Is it really legal to knowingly lie in public as a public figure?

Question

It's recently been revealed (by himself, even) that the famous business man and Shark Tank member Kevin O'Leary actually does own Bitcoin, and that he bought them in 2017. Ever since, until recently, he's been publicly mocking it, calling it a "nothing burger", etc.

Now that he's revealed that he bought in 2017, but "couldn't talk about it", people just seem to accept that as nothing. Totally normal and acceptable.

Aren't there laws against lying in public as a public figure? I mean, he had Bitcoin but kept actively bashing it. It's one thing if he said: "No comments." or something, but going out of your way to badmouth it even though you had it, denying that you had any?

Answer 1

That really depends what they lie about

In the United States, there's no general law against lying. The fact that a statement is false doesn't inherently strip it of protection under the first amendment. Public figures lie to the public all the time. That's why news companies have fact checkers.

Was it defamatory?

It is, however, illegal to defame someone. If someone makes a false statement of fact (that is, not an opinion) about a person or company, they may be liable for that. Whether they are liable for that depends on a number of factors, including whether the target is a public figure (see New York Times Co. v. Sullivan), the speaker's knowledge of its falsity, and whether the target was damaged by it.

Was it part of some other criminal scheme?

False statements to the public could be part of some sort of fraud, for instance. Pump and dump schemes, for instance, are illegal.

Was it under oath?

Lying under oath (such as when testifying in court) would constitute perjury, which is a crime.

There are many other situations in which lying could be a crime (such as lying on your taxes), but these are the main ones I can think of that would be about lying to the public.

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In this case (I'm unfamiliar with the details of what he said, so I'm just going off your description), I can't immediately think of any reason that could lead to liability. Mocking and calling something a "nothing burger" is pretty clearly an opinion, not a false statement of fact. I'm not aware of any securities law against saying you don't like something you're actually invested in (though I'm not especially familiar with securities law).

Answer 2

The First Amendment guarantee of free speech includes the right to lie. U.S. v. Alvarez, 567 U.S. 709 (2012) ("Absent from those few categories where the law allows content-based regulation of speech is any general exception to the First Amendment for false statements.")

There are a variety of exceptions, but for the most part, everyone is free to lie as long as they aren't trying to subvert justice or inflict harm on someone else.

Answer 3

It is usually illegal to lie with the intention to influence share prices, and then use the change you caused when trading these shares.

Answer 4

The main problem of that concept is that very few statements are clearly lies.

The first problem is to determine the actual objective truth; modern philosophers will laugh you out of court for the attempt ("whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent"; "gender is a social construct" etc.); even natural scientists will readily admit that all they have are models and theories in which they have varying degrees of confidence. To form a consensual model of our reality is the first reason why we have an equivalent to the First Amendment in all democracies of the world, before we even talk values and policies. (And as an aside, the fracturing of this public discourse due to social segregation and social media is the reason we don't share the same model of reality any longer, if we ever did; maybe the fracturing is just becoming more visible. Slaves in the 1800s would likely have disagreed with a lot of factual statements considered true by plantation owners, but they didn't have Twitter.)

The second problem is the verification. Even if we are considering statements of physical facts which we can falsify or verify in principle with certainty; even then we very rarely have first-hand knowledge of them. You and I were not on the moon; you and I didn't sit in the 9/11 cockpits; you and I were not counting ballots in Georgia. We rely on second-hand information for almost everything we think we know.

The third problem is that a lie, especially if you want to punish or reprimand people for it, involves some degree of intent. We all make factual errors; we misremember, forget, confuse and misunderstand. That cannot be punished or sanctioned; it's part of being human. How do you prove that a factual error was intentional, even if you have found a clear-cut case of a factual contradiction?

In the end, free speech is one of the most basic privileges of a free citizenry. Curbing it is curbing that freedom, exclusively to the benefit of one specific group: The ones who rule.