I absolutely believe you're right about paid bashers and pumpers--it seems very unlikely. If someone were short, they might be compelled to bash just like the people who are long feel compelled to promote the stock. But paying someone to pump or bash a stock would certainly leave a trail screaming that the intent was manipulation. Paying someone is too much risk for something that could be easily done by people with vested interests.

In the scams which were busted like Sulja, Magnum d'Or and even Investorshub where IHub head guy Matt Brown and others were pumping stock, the promoters posting were always in on the scam, not pumpers-for-hire.

As far as Mr. Bordynuik being a criminal--that's an ongoing debate with one camp saying he intentionally deceives investors and the other saying he just keeps making mistakes. With his accounting fraud people were saying he relied on others...until the SEC pointed out that Mr. Bordynuik spearheaded the effort to find a crooked accountant to sign off on the fake valuation. Even when Mr. Bordynuik admitted to the OSC that his intent was to deceive investors as part of that settlement, people were saying he just lied to the OSC about admitting to lying to investors because he wanted the suit to be finished.