So Gawker is going away.

Peter Thiel wins. The first round.

But I don't think this will be a pure win for Silicon Valley.

It goes to the quality of their product. 

Who would trust Silicon Valley to run the world's social network? That's a trick question. Right now we all do. So the attitude of the owners of Silicon Valley toward free expression matters very much. 

Social networks are about people sharing ideas and information, right? And the people who own the social networks will sue people, bankrupt them, for sharing ideas and information they don't like. No one said that Peter Thiel was not gay, right? No one said that was not Hulk Hogan in the video? In other words it wasn't about the truth, because Gawker had the truth on their side. This is all about the power of money. What it can buy you and what it can't.

But these social networks aren't used for serious stuff, right? 

You haven't been paying attention. Even if Twitter, for example, is something of a joke now, with its 140-char limit, it's mostly grunts and snorts, put-downs and shutups, look at what kind of President the Republicans are about to nominate. The Twitter President. The President of Grunts and Snorts. It's serious and a joke at the same time!

I'm sure at Facebook they think of their users as sad poor people who don't have anything interesting to do. After all they don't live in Silicon Valley! They don't hang out with us! They are poor and are truly nobody. If they got mad at us what difference would it make? It's not as if they have anywhere to go. We have them, as if we care.

Any billionaire in Silicon Valley could have backed Gawker's defense. They must have thought it was good that Gawker would finally go away. I understand the relief. I have been the target of Gawker crap. But it will ultimately be a very expensive and unsatisfying relief. And it won't last long.

Perhaps in the future you will have to be a billionaire to own a Gawker. Hey luckily one is for sale. If a billionaire thought Thiel was wrong, they could buy Gawker out of bankruptcy and restart it. With one objective -- to out Peter Thiel not as a gay man, but rather as a fascist-loving enemy of the people. Now that would be something worth watching! :-)

This is just Round One. Who knows what comes next. But I can imagine a future where the pain of Peter is just beginning. 

PS: Gawker/Thiel in a nutshell. Should it be possible for billionaires to insist on obedience from everyone else? If not, what are the limits?