The maker of the popular video game “Fortnite” has begun compensating claims in a $2.75-million settlement to a Canadian class-action lawsuit over the inclusion of controversial “loo...
The comment above didn’t say “Hey, we should go after those other guys.” It pointed out that it’s weird for Epic to be punished when others weren’t. Epic broke the law - they were punished. Ideally everyone else who has done so should be pursued as well but whether or not they have been isn’t a reason to delay punishing Epic.
This is classic what-about-ism (though I don’t think it was malicious just ill conceived) and, legally speaking it leads to a very serious mechanical problem. Lawsuits aren’t instantaneous or entirely predictable. If we wanted to pursue fossil fuel companies in court for environmental damages the absolute first thing they’ll all do is put PR pressure on the court system by pointing out how much less bad they are than their competitors - and its impossible for all of the big companies to be pursued precisely in sync… this pressure needs to be ignored by the legal system or it prevents the fair prosecution of anyone.
The comment above didn’t say “Hey, we should go after those other guys.” It pointed out that it’s weird for Epic to be punished when others weren’t. Epic broke the law - they were punished. Ideally everyone else who has done so should be pursued as well but whether or not they have been isn’t a reason to delay punishing Epic.
This is classic what-about-ism (though I don’t think it was malicious just ill conceived) and, legally speaking it leads to a very serious mechanical problem. Lawsuits aren’t instantaneous or entirely predictable. If we wanted to pursue fossil fuel companies in court for environmental damages the absolute first thing they’ll all do is put PR pressure on the court system by pointing out how much less bad they are than their competitors - and its impossible for all of the big companies to be pursued precisely in sync… this pressure needs to be ignored by the legal system or it prevents the fair prosecution of anyone.