Discord Bans WallStreetBets For ‘Hateful’ Content

Discord Bans WallStreetBets For ‘Hateful’ Content

WallStreetBets, the subreddit behind engineering GameStop’s record-shattering stock price surge over the past week, has been banned from Discord for hate speech, The Verge reports.

GameStop’s stock doubled today, rising from the previous day’s record of over $US150 ($195) to a new peak of over $US300 ($390) a share, all because day traders on the WallStreetBets subreddit decided to try to stick it to the investment world’s big hedge funds. It’s become a big internet joke, but one with real world consequences, including Discord banning the subreddit’s server.

Update 11:10am AEST: The r/wallstreetbets subreddit has also been set to private, with a notice saying they were “experiencing technical difficulties based on unprecedented scale”. “We are unable to ensure Reddit’s content policy and the WSB rules are enforceable without a technology platform that can support automation of this enforcement,” the note says.

[referenced id=”1202864″ url=”https://www.kotaku.com.au/2021/01/gamestop-stock-drama-continues-as-price-soars-and-hedge-fund-blinks/” thumb=”https://www.gizmodo.com.au/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2021/01/28/mrc5tpwkg5kciqrdlyob-300×168.jpg” title=”GameStop Stock Drama Continues As Price Soars And Hedge Fund Blinks” excerpt=”GameStop’s stock price continued to soar in after-hours trading last night to over $US300 ($390) ($US390 ($507)). While many are waiting for it to come crashing back down, it might be too late for some major hedge funds. With the stock still sitting at well over $US250 ($325) ($US325 ($423)) a share (unthinkable just…”]

“The server has been on our Trust & Safety team’s radar for some time due to occasional content that violates our Community Guidelines, including hate speech, glorifying violence, and spreading misinformation,” Discord told The Verge in a statement. “Over the past few months, we have issued multiple warnings to the server admin.”

The chat platform went on:

Today, we decided to remove the server and its owner from Discord for continuing to allow hateful and discriminatory content after repeated warnings.

To be clear, we did not ban this server due to financial fraud related to GameStop or other stocks. Discord welcomes a broad variety of personal finance discussions, from investment clubs and day traders to college students and professional financial advisors. We are monitoring this situation and in the event there are allegations of illegal activities, we will cooperate with authorities as appropriate.

In addition to upending the market for certain stocks, like AMC and Blackberry, WallStreetBets is, not surprisingly, also a bastion of internet edgelords. “Like 4chan found a Bloomberg Terminal,” reads the Reddit community’s description. Commenters there regularly use offensive terms to refer to each other, and also invoke homophobic slurs and other hate speech.

It’s unclear how much of this speech was also present on the subreddit’s Discord server, or for how long until the platform finally decided to act. The company did not immediately respond to a request for comment.


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