If you put your face on things that defraud people, you should pay a social penalty, and in this case it would seem, for some, a financial one.
Another data point for the argument that the law is applied differently to protect different interests, I guess.
Unrelated, I'm glad Ratajkowski did the right thing here; always nice to see people you've heard of following a moral (or at least legal) path despite their peers.
There's this odd part of American culture that considers marketers and other 'influencers' immune from criticisms. I don't agree with it and stinks of the long debunked "just following orders" excuse. This allows lower-tiered scammers to play up a "but I just work here, go after my rich boss not me," narrative which co-opts class warfare rhetoric to make themselves immune from any criticism or consequences.
>I'm left wondering if the only reason they are being litigated against is that they deceived the wealthy.
Legal fees are expensive. I don't have $250,000 laying around for legal fees but the wealthy do. The same way Hulk Hogan's wealth and connections weren't enough to take on Gawker, so Thiel stepped in. In both cases the wealthy took on the moral position. Its odd that you're suggesting that because the wealthy are involved and not 'regular joes' that they must be taking an immoral position.
My reading of your comments just shows someone with a classist axe to grind and little else.
this may be the event that we've been waiting for, the big, precedence-setting lawsuit that makes this no longer OK, socially or legally