[fountainofage]

Why is publicly saying "hey, a few companies are selling shorts of gamestop and trying to drive it into the ground, I think that's bullshit. If you think it's bullshit, too, here's how you could do something about it." such a questionable thing to say and do?

Do you also want cancer charities to stop asking for donations? Should start up founders not be allowed to ask for investor money?

I could totally see the market manipulation argument if this was done in backrooms, with multiple accounts to hide the moves, several shell corporations holding the funds, etc. But these folks are publicly declaring their intent. And the first person to uncover the gamestop shorts has been saying it for over a year. Out in the open with frequent updates.

The short sellers have had a year to get out and leave the company alone, but they were so obsessed with watching a company die that people got pissed and wanted some blood.

The chain of events doesn't start with "we buy a lot and blah blah blah" - the chain of events starts with someone declaring over a year ago "fuck these guys for going all in on destroying a quality company for no reason other than the lulz."

[snet0]

I think the fact this discussion is so back-and-forth, with nobody being absolutely confident that this behaviour either is or is not market manipulation is interesting. To me, it points out that either a) nobody in these conversations knows anything or b) the laws themselves are inadequately described.

Surely a large group of people getting together and saying "GME is way too shorted, buy buy buy and don't sell until $5k" should either be absolutely definitely market manipulation, or absolutely definitely not?

[sircastor]

> the laws themselves are inadequately described.

This. I recall seeing a post recently that essentially said that any action could be construed as securities law violation.

[thatguy0900]

Is it that the laws are inadequately described, or just not really enforced? Most of the arguments for it not being market manipulation are just pointing to other obvious market manipulation that was never policed. If this was two hedge funds going after each other would anyone care?

[nrmitchi]

> Do you also want cancer charities to stop asking for donations?

I'm going to assume this wasn't your point, but come on. Don't compare the current actions WSB and others are taking right now to curing cancer.

> Should start up founders not be allowed to ask for investor money?

Startup founders are already not allowed to ask for investor money buy posting on reddit or buying social media ads.

> with multiple accounts to hide the moves, ... these folks are publicly declaring their intent

I don't think anyone has fully look in to what accounts have been pushing things, and at this scale it will be incredibly difficult to do.

> Out in the open with frequent updates.

Just to be clear, I have absolutely no issue with anything DFV (who I assume you're referring to) has done in this situation. But DFV is not the entirety of "retail" that could have crossed a line here.

> "fuck these guys for going all in on destroying a quality company for no reason other than the lulz."

Lol I'm not even going to respond to this.

[im3w1l]

I reread the post and I kind of changed my mind on this particular post - it's very careful to stay within the bounds. But there are many others that are over it.