Includes bibliographical references (pages 299-318).

A word -- Introduction -- Part I: The planning. The inciting incident; Deciding to act; Turning to conspiracy; Assembling the team; Finding the back door; Tear out your heart; Seizing the sword -- Part II: The doing. Prepare for setbacks; Know thy enemy; The power of secrets; Sow confusion and disorder; The ties that bind; The testing of faith; Who wants it more? -- Part III: The Aftermath. The battle for hearts and minds; Managing the aftermath; The art of settling; There are always unintended consequences -- Conclusion.

"Conspiracy theories are legion. Conspiracies are rare. And of the few that do exist, fewer are ever discovered, let alone explained. In 2007, a short blog post on Valleywag, the Silicon Valley-vertical of Gawker Media, outed PayPal founder and billionaire investor Peter Thiel as gay. Thiel's sexuality had been known to close friends and family, but he didn't consider himself a public figure, and believed the information was private. For years, Thiel searched for a solution to what he'd come to call the 'Gawker Problem'. When an unmarked envelope delivered an illegally recorded sex tape of Hulk Hogan with his best friend's wife, Gawker had seen the chance for millions of page views and to say the things that others were afraid to say. Thiel saw their publication of the tape as the opportunity he was looking for. He would come to pit Hogan against Gawker in a multi-year proxy war through the Florida legal system, while Gawker remained confidently convinced they would prevail as they had over so many other lawsuits - until it was too late. The verdict would stun the world and so would Peter's ultimate unmasking as the man who had set it all in motion. Why had he done this? How had no one discovered it? What would this mean for the First Amendment? For privacy? For culture?" -- Publisher's website.