You remember AntiSocialMedia.Net, right? No? Yeah, we were doing out best trying to forget it also. It’s the website hosting what the New York Post describes as "bitter attacks … on the message board critics, accusing them of participating to various degrees in a conspiracy to malign the anti-naked short selling movement that Overstock.com supports."
Well, it turns out that there was very good reason that AntiSocialMedia.Net was supporting the same causes as Overstock.com. It was being anonymously run by Overstock.com’s director of social media Judd Bagley.
Gary Weiss, who has been all over this story, wants to know:
Only one question arises in my mind: What laws were broken? Not "were laws broken?" but "what were the laws that were broken?" The new federal cyberstalking law comes to mind, obviously, but what others? Regulation FD is another good possibility, given the ASM Lie Machine was created after Bagley became a corporate officer. (And speaking of corporate disclosure, shouldn't Overstock file an 8-K disclosing its involvement in ASM?)Bagley is trying hard to distance himself from his employer, Patrick Byrne, which brought him on as "director of social media" in August with all the fanfare that you and I would use in buying a can of Raid cockroach spray. Nice try, but too late. Byrne himself promoted the site and contributed to it, and has indicated that he has advance knowledge of its disclosures. Once again, Byrne's big mouth has landed him in deep doo-doo.
Judd Bagley Fesses Up [Gary-Weiss.com]
Posted by Darl J. Dumont, Jan 12, 2007 5:51PM
I am one of those accused by Mr. McSleaze of being a "criminal"; this is emphatically LIBEL according to the ancient definition:
>"What is "Libel Per Se"?
When libel is clear on its face, without the need for any explanatory matter, it is called libel per se. The following are often found to be libelous per se:
>"A statement that falsely:
Charges any person with crime, or with having been indicted, convicted, or punished for crime;
Imputes in him the present existence of an infectious, contagious, or loathsome disease;
Tends directly to injure him in respect to his office, profession, trade or business, either by imputing to him general disqualification in those respects that the office or other occupation peculiarly requires, or by imputing something with reference to his office, profession, trade, or business that has a natural tendency to lessen its profits;
Imputes to him impotence or a want of chastity.