Dear readers,
Recently, our editors were forced to remove a number of articles from Seeking Alpha after we discovered that their authors had been compensated by stock promoters to publish positive articles on specific stocks. In their disclosures, the authors lied - explicitly stating that they were not receiving third-party payment for their articles. To be clear: Seeking Alpha does not allow paid stock promoters or IR firms to submit articles about stocks with which they have a relationship.
We are grateful to Richard Pearson for his outstanding undercover work in unearthing foul play on Seeking Alpha and other investing websites, and for sharing his research with us proactively so that we could deal promptly with non-compliant authors. You can read Richard’s recent articles on this topic here and here.
This discovery has led us to re-examine our contributor due-diligence policies, and to implement the following safeguards:
We take the integrity of our website and community very seriously. It would be foolish of us to imagine that the steps above are comprehensive, or that we’ll implement them perfectly. I have created an internal brainstorming list in which I’m collecting any and all ideas we have about how to further protect the remarkable community we’ve fostered. If you have ideas as to how we can prevent stock manipulation on Seeking Alpha, and make our community even greater, please send them to me (eli@seekingalpha.com) and I’ll add them to my list.
This will not be the last you’ll be hearing from me on this topic.
This article was written by