Reuters: Bots hyped up GameStop on major social media platforms, analysis finds. “Bots on major social media platforms have been hyping up GameStop Corp and other ‘meme’ stocks, according to an analysis by Massachusetts-based cyber security company PiiQ Media, suggesting organized economic or foreign actors may have played a role in the Reddit-driven trading frenzy.”
Phys .org: Different social media platforms foster different levels of segregation in online communities. “A team of researchers from Ca’Foscari Univerity of Venice, the Institute for Scientific Interchange Foundation, the University of Brescia and the Sapienza University of Rome has found that different kinds of social media platforms foster different levels of segregation in online communities. In their paper published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the group describes their study of millions of online posts on several leading social media sites and what they found.”
CNET: GameStop stock hearing: How to watch Robinhood and Reddit CEOs testify before Congress. “On Thursday, Feb. 18, the House Committee on Financial Services is holding a virtual hearing, titled ‘Game Stopped? Who Wins and Loses When Short Sellers, Social Media, and Retail Investors Collide.’ The chief executives of Reddit, Robinhood, Citadel and Melvin Capital will be in attendance, along with the Reddit poster who spearheaded the GameStop buying frenzy. Here’s how to watch the hearing and some background on what led to Congress getting involved.”
New York Times: Reddit Is America’s Unofficial Unemployment Hotline. “As unemployment claims shot up early in the pandemic, so did posts on r/Unemployment, one of the many topic-based forums on the site known as subreddits. The subreddit once typically had fewer than 10 posts a day, but it quickly ballooned to nearly 1,000 posts a day in April and May. As the crisis wore on, posts and comments spiked in the weeks following changes to benefit programs. In January, nearly 10 months after the first lockdowns, the forum had one of its busiest weeks ever, driven by delays in payments and uncertainty around legislation signed late last year.”
Bloomberg: A Battle for Control of WallStreetBets May Have Broken Out. “A fight appears to be brewing on Reddit’s WallStreetBets forum, and it’s not over which stock is the next GameStop Corp. Just weeks after the site was used to galvanize an epic short squeeze in shares of the video-game retailer, forcing the real Wall Street to reckon with the power of a united front of traders, signs of dissent are cropping up around the 8.5 million-member stock message board.”
The Verge: Senate to hold hearing on the stock market after Reddit GameStop squeeze. “Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH), the incoming chair of the Senate Banking Committee, announced Thursday that he plans to hold a hearing on the ‘current state of the stock market’ in the wake of unprecedented volatility around GameStop, AMC, and other stocks.”
CNET: AMC, GameStop stock are on a Reddit-fueled roller coaster. Why, and what happens next. “Over the past few months, a bunch of Reddit users have worked to push up the value of shares for video game retailer GameStop, despite Wall Street investors betting the company will fail. In the process, they sent the stock up more than 14,300% (you read that right), with some wild fluctuations. Then they started spreading their strategy to struggling movie chain AMC, too. In their wake, these online market players have upended Wall Street, creating a drama filled with memes, app trading disasters and weird internet lingo as big-time investors have lost billions of dollars.”
CNET: Facebook, Reddit receive low marks for Holocaust denial content. “Facebook, Reddit, Discord and Steam received low grades from the Anti-Defamation League on Wednesday for the handling of Holocaust denial content on their platforms. The ADL issued the report to coincide with International Holocaust Remembrance Day.”
Axios: Reddit bans subreddit group “r/DonaldTrump”. “Reddit has banned the subreddit group ‘r/DonaldTrump,’ a spokesperson confirmed to Axios. Why it matters: While not an official group or page hosted by the president, it’s one of the company’s largest political communities dedicated to support for President Trump.”
CNN: Reddit is buying TikTok rival Dubsmash. “Message board juggernaut Reddit is accelerating its push into video, snapping up a sharing platform that is popular with young people and women. Reddit said in a statement on Sunday that it has acquired TikTok rival Dubsmash. It did not disclose the financial terms of the deal.”
FTC: FTC Issues Orders to Nine Social Media and Video Streaming Services Seeking Data About How They Collect, Use, and Present Information. “The Federal Trade Commission is issuing orders to nine social media and video streaming companies, requiring them to provide data on how they collect, use, and present personal information, their advertising and user engagement practices, and how their practices affect children and teens.”
Reddit: Italian newspaper’s online archive is going to get lost because Flash won’t be supported anymore. “Italian newspaper’s online archive is going to get lost because Flash won’t be supported anymore – edit: might get lost, they are actually working on it but my hopes aren’t too high.” I am linking to Reddit instead of the original article because a) the original is in Italian; b) I liked the Reddit discussion.
CNET: Mysterious monolith puzzle has been solved by internet sleuths. “A few days ago the internet went wild at the discovery of a metallic monolith mysteriously standing in the middle of the Utah desert. Discovered by the Utah’s Department of Public Safety, the rumor mill quickly began churning. Was it aliens? Has 2001: A Space Odyssey been brought to life? Thanks to some particularly devoted Reddit users, we now know that the likelihood of it being anything extraterrestrial is slim (though if it was going to happen, I think we can all agree that 2020 would have been the year).”
Mashable: This clever bot turns Reddit arguments into video game scenes
Mashable: This clever bot turns Reddit arguments into video game scenes. “On Sunday, 24-year-old software engineer Micah Price from Cape Town, South Africa, unveiled what can only be described as a niche-but-genius creation: a bot that takes everyday arguments on Reddit and has them play out in the style of scenes from Ace Attorney, Capcom’s animated courtroom-based video game series. The end result is a gloriously dramatic affair that shines a whole new spotlight on Reddit’s comment section.”