The ASS Liar

(Anonymous Short Seller Liar)

In a typical bear raid, short sellers may conspire beforehand to quietly establish large short positions in the target stock.

The next step in the bear raid is akin to a smear campaign, with whispers and rumors about the company spread by unknown sources. These rumors can be anything that portrays the target company in a negative light, such as allegations of accounting fraud, an SEC investigation, an earnings miss, financial difficulties, and so on. The rumors may cause nervous investors to exit the stock in droves, driving the price down further and giving the short sellers the profit they are looking for.

Source: Investopedia

So, imagine someone puts up a letter at your town square where this “someone” makes various claims that are very negative about you and damage your reputation. And where these claims are plain lies.

In such situation, you would turn to authorities (police, city council) and request that the letter would be taken down and that “someone” should be penalized for lying and damaging you.

But if that “someone” would have posted anonymously, being clearly not just a liar, but also a coward? The letter would still be taken down, police might investigate against the anonymous “someone” and hopefully everyone would know that all claims should be disregarded as selfish egoistic statements from an evil force.

What is very obvious in real life, doesn’t work this way in today’s digital world. The anonymous liar’s pamphlets are not taken down, there is no police who would investigate, the ASS Liar gets referred to as “research organization” by analysts and media, and taken as reference for suspicions and requests against the victim.