People holding long positions do shady stuff all the time as well. I don't see the distinction.
Please share some examples. I'd like to understand so I can compare to the things in that link.
Theranos comes to mind
Theranos was a shady company. But it wasn't a public company. The shadiness was the company itself.
Were the people being shady not also stock holders doing shady things to keep the stock price up?
I think there is a difference in the company itself being shady and investors being shady to influence the stock price. The long pump and dumpers definitely fall into the latter category and similar to the shorts described in my link.
Enron? Years of blatant fraud and earnings manipulation with the explicit goal of hitting stock price targets.
Was that the company itself or were there outsiders contributing to this too?
Pump-and-dumps are an entire class of fraud that fundamentally relies on you being long.