Earlier quoted context omitted.
Wrong. The bull case was made for GME as far back as late 2019, and it gained momentum this year. Nothing different than Jim Cramer talking up a stock on CNBC every fucking night. Edit: I know this because I watched a youtube video from a popular redditor named deepfuckingvalue a few weeks ago and bought into the thesis fully as a value investment. He goes under the name RoaringKitty on youtube. I lost multiple years…
I am sorry to hear about your losses, but that does not disprove my explanation. I also am a member of WSB and read all the top posts. I think most of them make the argument to hold the position as a short squeeze is coming, and very few of them argue the stock is truly worth a ton of money. Very few people actually believe a company that sells video games the same way Blockbuster sold movies has a lot of potential.
You also quoted the SEC saying that manipulating a stock price to cause a short squeeze is illegal but also that short squeezes occur naturally. Expecting a short squeeze and intending to profit off of it is not illegal.
You make the point that some people on wallstreetbets made comments that crossed the line on manipulation. I'm sure that's true, but if you see a few problematic comments out of millions it's obviously absurd to say that a stock mustn't be bought because of them.
Ironically, you are criticizing what is clearly not manipulation (valuing GME highly and expecting to profit off of a coming short squeeze) in order to defend what clearly is manipulation (banning a million retail investors from taking one side of a trade at a critical moment).