Not that it doesn't happen, but I think people on hotcopper tend...

Not that it doesn't happen, but I think people on hotcopper tend to lean into conspiracies. Half the time when you see "paid down rampers" no one's even shorting the stock so that completely takes apart most theories. I myself followed a stock, saw countless red flags and sold but still post and follow the threads, admittedly with a negative lense. Rightfully so, it's declined before and ever since I was posting, but the amount of times iv been called a paid downramper I simply couldn't count. People disagree and when there's money on the line people also get emotional , for this very reason it's very easy to be irrational when replying to said comments that disagree. Logically speaking Paying someone to negatively post rarely makes sense, how would one even track the effect of what they are paying for? How much of a short position would you need for it to even be viable (circling back to the fact when it gets mentioned people are not even shorting the stock half the time). How many people online will completely change there sentiment from a buy to a sell based off one negative poster, not many and if they are they most likely do not even have a large position which again doesn't make it worth it. I'm not saying it never happens but people on hotcopper often get paranoid over nothing