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't get anything because people didn't turn on him due to the accusation, they turned on Elon.
If it's not believed then you couldn't have suffered harm.
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.
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.
As I see it you don't actually believe that particular story, you believe something "like that" is plausible. So in other words Bloomberg wrote some plausible fiction. Nobody is saying something like that isn't possible, just that if we wanted to read fiction Bloomberg wouldn't be the place to look for it.
Given the string of high profile misreporting and failures to substantiate their claims one would have to be very gullible to still take Bloomberg reporting at face value without being presented with some hard proof and 3rd party confirmation.
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't get anything because people didn't turn on him due to the accusation, they turned on Elon.
If it's not believed then you couldn't have suffered harm.