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Facebook shuts popular stock trading group amid GameStop frenzy

reuters.com

271–280 of 540 posts

Re: Facebook shuts popular stock trading group amid GameStop frenzy

#271
post #49
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…

This is not how WallStreetBets started. I joined the community in 2017 and I can tell you, there was high-level due diligence going on that made me wonder if some of the people posting might also be working at large investment banks, but couldn't get these certain trades they were advocating past their compliance guys (at some point, "too risky" starts to overlap in the Venn diagram with "too dumb").

Like every thing in the world that gains massive popularity, it attracts the normies who want in on the action, but aren't willing to do the, quite literally months or years (depending on how deeply you throw yourself into it) of learning required to even understand most of the DD posts there.

Yes, there was the occasional ridiculous trolling, like convincing posters on /r/investing that /r/wallstreetbets had a Lean Hogs Insider Trading Ring (which still makes me laugh out loud to this day), but it was far more rare.

Yes, the meme posts have risen dramatically, but there's still occasional good due diligence there, its just now you have to sift through a mountain of shit instead of small hill of it.

Re: Facebook shuts popular stock trading group amid GameStop frenzy

#272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 might be fishy but there is also a lot new interest in WSB and everything related. So much interest that /r/WSB voluntarily shut themselves down for a while because they couldn't handle the moderation situation. So why it's happening now can more multifaceted than the more conspiratorial reasons. Even increased media attention is enough for someone to act -- The Hackernews community uses that all the time to get a…

Serious question: Since Facebook is a private company, does the "if you don't like it, you can build your own platform" argument apply here? Or does that only apply selectively when it benefits partisan politics?

The RobinHood $GME situation is the natural next step in societal evolution once extreme censorship is given a pass. If you support the "go build it yourself" argument, you no longer have the right to complain about anything that's theoretically reproducible.

Re: Facebook shuts popular stock trading group amid GameStop frenzy

#273
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.

The slippery slope is in full effect. Platforms engaged in mass, coordinated de-platformings and people lapped it up because orange man bad. Now the orange man is gone, but the mass coordinated de-platformings still remain and are now being wielded for YOLO reasons.

I have been on wsb subreddit and discord server for a long time. There has been zero change in the culture or the type of content or the tone of the conversations in all that while, right uptill the discord server was banned. Either these platforms knew there was bad content but did nothing, or they know there is no bad content but are using it as a flimsy excuse to help out their fellow Harvard MBA's.

Ironically the orange man would be the one laughing at all of this today.

Re: Facebook shuts popular stock trading group amid GameStop frenzy

#274
post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, real funny that guy, if only someone would put him in a position of ultimate power I'm sure he'd un-rig the system real quick, and definitely not spend four years with his thumb up his ass laughing with his rich buddies at the gullible rubes who appointed him.

I've heard this criticism a lot, including the opposite accusation that he was a dictator/fascist/autocrat. We'll never know whether the situation was as you described, a big con to absorb the real middle-class frustrations of large segments of the population, or whether he was too naive to properly appreciate how corrupt the system is, and how the odds were stacked against him implementing any change. *Edit, in any…

> 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 have expected from hiring the fox to guard the henhouse?

Re: Facebook shuts popular stock trading group amid GameStop frenzy

#276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"It's a private company, they can do what they want!"

Just build your own website bro Just build your own host bro Just build your own financial banking system bro just build your own social media platform bro just build your own payment processing platform bro just build your own internet infrastructure bro

After sending the bro to their own things, they can finally put up a board that says "dogs and x not allowed"

New achievement unlocked 'segregation'.

Re: Facebook shuts popular stock trading group amid GameStop frenzy

#277
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.

When everyone is a criminal, anyone can be arrested. The reddit mods have basically made this charge, in their own special WSB way. It's impossible for moderators to fully control large groups, subs and such. Some bannable comments will always be present, and they are limited by whatever moderation tools they get from reddit. Meanwhile, the idea that discord, reddit (throttled not banned) and FB all simultaneously an…

This goes beyond online communities: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6611240-three-felonies-a...

Short summary: you dear reader are a federal felon, the only reason why you're not in prison is that no one has bothered to lock you up yet. The laws on the books and the way we live our lives have diverged so much that you commit at least three felonies by the time you have had lunch.

Re: Facebook shuts popular stock trading group amid GameStop frenzy

#278
post #206
post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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.

There's an intricate array of counter party liabilities. Who knows how far it cascades.

Re: Facebook shuts popular stock trading group amid GameStop frenzy

#279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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…

They've been very public and transparent for all to see about their strategy. It's a very common play when naked shorts are this exposed. The WSB side of this is a distraction. Michael Burry of Big Short fame has been talking this trade and pouring hundreds of millions into this gamma squeeze since the summer.

Re: Facebook shuts popular stock trading group amid GameStop frenzy

#280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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…

This is not related to Gamestop as a company. This is about a instrument (GME) which was over leveraged short position, and is way out of balance. Doesn't matter what Melvin says, the short % is there for everybody to see and some one is still very short. Retail investors want to use the said instrument to legally make lot of money.

Why is it "over leveraged"? What makes you think the stock is "out of balance"? The hype men will have you believe that there is some magic percentage or tipping point that makes it a good buy but it's pure bunk. If GME has any relationship to the company GameStop (which it does) the stock should be in the toilet and is very likely to go out of business soon, which makes a massive short position very reasonable.
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