Hopefully this serves as a wake up call to all those people who previously supported censorship. Up until now it has mostly been groups that are extremely difficult to defend because discussions around them always got mired in politics. Finally a relatively popular, apolitical community has been targeted.
Facebook shuts popular stock trading group amid GameStop frenzy
311–320 of 540 posts
Re: Facebook shuts popular stock trading group amid GameStop frenzy
#312> 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.
The issue is that in any group of sufficient size, someone at some point will use a slur or phrase that someone who is really reaching can turn into a claim like this. The excuse in WSB’s case with Discord was “hate speech”. This then overflowed into the Financial Times falsely labeling WSB as an “alt-right” group [1].
Unfortunately in today’s hyper-PC environment, this is such an easy way to instantly deplatform your enemies that it will continue to be abused. Any large group can be shutdown at any time should the powers that be decide they don’t like it - they just have to find a single post that the PC police would find objectionable. It’s one of the dangers of allowing such thin claims to have such instant, fatal effects with with no ability to fight or appeal.
[1] https://twitter.com/wsbmod/status/1354720831218339845?s=21
Re: Facebook shuts popular stock trading group amid GameStop frenzy
#313Earlier quoted context omitted.
> whether he was too naive to properly appreciate how corrupt the system is Oh, there's no question that he was naive, but you're betraying your own naivete here. Who do you think rigged the system in the first place, if not Donald Trump and his ilk? Was he merely naive when he signed off an a trillion-dollar tax break for the wealthy and an ongoing tax increase for everyone but the wealthy? What else could anyone ha…
I'm not sure what you're referring to - the tax break that was passed objectively saved regular folks money. • The double-digit percentage decreases in average tax liability started with a 12.5% drop for people making $15,000 to $20,000 a year. Double-digit percentage reductions in liability continued for people making $25,000 to $30,000 (down 11.2%) through $100,000 to $200,000 (down 10.96%). • Taxpayers making betw…
Meanwhile:
"The law they passed initially lowered taxes for most Americans, but it built in automatic, stepped tax increases every two years that begin in 2021 and that by 2027 would affect nearly everyone but people at the top of the economic hierarchy. All taxpayer income groups with incomes of $75,000 and under — that’s about 65 percent of taxpayers — will face a higher tax rate in 2027 than in 2019."
"The current poverty line for a family of four is $26,200: People with incomes between $10,000 and $30,000 — nearly one-quarter of Americans — are among those scheduled to pay a higher average tax rate in 2021 than in years before the tax “cut” was passed."
"By 2027, when the law’s provisions are set to be fully enacted, with the stealth tax increases complete, the country will be neatly divided into two groups: Those making over $100,000 will on average get a tax cut. Those earning under $100,000 — an income bracket encompassing three-quarters of taxpayers — will not."
"At the same time, Trump has given his peers, people with annual incomes in excess of $1 million dollars, or the top 0.3 percent in the country, a huge gift: The Joint Committee on Taxation estimated the average tax rate in 2019 for this group to be 2.3 percentage points lower than before the tax cut, saving the average taxpayer in this group over $64,000 — more than the average American family makes in a year."
Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/31/opinion/republicans-biden...
Re: Facebook shuts popular stock trading group amid GameStop frenzy
#314There used to be a guy on Twitter/Facebook/other social media who kept harping about how the system was rigged....
[deleted]
Re: Facebook shuts popular stock trading group amid GameStop frenzy
#315"adult sexual exploitation" usually refers to revenge porn, but it can also refer to threats of rape. Here's my guess as to what happened.
Somebody posted a joke that was, taken literally, a threat or incitement of rape. "I hope you get fucked and don't enjoy it". An admin of the group "liked" or commented on the post.
Later, a human labeler determined that the post was "adult sexual exploitation". It was removed. Because the admin had "liked" or commented on it, the group was automatically banned. That's FB's public policy on "adult sexual exploitation".
Just a guess, but that is the most likely explanation to me.
Re: Facebook shuts popular stock trading group amid GameStop frenzy
#316wtf FB, let this one fire burn itself out.
Re: Facebook shuts popular stock trading group amid GameStop frenzy
#317Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
Agreed on WSB culture but.... 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? That is the fishy part... and it's too fishy to leave it unaddressed and talk content. Either way, this just shows why we can't have a handful of companies moderating most of the internet under a TOS regime.
> It's why have they all decided to act right now, just as this gamestop maneuver is happening?
Because they all have fairly loose monitoring and mostly complaint-based policy enforcement, and people being pissed off at you for any reason makes it more likely that complaints get reported.
Re: Facebook shuts popular stock trading group amid GameStop frenzy
#318Time to look at decentralizing everything. The nodes have too much power.
Re: Facebook shuts popular stock trading group amid GameStop frenzy
#319> Facebook suspended his group on Jan. 7
So much for "amid".
Re: Facebook shuts popular stock trading group amid GameStop frenzy
#320Earlier quoted context omitted.
Largely because the "gamestop maneuver" has inflammed an already excitable community and things are likely bubbling over right now in a way that they wouldn't be if people hadn't just bet thousands of dollars on a tulip scam. And let's not euphemize this, it's not a "maneuver", it's market manipulation. Coordinating a collective buy to effect a short squeeze is clear market manipulation. Enticing a horde of gullible…
No it's not market manipulation. Its counter party risk gone awry and the entirety of the internet finding out about it at the same time. In my view, hedge funds have implicitly colluded for years on short positions because it's in their best interests not to screw each other over the long haul. Imagine going against Citadel as a fund. Your career is over. The fact the short interest rose to 140% is proof of that. Th…
> no one would dare given the powers that be who were backing it
But now that it has been done once, more people will be interested in these opportunities in the future. Quoting from Iron Man 2: If you could make God bleed, people would cease to believe in him. There will be blood in the water, the sharks will come.