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You're not addressing what I said. I didn't ask if it should be legal for companies to purposely misinform the public, but rather if under present law it actual
by woodandsteel 9y ago
You're not addressing what I said. I didn't ask if it should be legal for companies to purposely misinform the public, but rather if under present law it actually is. The answer is no. That is why the tobacco companies settled for a hundred billion dollars once the the evidence became public that they had been doing that.
- dragonwriter 9y agoThey didn't settle because they misinformed the public. They settled because people had credible arguments that they had been harmed as a result of the misinformation. The harm is a critical component. (Of course, something that has a net benefit still ma y have harmed someone, so that a particular misrepresentation supported something that was on balance good doesn't mean that it would involve no liability. But the misrepresentation alone is insufficient for liability, generally. And, in any case, I'm not certain that, even discounting future costs that have yet to materialize, misrepresentations on climate change have been harmless even in net so far.)