> Stock shorters, as you point out, actively bet against a company or industry or economic structure in general, it's their benefit to see a company collapse or not do well.

Companies that have inefficiently deployed capital or have problems like a Theranos or Enron should collapse. People keep acting like shorts show up to a company like Apple and take it down. That's not at all what happens. Shorts are a lot like vultures. We may not like to see what they do, but they provide a service by cleaning up dead carcasses.

If you want to argue that shorters spread (dis)information in a company and should be more closely looked at, I might agree. My immediate counter though would be that I see way more positive information spread in general, and people rarely seem to check that until it so blatantly false things collapse.