The court system is not particularly equal if you piss off a billionare. And Thiel just went and found something to sue about because he didn't like Gawker's _other_ coverage.

Gawker chose an illegally filmed sex tape of a washed up celebrity as the hill they wanted to die on, and die they did.

Did Thiel make them host the video in the first place? Did Thiel make them ignore initial injunction for them to take the video down?

Defamation is illegal and should be illegal. Publications that go around exposing the details of famous people's private lives are trash and nothing of value was lost. This type of lawsuit should happen more often