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Thanks to pressure and slander from mainstream media elites, a chatroom that was used to orchestrate the skyrocketing of the gaming company GameStop’s stock from around $40 to nearly $350 in a matter of days has been banned.
As previously reported, a large group of independent investors worked together this week to spike GameStop’s stock in a bid to teach hedge fund managers a lesson.
The managers had been using their vast quantities of wealth/power to keep GameStop’s stock from rising. Communicating through the r/WallStreetBets chatroom, the investors worked together to overpower the managers and cause the stock’s value to rise. In doing so, they cost the managers billions of dollars.
This stunning, unprecedented move triggered rage from establishment elites, and so they responded via their media proxies by linking what had happened to not only former President Donald Trump but even so-called “Nazis” as well.
Here’s CNN’s Chris Cillizza tying the event to so-called “Trumpism”:
How Trumpism explains the GameStop stock surgehttps://t.co/DFSgxe265j
— Chris Cillizza (@ChrisCillizza) January 27, 2021
Here’s Mother Jones’ Ali Breland tying the event to so-called “Nazis”:
i can report from the telegram channels that the nazis appear to be trading gamestop and amc as well
— Ali Breland (@alibreland) January 27, 2021
This bellyaching was apparently enough to convince Discord, the platform that had hosted the chatroom, to nix the room on the grounds that it contained “hate speech.”
“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. Over the past few months, we have issued multiple warnings to the server admin,” the platform claimed in a statement.
“Today, we decided to remove the server and its owner from Discord for continuing to allow hateful and discriminatory content after repeated warnings.”
Their Discord server is already disconnected—not for trading mind you, but for “hate speech” 🙄 pic.twitter.com/qzVLjIe48Z
— Claire Lehmann (@clairlemon) January 27, 2021
Discord also claimed that its abrupt decision wasn’t due to the situation with GameStop, though it failed to provide any examples of r/WallStreetBets’s “hate speech” or explain why it’d waited until Wednesday to take any action.
Its sudden decision provoked an outcry of backlash from everyone ranging from classical liberals like Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Glenn Greenwald to hardcore leftists like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, die-hard conservatives like Jack Posobiec and idiosyncratic billionaires like Elon Musk.
Look:
Even Discord has gone corpo …
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 28, 2021
Even @AOC expressed some sympathy with r/wallstreetbets, laying a charge of hypocrisy at Wall Street
Discord’s move was terrible, providing the unintended consequence of a rare & emergent left /right millennial unity against establishment finance, who underestimated the internet https://t.co/fN8y2ScO5p
— Maajid أبو عمّار (@MaajidNawaz) January 28, 2021
What an absolutely extraordinary coincidence of timing that Discord happened to decide the r/Wall Streetbets sub-reddit had too much “hate speech” to tolerate on the same day hedge fund billionaires declared them a huge threat for the crime of winning at their expense! https://t.co/qoNXa5zVOZ
— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) January 28, 2021
Nobody really believes Discord shut down WallStreetBets cause of hate speech or misinformation. That could’ve been done well before the panic over Gamestop. No, Discord is engaging in censorship to protect hedge fund firms from losing billions over risky short bets. https://t.co/65RQrg9t36
— Kevin Gosztola (@kgosztola) January 27, 2021
“Shut down those kids” pic.twitter.com/POFNqroYYL
— Jack Posobiec 🇺🇸 (@JackPosobiec) January 28, 2021
There’s a lot more where that came from, and all of it shows the same pattern of both right-wingers and leftists finally agreeing on an issue.
Despite the setback, r/WallStreetBets is still alive. The group of investors also boasts what’s called a subreddit (which is kind of like a mix between a chatroom and a forum) on the platform Reddit, and as of Thursday morning, it still remained active.
Through this subreddit, the group released a statement late Wednesday slamming Discord.
“Discord did us dirty and I am not impressed with them destroying our community,” the group’s leader said.
we back. wsb mods have released a statement, setup a twitter @wsbmod, and taken a shot at Discord
“Discord did us dirty and I am not impressed with them destroying our community instead of stepping in with the wrench we may have needed to fix things”https://t.co/p3lY5euEFO pic.twitter.com/8zlaCjxjTU
— Rod Breslau (@Slasher) January 28, 2021
What remained unconfirmed is the true motivation for Discord’s actions. Greenwald believes it’s a consequence of the same pro-censorship drive from establishment elites that’s been used to silence conservative voices, including that of former President Donald Trump.
Because of the perceived link, he seems less than sympathetic toward the left-wingers who’re upset by Discord’s banning of the r/WallStreetBets chatroom.
Look:
Those who have spent years begging and pleading with Silicon Valley to aggressively police speech and content have single-handledly gutted one of the key initial values of the internet: empowering people to compete with corporate & political power centers. This is what you built: https://t.co/puQx3rO7G2
— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) January 27, 2021
How is it possible not to realize that when you empower huge corporations & the state to regulate speech and censor the internet, they’re going to use this power to advance their interests, not yours??
Even if your interests sometimes coincides with theirs, who would want this?
— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) January 28, 2021
He has a point, no?
Undergirding his point is the belief that, instead of feuding against one another, populist right-wingers and lefties should work together against the establishment.
Why? Because as conservative commentator Michael Cernovich points out in the tweets below, at the end of the day, the country’s future does really ultimately boil down to a battle between the elites and the “peasants”:
Watching every institution – from media calling them white supremacists to the SEC opening investigations – crack down on the peasant class for daring to take on the elite will do more to radicalize millions than any social media ban ever could. (Oh and they are doing that, too.)
— Cerno (@Cernovich) January 28, 2021
Elites are putting down the GameStop “peasants revolt.” This never ends well.
— Cerno (@Cernovich) January 27, 2021
Real issue with GameStop is realizing how much the elite are hated. They have no idea, and their media emissaries who defend them (and now try to smear all the Robinhood users as neo-Nazis) are even more hated.
If I were the elite, I’d be working on solving these issues!
— Cerno (@Cernovich) January 27, 2021
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