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Peter Thiel is funding an AI-powered "journalism review" to help the wealthy and powerful discredit journalists
From TechCrunch three days ago:
https://techcrunch.com/2026/04/15/can-ai-judge-journalism-a-thiel-backed-startup-says-yes-even-if-it-risks-chilling-whistleblowers/
After helping lead the lawsuit that bankrupted media firm Gawker, Aron D’Souza says he saw something broken in the American media system: People who felt harmed by coverage had little recourse to fight back.
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Thiel, who funded the Gawker lawsuit partly in defense of the individual right to privacy, has long been critical of the media. D’Souza says his goal is to restore trust in the Fourth Estate, which he argues has collapsed over decades. Critics, including media lawyers, warn Objection could make it harder to publish the kind of reporting that holds powerful institutions to account, particularly if that reporting relies on confidential sources.
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First Amendment and defamation lawyer Chris Mattei was even more blunt, saying the platform “seems like a high-tech protection racket for the rich and powerful.”
“At a time when so many try to obscure the truth, we should be encouraging whistleblowers with knowledge of wrongdoing,” said Mattei, who is a leading litigator. “The purpose of this company seems to be the opposite.”
-snip-
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Thiel, who funded the Gawker lawsuit partly in defense of the individual right to privacy, has long been critical of the media. D’Souza says his goal is to restore trust in the Fourth Estate, which he argues has collapsed over decades. Critics, including media lawyers, warn Objection could make it harder to publish the kind of reporting that holds powerful institutions to account, particularly if that reporting relies on confidential sources.
-snip-
First Amendment and defamation lawyer Chris Mattei was even more blunt, saying the platform “seems like a high-tech protection racket for the rich and powerful.”
“At a time when so many try to obscure the truth, we should be encouraging whistleblowers with knowledge of wrongdoing,” said Mattei, who is a leading litigator. “The purpose of this company seems to be the opposite.”
-snip-
This startup will be using "a jury of large language models from OpenAI, Anthropic, xAI, Mistral, and Google, prompted to act as average readers and evaluate evidence claim by claim" - these are of course LLMs that hallucinate, and this is essentially Silicon Valley impersonating a jury via AI.
Challenges to the truth of a news story will cost $2,000 per each reported fact that's being challenged, and while this is a large amount for an individual who isn't well off, it's trivial for wealthy individuals and corporations, even if there are dozens of facts in a story that they want to challenge.
I expect Thiel and others like him to use this AI-powered charade to go after every story critical of them, possibly going back years, and to do whatever is necessary to ensure that this AI jury's smears against news outlets and independent journalists show up prominently in search results.
Sam Altman's OpenAI recently acquired a Silicon Valley podcast to help counter media criticism.
Thiel's helping build an automated kangaroo court the AI bros can easily control to harass and discredit journalists who don't pander to the wealthy and powerful - especially the AI bros.
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