Controversies
- In 2007, Denton's Valleywag editor, Owen Thomas, outed Silicon Valley businessman, Peter Thiel in a post entitled, "Peter Thiel is totally homo, people." In the comment section of Thomas's post, Denton speculated as to why Thiel would keep "his personal life a secret from journalists... for so long." He even named "a guy called Mike" as an alleged boyfriend. In response, Thiel called Valleywag the "Silicon Valley Equivalent of Al Qaeda". Thiel called out the sites for "scar everybody" and for stifling the culture of Silicon Valley, which is "supposed to be about people who are willing to think out loud and be different."
- On October 28, 2010, he published an anonymous kiss-and-tell piece entitled, "I Had a One-Night Stand with Christine O'Donnell," causing ire among left-leaning feminists. The sensational headline was also not true, even from the writer's stance, since according to the writer, O'Donnell only slept naked with the anonymous writer and did not have sex with him. The National Organization for Women condemned the piece as "slut-shaming." NOW's president, Terry O'Neill, stated, "It operates as public sexual harassment. And like all sexual harassment, it targets not only O'Donnell, but all women contemplating stepping into the public sphere." Salon's Justin Elliott criticized the ad hominem nature of the article, Tweeting, "Today, we are all Christine O'Donnell. " Gawker.com reportedly paid in the "low four figures" for the story. Denton defended it, praising its "brilliant packaging."
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