(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Anti-Capitalist Meetup: Peter Thiel Part 12: Objection AI [1] ['Aspiring Polymath', 'Rebel Ga', 'Chloris Creator'] Date: 2026-08-16 PREVIOUSLY RELEASED This is part twelve of an ongoing series on Peter Thiel, which started as an eleven part series. Previously released articles are below: Anti-Capitalist Meetup: Peter Thiel Eleven-Part Investigative Series Part 1: The President Bought Palantir Stock, Then Publicly Endorsed the Company Part 2: From Apartheid Namibia to Foster City: The Formative Years Part 3: Federal AI Policy Drafted by Peter Thiel’s Former Chief of Staff Part 4: ImmigrationOS – Palantir’s $60 Million ICE Deal Built a Targeting App for Mass Deportation Part 5: Anduril’s Eighteen Months: Start-Up’s Valuation Tripled Under the Trump Administration Part 6: Peter Thiel Joined the Board. Then His Nuclear Start-Up Got $900 Million From Dept of Energy Part 7: How Peter Thiel Built a Vice President Part 8: Epstein Files Show Palantir’s Israel Partnership Began at Convicted Sex Offender’s Dinner Table Part 9: The Private-City Projects Peter Thiel Has Spent Twenty Years Building Part 10: The Moon as a Nuclear Market. Peter Thiel Is Positioned at Every Layer of It Part 11: A Mansion in Argentina. Is Palantir to Follow? ==================== We land again today smack-dab in the middle of the continuing power concentration of a “most dangerous person in the world” contender. This time the focus is not just on Peter Thiel, but also his partner Aron D’Souza and their new startup Objection AI. D’Souza is the former leader of Peter Thiel’s litigation against Gawker Media, where Hulk Hogan was awarded a ruling large enough to bankrupt Gawker. Balaji Srinivasan is also a backer in the project. Peter Thiel Built a Court. You’re the Defendant THE GAWKER BLUEPRINT In 2007, Gawker Media published a story outing Thiel as gay. He didn’t argue. He didn’t issue a statement. He waited, identified a weapon, and secretly financed Hulk Hogan’s unrelated privacy lawsuit against the company. The jury verdict was $140 million. Gawker filed for bankruptcy. The company was gone. When the New York Times asked Thiel about it, he called it one of the “greater philanthropic things” he had done. Seriously? Were his actions really “Philanthropic,” or more like “Wealth-enabled authoritarianism”? From Gawker Archives: Obviously the lawsuits facing Gawker are not conventionally motivated ones, as became clear once it was revealed that billionaire investor Peter Thiel, apparently motivated by a decade-long vendetta… Peter Thiel is building a parallel justice system — Powered by AI His investment in Objection.ai points to a new model: private investigations, AI verdicts, and accountability mechanisms that operate outside democratic institutions. … 10 years later [after the Gawker suit] with the aid of an “AI tribunal,” a team of intelligence and law enforcement veterans, and a political climate vastly more hostile to press freedom, he is trying to do exactly that, bypassing the courts, short-circuiting the first amendment, and making it much, much cheaper to indulge in the quasi legal harassment of journalists. … Anonymous sources, however, are D’Souza’s biggest gripe. They are, he said, “One of the greatest power asymmetries that exists in the modern world.” By his reasoning, science doesn’t use anonymous sources and is subject to peer review, so why isn’t journalism held to the same standard of external oversight? … it would not be hard to demonstrate that he is harnessing widely shared concerns about a disordered information environment to mobilize support for an AI powered justice system controlled by a hyperpartisan private company with a track record of attacking the very institutions that are holding the line on consensus reality. (emphasis mine) This is such a solid article it was really hard not to attempt to quote the entire story. Please do take the time to read it. As a website that values journalistic standards of truth, honesty, and integrity in reporting, I would not be surprised to see Daily Kos being “brought to justice (sic)” by this kangaroo kourt in the near future. Really, this is just a strongarm / “wealth rules the rest” pile of steaming inequality. The .coda article concludes, regarding the tactics used to come after journalists and others: “Objection.ai does so by building a hallucination of the legal process.” However, anyone who is targeted by this regrettable new hallucination must first agree to binding arbitration by Objection AI. As such, this seems to be an entrapment scheme to harm journalists (and others?) through alleged independent arbitration Apparently the Objection.ai website is down for “retooling” or something, as any links I find dump me back on the AI animated homepage with giant eyeballs “looking” back and forth. Yup, Thiel-backed companies never remind me of Big Brother! (/s) At the end of the day, journalists must refuse to engage with this hallucination. Otherwise, they may be found on The Primary’s website ranking of journalists (the partner site for Objection) with a lowered score. Peter Thiel, Aron D’Souza and Objection AI have no legal power to compel people to engage, unlike subpoenas, summons, and bench warrants available to bonafide US courts of law. Thiel and D’Souza should be kept muzzled in their quest to rule others through their private organization(s). Hopefully, Salon’s April 23, 2026 article title foretells a brighter future: Thiel-backed AI project to block bad press looks like a bust Then there is the arbitration agreement — perhaps the most clarifying feature of the whole enterprise. If a journalist wants an on-the-record interview with someone in Objection’s orbit, they are asked to sign an agreement consenting in advance to the tribunal’s jurisdiction. They are asked, in other words, to preemptively accept the possibility of financial penalties assessed by an AI jury and overseen by Thiel, the man who destroyed Gawker, in exchange for a quote from someone who is plainly hoping to pick a fight. Or don’t sign, and risk being labeled uncooperative or unaccountable. It is a nonstarter. Let’s hope so, but where Peter Thiel is involved there is a solid track record of (financial) success. Popular Information notes Objection does not plan to stop at journalism. The company’s goal is to one day become “a global AI arbitration court” capable of resolving “contract conflicts, commercial disagreements, reputational claims, scientific and technical disputes — all adjudicated at dramatically lower cost, far higher speed, and greater accuracy than medieval court systems built for a pre-digital age.” If this does become successful it is another big nail in the coffin of law and justice for all. JUST SAY NO to private AI courts and binding arbitration by the company behind the “law”suit! * This is part 12 of a series on Peter Thiel and his influence on our country and our world. Personally, there seems to be little there to applaud, and most is downright scary to a democracy and its citizens. Equality, equity, morality and helpful to humanity are words I would never use to describe Mr. Thiel or his companies, including the ones he is “just an investor” in. [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2026/8/16/800084774/community/peter-thiel-part-12-objection-ai/ Published and (C) by Daily Kos Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/