A billionaire builds a pillory

Silicon Valley billionaire Peter Thiel has a very unique history with the media. He is the man who destroyed Gawker. In 2016, he financed Hulk Hogan's lawsuit against the celebrity portal after it published a sex video. At the time, Thiel told The New York Times that he was aiming for a “concrete deterrent.” And of Gawker, he said, “They are the al-Qaeda of Silicon Valley.” Now he wants to go one step further. Thiel is funding the start-up Objection. The idea: Articles are to be checked for credibility by AI and former intelligence professionals. It sounds like a mix of big data and a spy thriller, but with the aim of revolutionizing the media landscape. Most people think: Fact checks are good, and AI can help combat misinformation. But what happens when a single billionaire decides who is considered credible—and relies on ex-intelligence operatives to do so? The thesis: The power to define truth is shifting from the public sphere into the hands of the powerful. The story of Objection does not begin with technology, but with revenge. Peter Thiel could not forgive Gawker for having outed him as gay years earlier. He waited, gathered evidence, and secretly supported lawsuits. This is no ordinary start-up investor, but someone who personally wages war against the media. And now, with Objection, he is building a new pillory – this time packaged as progress. Did you know that, in the future, ex-agents are supposed to evaluate journalists? The idea of former intelligence operatives and algorithms jointly evaluating articles feels more like surveillance than fact-finding. The media is supposed to become more independent, but the system Thiel proposes replaces the “medieval” court—so he calls it—with a digital court of justice that is not accountable to anyone. What almost no one asks: Who oversees the overseers? When the truth is vetted algorithmically and by ex-agents, power shifts away from public debate and journalism and toward private interests. And there is another issue that is rarely discussed: the fear of the pillory is an old one. In the Middle Ages, you were placed in the stocks because you broke the rules, and everyone could see you. Now your article is digitally pilloried—and no one knows who decides whether you are to blame. In the end, one question remains: Are AI and ex-operatives really the better judges, or are we getting a digital pillory that stifles independent voices? Truth does not become more objective when it is vetted by the powerful. If you feel that this perspective applies to you, you can use I'm In on Lara Notes to show that this idea now belongs to you. And if tomorrow you discuss with someone the fact that a billionaire like Thiel decides what is credible, you can mark that conversation as important on Lara Notes using Shared Offline. This was a look at Peter Thiel, Objection, and the new digital pillory – originally published on Süddeutsche.de. With this note, you have saved yourself several minutes of research.