The article actually mentions the other reasons for collapse of those banks. But the article makes it clear I think that naked shorts did cause the collapse as

The article actually mentions the other reasons for collapse of those banks. But the article makes it clear I think that naked shorts did cause the collapse as it happened, otherwise it would have happened much slower. Also naked shorts allowed many people to profit unfairly, by doing something that is illegal but it is not properly enforced. Regarding the VW story, were naked shorts even involved in that? I don't think VW trades in US exchanges and I am not sure whether naked shorts are a factor in Germany. NAked shorting should be differentiated from ordinary legal shorting. Legal shorting is not that problematic because there is a natural limit to it. Theoretically naked shorts can crash any company because they can flood the market with an enormous amount of shares.