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France's AMF watchdog fines Bloomberg €5M over Vinci hoax

reuters.com

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Re: France's AMF watchdog fines Bloomberg €5M over Vinci hoax

#191
post #11

Do you remember the Bloomberg article about Big China Chip Hack? About Apple was been refuted, debunked, and ridiculed. See https://appleinsider.com/articles/19/10/04/editorial-a-year-...

And yet not a single one of those massive companies has attempted to sue Bloomberg into the ground. Bloomberg never even retracted or apologized. The silence following that whole debacle is deafening and probably very telling...

It's win win for everybody. The narrative supports the effort to have less dependency toward China manufacturing and it's in line with the later China-US trade war.

Re: France's AMF watchdog fines Bloomberg €5M over Vinci hoax

#192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any guesses to why aren't Super Micro or other affected parties taking legal action, if it was a hoax like what's reported in this case?

Being in the news several more times for a case about "spy chips" in your hardware isn't worth any money they'd get?

Bingo. Fighting it would just preserve the Streisand effect. There doesn't appear to have been any material impact from where I sit, and there haven't been any further stories along the same lines.

Re: France's AMF watchdog fines Bloomberg €5M over Vinci hoax

#193

The headline probably needs qualification that the fine was in Europe, not the U.S. I was shocked that any U.S. regulator would attempt to push against the First Amendment in this way. It's a different story with more context.

> push against the First Amendment This isn't a freedom of speech issue since obviously they were free to say whatever they wanted, lies and misinformation included. This doesn't imply freedom from consequences. Causing a company to lose 18% value because they couldn't be bothered to verify is negligence, incompetence, or malice (or a combination) not freedom of speech and it's only fair to receive a fine. Bloomberg…

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Re: France's AMF watchdog fines Bloomberg €5M over Vinci hoax

#194
post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It just kinda...disappeared. This might be the answer to you second question. No one seems to have taken the Bloomberg story to be true. Just went "that's dumb" and dropped it. In fact the only times I've ever seen it resurface is in a context to point out something negative about Bloomberg (like now), not the companies named in the article. Sort of like the Elon Musk defamation case that just ended. Plaintiff didn'…

I believe it. Maybe not for that exact story with the lack of proof, but considering how such an attack is within the realm of possibility it seems foolish to not assume the handful of the most powerful and well-funded groups on Earth are doing such a thing. I’m not going to leave my door unlocked at night, for example, until my neighbor gets robbed and proves to me that is possible.

> I believe it. Maybe not for that exact story

So you don't believe it, you believe another story. Bloomberg didn't say "this is possible" they said "this is happening and here are the exact details".

Re: France's AMF watchdog fines Bloomberg €5M over Vinci hoax

#196

My trust of bloomberg has been pretty low since the spy chip story, that seems to have been just a hoax. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2018-10-04/the-big-h...

Any guesses to why aren't Super Micro or other affected parties taking legal action, if it was a hoax like what's reported in this case?

Generally, when a company doesn't sue over something like this, it's because they don't have a case. And that always means that enough of the allegations are true that they couldn't win an absolutely massive judgement in court.

Because in the US, truth is an absolute defense to the defamation torts. (The same is not truth in the UK; you can still be liable for defamation even if everything you said is true. See, e.g., the case of the Nazi-fetishist MP.)

The Streisand effect is not a thing companies worry about. Because more brand damage = more monetary damages to collect.

Re: France's AMF watchdog fines Bloomberg €5M over Vinci hoax

#197
post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe it. Maybe not for that exact story with the lack of proof, but considering how such an attack is within the realm of possibility it seems foolish to not assume the handful of the most powerful and well-funded groups on Earth are doing such a thing. I’m not going to leave my door unlocked at night, for example, until my neighbor gets robbed and proves to me that is possible.

> I believe it. Maybe not for that exact story So you don't believe it, you believe another story. Bloomberg didn't say "this is possible" they said "this is happening and here are the exact details".

I believe it is happening, yes. The obvious plausibility and the way I’ve seen other state-sponsored things (any state) hushed up means the only reasonable thing for me to do is assume the story is based on truth even if the picture isn’t 100% complete. To put it another way, I believe the Bloomberg story is the “Room 641A” to a Snowden-level expose we may never get.

Re: France's AMF watchdog fines Bloomberg €5M over Vinci hoax

#198
post #11

Do you remember the Bloomberg article about Big China Chip Hack? About Apple was been refuted, debunked, and ridiculed. See https://appleinsider.com/articles/19/10/04/editorial-a-year-...

The Big China Chip Hack was never actually debunked.

It was refuted, yes, but every company always does that, right up until they admit in a court settlement that the allegations were true all along. Despite the supposedly slanderous statements, none of the supposedly slandered companies has sued over the article, even though in several cases they suffered material impacts to their stock prices and financial results.

...But nothing.

Despite supposedly defamatory statements, nothing was done by any of the companies mentioned in the article.

Comments here have mention the Streisand effect as the reason for inaction, but the Streisand effect does not apply to defamation. The concept behind the Streisand effect is that efforts to censor information just result in greater dissemination. However, in a defamation lawsuit with potentially billions of dollars of damages at stake, you want greater dissemination of the defamatory statements, because that increases the payout at the end of the road. And because with enough money you can recover from the negative PR (see, e.g, Tylenol, Ford, Toyota, Tesla, BP, etc.).

Re: France's AMF watchdog fines Bloomberg €5M over Vinci hoax

#199

The headline probably needs qualification that the fine was in Europe, not the U.S. I was shocked that any U.S. regulator would attempt to push against the First Amendment in this way. It's a different story with more context.

If you think the 1st Amendment protects you from the SEC universally then you're in for a shock.

Re: France's AMF watchdog fines Bloomberg €5M over Vinci hoax

#200
post #11

Do you remember the Bloomberg article about Big China Chip Hack? About Apple was been refuted, debunked, and ridiculed. See https://appleinsider.com/articles/19/10/04/editorial-a-year-...

And yet not a single one of those massive companies has attempted to sue Bloomberg into the ground. Bloomberg never even retracted or apologized. The silence following that whole debacle is deafening and probably very telling...

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