Facebook: Thiel acted on own in Hogan-Gawker spat
RANCHO PALOS VERDES, Calif. — Peter Thiel, the investor and Facebook board member, acted on his own when he opted to finance wrestler Hulk Hogan's suit against Gawker Media, according to Facebook Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg.
Speaking at the Code conference here, Sandberg said Facebook wasn't alerted to Thiel's actions ahead of time.
"He did what he did as an independent person," she said. "We didn't know. He didn't use any Facebook resources. If he had, that would be an issue."
Gawker is a partner in Facebook's Instant Articles program, which helps news stories load quicker in the News Feed, along with the New York Times, Fox News and Recode, she said.
Thiel will remain on the board, Sandberg said.
One Hulk Hogan sex tape, two billionaires -- and an epic free speech battle
"This is not a Facebook thing," she added. "We have very independent board members. Those same strong people make great board members, they have strong views."
Venture capitalist Thiel has admitted to financing a lawsuit brought by Hulk Hogan against gossip website Gawker after Hogan claimed his privacy was invaded when the site posted a sex video of him. Thiel, whose involvement became public last week, said he financed the suit because Gawker had reported Thiel was gay and written what he considered damaging stories about others.
He saw the suit — for which a judge has awarded Hogan $140 million — as a way of halting Gawker's activities, a position that media critics and some tech titans such as Jeff Bezos have decried as an affront to press freedom.
TRENDING TOPICS
Sandberg was also asked about recent criticism from conservative commentators and lawmakers that its staff showed a liberal bias in selecting the news articles shared with the company's 1 billion users.
"Donald Trump has more followers," on Facebook than Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders "combined," Sandberg said Wednesday.
She said Facebook wants a continuing dialogue on what conservatives think makes the platform work for them.
The firestorm over Facebook's Trending Topics feature broke after tech website Gizmodo, quoting an unnamed former contractor who worked at Facebook, said fellow curators regularly suppressed conservative outlets and news articles. Facebook eventually released a 28-page internal document detailing that its algorithms surface the news stories that are being actively shared, but that a small team of editorial employees could interject their judgement into this algorithm, including by cross-checking the topic against content generated by a list of mainstream news outlets.
In late May, Facebook's Sandberg, CEO Mark Zuckerberg and other senior executives met with representatives from conservative media outlets. Facebook later said it was changing the Trending Topics module to "minimize risks where human judgement is involved."
DISNEY JOB
As the COO, Sandberg has been mentioned for other jobs, most notably CEO of the Walt Disney Co., but she said she's not interested in another corporate job or working in politics.
"I love my job," she said. "I don't want another job. I'm not running for office."
She said that Facebook had 700 million users when she joined in 2008 and 1.65 billion now. "We've done well on the mobile transition, but we have another platform (virtual reality) coming."
Contributing: Jessica Guynn