The online war between a CEO and a biz journalist

Dan Mitchell of the New York Times takes note of the increasing online flaming going on between Overstock.com CEO Patrick Byrne and business journalist Gary Weiss in the weekly “What’s Online” column.

Mitchell wrote, “Entries on message boards devoted to discussing Overstock.com asserted that Mr. Byrne was behind an anonymously written Web site, AntiSocialMedia.net, that focused on bashing critics of Overstock and of Mr. Byrne’s crusade against so-called naked short selling (a complicated form of trading borrowed shares that is explained at Wikipedia.com). Mr. Byrne denied knowing who ran the site, though he publicly supported it (investorvillage.com).

“The site has had little to say about naked shorting or Overstock. Rather, it is devoted to combing through message boards and other Web sites to present ‘proof’ that Mr. Weiss misrepresented himself on Amazon, Wikipedia and other sites to promote his own books and settle personal scores.

“Beyond calling the accusations ‘lies,’ Mr. Weiss hasn’t addressed most of the details of the site’s ‘findings,’ though he denied having edited Wikipedia entries under a pseudonym. Instead, he pointed out that Mr. Byrne has himself posted under pseudonyms on various message boards.

“Mr. Weiss became especially exercised after The New York Post reported last week that the anonymous operator of AntiSocialMedia was Judd Bagley, Overstock’s director for social media. Calling Mr. Bagley ‘hideous’ and a ‘nauseating spectacle,’ Mr. Weiss lit into Mr. Byrne and his online lieutenant in post after post (presumably during breaks from writing his column for Forbes.com and his next book).”

Read more here. Weiss has posted about the articke as well.