It's a fable for our times: Small-time investors band together to take down greedy
But the revolt of online stock-traders suggests much more. The internet is shifting society’s balance of power in unanticipated ways. And the same tools that empower the little guy — allowing people to organize quickly and seemingly out of nowhere, troll powerful institutions and unleash chaos — can also give rise to extremist mobs waging harassment campaigns or the
In the world of pseudonymous internet message boards, pranks-gone-wild and logic turned upside down amid a global pandemic, revolts come in all shapes, sizes and aims. Last week they gave us the Great GameStop Stock Uprising. Who knows what this week will bring.
One thing for sure: we’ll be seeing more of it. More and more of us have learned to game the system, whether for a noble cause or, as they say, “for the lulz.” If a meme of
“The internet can democratize access, upsetting power dynamics between the people and traditional institutions,” tweeted
With
“But in other places the goal can be more nefarious. Online spaces are being used to radicalize people toward extremism, to plan hate crimes and attacks," she said. “The internet isn’t really the villain or the hero."
“I went from a
As with many crowd movements, it was hard to trace where it all started, though there were at least a few high-profile instigators. Among them was Roaring Kitty, a YouTube personality from a
The Reddit-based investors used the chat platform Discord to fire each other up and the trading app Robinhood to buy shares with a few clicks on their smartphones. They soon found a shared enemy in hedge fund managers who tried to short the stock, encouraging each other to keep buying
Wilkinson said the forums this week probably struck newcomers as “really, really childish and crazy,” full of rocketship emojis, calls to pump stocks written to the tune of sea shanties and a flood of newcomers trying to jump on the bandwagon, but he said that’s not been his usual experience there.
“Some of the people who are on that thread are probably on par with the stock pickers of these hedge funds,” he said. “It’s knowing how to know who to listen to and who to ignore. It’s really just a bunch of people sharing ideas. It’s the same thing as when
In 2017, the hashtag “MeToo" began going viral as women — and some men — shared their experiences of sexual assault on social media. Though the term was coined in 2006 by activist
But the mass movement that emerged from online communities designed to let amateur stock traders share tips came as a shock to
“What these communities are doing is a gray area,” said
“There’s an important distinction between an actor who is co-ordinating manipulation, and a retail investor who gets caught up in the movement,” he said. “We witnessed those two types of people in the
One thing distinguishing the
Tran said some forums have a problem with “front loaders" who purchase a large stock position, drum up enthusiasm for it and profit off “the hype that follows.”
The involvement of platforms like Robinhood also called to mind broader concerns about how many phone apps are designed in a way that reinforces people’s compulsivity. Buy shares on the app and you get a celebratory notification with digital confetti.
“They’re essentially activating the dopamine reward systems of our brains,” Aral said.
So if the internet isn't the villain or the hero, how do we mitigate the harms while keeping it open for positive forces?
“There are ways to do this but it is a difficult balance," Li said. “You don’t want to take down everything or censor everything so much that people can’t use it for good."
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