Long before I had heard of political blogs, I was an active participant in technology stock message boards. It wasn't radically different from commenting on blogs -- there were arguments and things I learned and trolls and smart helpful people. And within the friendly now-defunct board that I used to comment on, there was the same general sense of community that develops in many online communities where matters of import are discussed -- people trusted each other to give good-faith advice. On boards less civil than mine, you'd often see allegations that, say, Big_Money_Clown_316 was being paid off to pump TGLO stock, but I generally didn't believe that those kinds of things were going on. Sure, some scammers would buy stocks and tout them so that they could sell them higher, but how could somebody get paid by executives to influence us message-board rabble as we purchased our little 100-share positions?
Which brings me to the case of Jerome Armstrong. If the SEC allegations are right, and the SEC doesn't bring these things lightly, Jerome was the guy I didn't believe existed. Some excerpts:
