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Facebook shuts popular stock trading group amid GameStop frenzy

reuters.com

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Re: Facebook shuts popular stock trading group amid GameStop frenzy

#201

Post by perl4ever »

jlawson wrote: post #162
nexthash wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The one time I believe you are referring to is when Cloudflare banned the Daily Stormer, which is a far-right, neo-Nazi, white supremacist, misogynist, and Holocaust denial message board website that promoted the genocide of Jews. It went far beyond the domain of free speech into advocating violence against people, not to speak of its horrific hatred and racism. Reason enough for anyone to ban it.

[flagged]

I think saying "We do not have the option of 'ban views that are actually bad'" is like saying "We do not have the option of saving lives" because everybody dies.

I also think it's inconsistent to declare morals are all relative while arguing for your free speech ideals. In a forum with moderation, voting, and frequent banning of people.

Re: Facebook shuts popular stock trading group amid GameStop frenzy

#204

Post by remoteLily »

userbinator wrote: post #78
andy_ppp wrote: post #3

It was fun when Trump was banned from Twitter, but now I’m mad about WSB!!

I implore everyone to go re-read all the HN articles about Trump and far-right deplatforming where numerous --highly downvoted-- comments quite correctly predicted what was coming. Trump was "only a test."

The two situations are apples and oranges. Trump violated many rules in his years on Twitter. Twitter let him go on for things that would have resulted in a banhammer for anyone else. Same goes for the alt-right. They were allowed to go on for a very long time. Despite the hate and harassment they generated. Are you arguing Trump should have received special treatment forever? That sites can't moderate as they see fit?

On the other hand, these WSB bans seem to be related to external pressure from some very wealthy people. Not really the same situation. And not something that's new to the Internet. Digg's blocking of the HD-DVD key comes to mind. Or sites that removed content under threat of a lawsuit.

Re: Facebook shuts popular stock trading group amid GameStop frenzy

#205

Post by perl4ever »

mike00632 wrote: post #170
Bakary wrote: post #58

I'm hoping this will create an impetus for social change. Occupy Wall Street failed but now that people's nihilism is increasingly justified and living standards drop, I doubt things will go on as before.

"Let's protest because we can't sink our money into GameStop stock after seeing a stock promoter online hype up the stock!" Do we forget that GameStop is a mall retailer that sells physical copies of video games? This is not the next Amazon or Saudi Aramco. Anyone who is convinced to put their money in GameStop was likely tricked by someone with a financial interest (and that was probably a rich person). This entire…

>likely tricked by someone with a financial interest (and that was probably a rich person)

Do we know Melvin got rid of their short position? They might be in a position to get an article published saying they did, while being able to say later it was fake news, and covering it as the stock plummeted today.

The article I saw I think had weaselly language about not being able to confirm the losses.

Re: Facebook shuts popular stock trading group amid GameStop frenzy

#206

Post by kibwen »

harry8 wrote: post #176
jldugger wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The "real question," imo is not about how FB, discord or reddit handle WSB's culture. It's why have they all decided to act right now, just as this gamestop maneuver is happening? Because when you're short a few billion on a position, and your counterparty is a toxic stream of garbage, its a profitable strategy to paying someone to report all the toxic b.s. and disrupt their organization. In 2021, we figured out ho…

>pay content moderator salaries! No. They pay the trolls to make content moderation a misery They don't want the content moderated, that's the excuse to shut down the thing that outsmarted them.

Of all the companies to level this accusation at... Facebook has more money than these funds. The biggest bank in the country, JPMorgan, is worth $400B (remember that total assets is not the same thing as net worth); Facebook is worth >$500B. Nobody outsmarted Facebook here. The scale that these funds are operating at is peanuts compared to Facebook's operations.

Re: Facebook shuts popular stock trading group amid GameStop frenzy

#207

Post by [deleted] »

scrollaway wrote: post #97
young_unixer wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For now. Wait till they get bigger and Vice or the NYT writes an article about how Discord is a "safe haven for hate speech and white supremacy".

That's still a long way away. Maybe negative two years. https://slate.com/technology/2018/10/discord-safe-space-whit...

[deleted]

Re: Facebook shuts popular stock trading group amid GameStop frenzy

#208

Post by ttt0 »

pbourke wrote: post #168
jonny383 wrote: post #131

Funny how all of the people spurting out "It's a private company they can do what they want" after banning Donald Trump have now changed their mind about big tech censorship. The precedent of accepted censorship was set and accepted. Deal with it.

I’m far more concerned with deleting an entire group than a single account.

That's what they've been doing for quite a while, but no one cared.

Re: Facebook shuts popular stock trading group amid GameStop frenzy

#209

Post by CivBase »

pfraze wrote: post #49
paxys wrote: post #2

> The notification, seen by Reuters, said without detail that the group violated policies on “adult sexual exploitation.” That's some bullshit right there. Spin the wheel, come up with a random charge, and ban the entire community with zero recourse and no way to appeal.

Okay so I completely agree but I want to add something to what’s going on Half the fun of WSB is that it is enormously offensive. The foundation of the community is that a forum talking about stock investing strategies is, at its heart, really dumb. It’s harder than most people can manage to evaluate all the “DD” flying around and any advice other than playing it safe (r/investing) is stupid to take from a rando on a…

> So the real question is, why aren’t these platforms helping WSB mods instead of banning the community.

This. At the end of the day, Facebook/Discord has the power to ban individual users. There is no good reason to nuke an entire community if the the mods running said community are being cooperative. This isn't about "hate speech" or "adult sexual exploitation" or whatever the excuse dice end up rolling next time. This is a knee-jerk reaction from a platform with a ton of power and no incentive to wield it responsibly.

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