that "customers should be reasonable."