7 ms·

So FYI, the Reddit WSB "shutdown" was temporary and on purpose (by the mod admins) to clean up the page a bit. It was private for an hour or two and back up. D

by mox1 6y ago

So FYI, the Reddit WSB "shutdown" was temporary and on purpose (by the mod admins) to clean up the page a bit. It was private for an hour or two and back up. Discord, not so. Looking at the financial backers of Discord, you can pretty quickly draw a link to the short sellers. Presumably some phone calls or dinners were had last night and strings were pulled to shut the discord down.

wongarsu 6y ago
What you are describing would be Discord engaging in (potentially illegal) market manipulation.
- batmenace 6y ago
  How?
- ev1 6y ago
  This will be somewhat difficult to prove because the WSB discord (for the hour I was in it) was more or less a walking terms of service violation, near totally consisted of "ironic" racial slurs and "ironic" racist memes, n/f-word everywhere.
  - ordinaryradical 6y ago
    It was clearly taken over by folks intending to have it shut down because it did not look like that prior to this GME bet gaining media attention. There is a lot of extremely questionable things happening around this event leading me to think that some very wealthy people are trying to prevent their shorts getting blown up at all costs. Even on HN I’ve been seeing weird posts on these threads.
    - ryneandal 6y ago
      Eh, that blatant offensive nature is a 4chan holdover, which WSB proudly embraces. Plenty of millennials are former /b/ browsers, now in their 30s and some with plenty of disposable income. I've struggled with this in some friend groups, particularly after having a child diagnosed with an autism spectrum disorder.
      - whimsicalism 6y ago
        > I've struggled with this in some friend groups, particularly after having a child diagnosed with an autism spectrum disorder. Can you elaborate this some more? Are you saying that you've struggled with this because people take that 4chan attitude they grew up with into their IRL lives and are assholes to your son with ASD?
        optimiz3 6y ago
        What needs to be elaborated? Question feels voyeuristic.
        mlyle 6y ago
        Figuring out just how they're assholes in real life helps understand and contextualize the problem better. Are they oblivious, or dropping offensive memes at his kid, etc?
        brewdad 6y ago
        Does it really matter? If you reach your mid-30s and haven't figured out that mocking someone with ASD is wrong, I'm not going to waste my time educating you. I'll simply cut you out of my life, gradually or all at once. The royal "you", not you specifically.
        ryneandal 6y ago
        This is precisely it. A willful ignorance when referring to awkward people as "autists" along with tasteless WSB quotes.
        whimsicalism 6y ago
        ?? I asked the question more because I was just curious if there are legitimately like mid-30 year old groups of friends that haven't grown out of this "4chan attitude" of using the n-word, calling people "autists", etc. I didn't ask out of a sense of voyeurism. More like a, "dang, is this something I need to watch out for when I get older?"
    - nend 6y ago
      >It was clearly taken over by folks intending to have it shut down because it did not look like that prior to this GME bet gaining media attention. That's one theory. Another would be that the gaining media attention caused an influx of users to join a group that equates itself to 4chan, causing moderation issues.
      - ev1 6y ago
        This one is probably closer to my guess, it would be difficult to moderate half a million new users in a day with an existing mod base, and you can't really just hand out permissions to random memers saying "I'll help moderate" without risking that some nonzero amount of them will just cause havoc anyway.
        ansible 6y ago
        Yes. The only thing I'd suggest is to call for volunteers from "sane" subreddits that seem to have a good moderation policy and reasonable moderators. The problem there is that the above people are already likely quite busy, and don't want to take on an additional (unpaid) burden by trying to clean up a sub they don't really care about.
      - dijit 6y ago
        WSB is about the memes, I don't think it's at all similar to 4chan (especially not /b/) and I think it is dangerous for you to assassinate the character of the community in such a dismissive way. I'm not personally associated (not a member on the boards) but I've seen a lot of discussions float my way over the years and if it became that way now it's unlikely to be from 4chan itself (or a community like it). But your insinuation here gives credence to many that the internet is eating itself, when it's much more likely to be manipulation from those who stand to lose.
        BobbyJo 6y ago
        Their tagline is (or was at least) 'if 4chan found a bloomberg terminal'. I say this as someone who frequented both communities at one time or another: they are very very very alike. I wouldn't be surprised if this who thing is a charade to take money from 'normies' as much a wall street.
  - interestica 6y ago
    I legitimately don't know which f-word you're referring to. This is where we are.
    - KaoruAoiShiho 6y ago
      The bundle of sticks
      - deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
    - prepend 6y ago
      Fnord
    - LaserPineapple 6y ago
      f-string
  - loceng 6y ago
    However Discord would have known about this "bad" behaviour for a long time and it wasn't a coincidence that they finally decided to apply a ban hammer, so it's a very weak cover story. Also, racial slurs? You're the first I've heard of racist slurs - I had only heard of people calling themselves/the group retards and autists - meant in an endearing, self-deprecating humour kind of way. I've seen no instances of racism on /r/wallstreetbets - I really doubt on their Discord they'd be allowing racism though.
    - read_if_gay_ 6y ago
      As usual, the ToS are applied selectively, serving merely as a justification for arbitrary behavior.
      - loceng 6y ago
        It's just so blatantly obvious. It reminds me that the final layer of competition is governance, and these "unicorns" funded by the VC-finance industrial complex are going to lose out in the end when eventually good actors come into play.
  - jedimastert 6y ago
    For the several years I've been following, I've never once seen the n word or anything close to racist memes. They do make a lot of autism jokes (mostly pointed at themselves) and plenty of f bombs, but neither of which is generally seen as ban-hammer-levels of problematic (whether or not it is is up to you)
  - rgrs 6y ago
    If that's the only criteria lot of social media sites would get hit
  - trianglem 6y ago
    Are you certain? I haven’t seen a single racial slur on r/wsb. I’m sure there are plenty of r/f-s but I have seen any n bombs.
somedude895 6y ago
> Looking at the financial backers of Discord, you can pretty quickly draw a link to the short sellers. Mind elaborating on this?
- devoutsalsa 6y ago
  The theory is that Discord’s investors are putting pressure on them to shutdown the wild & crazy investment decisions they don’t like. It’s hard to say what is actually happening.
- mox1 6y ago
  https://www.reddit.com/r/wallstreetbets/comments/l6n4ay/the_biggest_risk_we_face_and_why_its_nothing_to/ https://www.reddit.com/r/wallstreetbets/comments/l6n4ay/the_... Quote: Discord has had significant investment from private equity funds including FirstMark Capital, Greenoaks Capital Partners, Index Ventures, IVP, Greylock Partners, Benchmark, Accel, General Catalyst, Ridge Ventures, Spark Capital, and Tencent Holdings. At least one of these firms has invested with Point72 Ventures, which recently helped Melvin Capital.
  - boringg 6y ago
    The connection is pretty conspiratorial. By that logic every company in the valley could be heavily influenced to shutdown products for different people if it as any connection to a VC (which is pretty much every company). I think discord probably made some calculations on its own as opposed to pressure from Melvin/Point72. Though in this day and age it seems that the truth ends up being stranger than fiction.
    - thomasz 6y ago
      > By that logic every company in the valley could be heavily influenced to shutdown products for different people if it as any connection to a VC (which is pretty much every company). Well, yes...?
      - 6y ago

by mox1 6y ago

wongarsu 6y ago

What you are describing would be Discord engaging in (potentially illegal) market manipulation.

batmenace 6y ago
How?
ev1 6y ago
This will be somewhat difficult to prove because the WSB discord (for the hour I was in it) was more or less a walking terms of service violation, near totally consisted of "ironic" racial slurs and "ironic" racist memes, n/f-word everywhere.
- ordinaryradical 6y ago
  It was clearly taken over by folks intending to have it shut down because it did not look like that prior to this GME bet gaining media attention. There is a lot of extremely questionable things happening around this event leading me to think that some very wealthy people are trying to prevent their shorts getting blown up at all costs. Even on HN I’ve been seeing weird posts on these threads.
  - ryneandal 6y ago
    Eh, that blatant offensive nature is a 4chan holdover, which WSB proudly embraces. Plenty of millennials are former /b/ browsers, now in their 30s and some with plenty of disposable income. I've struggled with this in some friend groups, particularly after having a child diagnosed with an autism spectrum disorder.
    - whimsicalism 6y ago
      > I've struggled with this in some friend groups, particularly after having a child diagnosed with an autism spectrum disorder. Can you elaborate this some more? Are you saying that you've struggled with this because people take that 4chan attitude they grew up with into their IRL lives and are assholes to your son with ASD?
      - optimiz3 6y ago
        What needs to be elaborated? Question feels voyeuristic.
        mlyle 6y ago
        Figuring out just how they're assholes in real life helps understand and contextualize the problem better. Are they oblivious, or dropping offensive memes at his kid, etc?
        brewdad 6y ago
        Does it really matter? If you reach your mid-30s and haven't figured out that mocking someone with ASD is wrong, I'm not going to waste my time educating you. I'll simply cut you out of my life, gradually or all at once. The royal "you", not you specifically.
        ryneandal 6y ago
        This is precisely it. A willful ignorance when referring to awkward people as "autists" along with tasteless WSB quotes.
        whimsicalism 6y ago
        ?? I asked the question more because I was just curious if there are legitimately like mid-30 year old groups of friends that haven't grown out of this "4chan attitude" of using the n-word, calling people "autists", etc. I didn't ask out of a sense of voyeurism. More like a, "dang, is this something I need to watch out for when I get older?"
  - nend 6y ago
    >It was clearly taken over by folks intending to have it shut down because it did not look like that prior to this GME bet gaining media attention. That's one theory. Another would be that the gaining media attention caused an influx of users to join a group that equates itself to 4chan, causing moderation issues.
    - ev1 6y ago
      This one is probably closer to my guess, it would be difficult to moderate half a million new users in a day with an existing mod base, and you can't really just hand out permissions to random memers saying "I'll help moderate" without risking that some nonzero amount of them will just cause havoc anyway.
      - ansible 6y ago
        Yes. The only thing I'd suggest is to call for volunteers from "sane" subreddits that seem to have a good moderation policy and reasonable moderators. The problem there is that the above people are already likely quite busy, and don't want to take on an additional (unpaid) burden by trying to clean up a sub they don't really care about.
    - dijit 6y ago
      WSB is about the memes, I don't think it's at all similar to 4chan (especially not /b/) and I think it is dangerous for you to assassinate the character of the community in such a dismissive way. I'm not personally associated (not a member on the boards) but I've seen a lot of discussions float my way over the years and if it became that way now it's unlikely to be from 4chan itself (or a community like it). But your insinuation here gives credence to many that the internet is eating itself, when it's much more likely to be manipulation from those who stand to lose.
      - BobbyJo 6y ago
        Their tagline is (or was at least) 'if 4chan found a bloomberg terminal'. I say this as someone who frequented both communities at one time or another: they are very very very alike. I wouldn't be surprised if this who thing is a charade to take money from 'normies' as much a wall street.
- interestica 6y ago
  I legitimately don't know which f-word you're referring to. This is where we are.
  - KaoruAoiShiho 6y ago
    The bundle of sticks
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
  - prepend 6y ago
    Fnord
  - LaserPineapple 6y ago
    f-string
- loceng 6y ago
  However Discord would have known about this "bad" behaviour for a long time and it wasn't a coincidence that they finally decided to apply a ban hammer, so it's a very weak cover story. Also, racial slurs? You're the first I've heard of racist slurs - I had only heard of people calling themselves/the group retards and autists - meant in an endearing, self-deprecating humour kind of way. I've seen no instances of racism on /r/wallstreetbets - I really doubt on their Discord they'd be allowing racism though.
  - read_if_gay_ 6y ago
    As usual, the ToS are applied selectively, serving merely as a justification for arbitrary behavior.
    - loceng 6y ago
      It's just so blatantly obvious. It reminds me that the final layer of competition is governance, and these "unicorns" funded by the VC-finance industrial complex are going to lose out in the end when eventually good actors come into play.
- jedimastert 6y ago
  For the several years I've been following, I've never once seen the n word or anything close to racist memes. They do make a lot of autism jokes (mostly pointed at themselves) and plenty of f bombs, but neither of which is generally seen as ban-hammer-levels of problematic (whether or not it is is up to you)
- rgrs 6y ago
  If that's the only criteria lot of social media sites would get hit
- trianglem 6y ago
  Are you certain? I haven’t seen a single racial slur on r/wsb. I’m sure there are plenty of r/f-s but I have seen any n bombs.

somedude895 6y ago

> Looking at the financial backers of Discord, you can pretty quickly draw a link to the short sellers. Mind elaborating on this?

devoutsalsa 6y ago
The theory is that Discord’s investors are putting pressure on them to shutdown the wild & crazy investment decisions they don’t like. It’s hard to say what is actually happening.
mox1 6y ago
https://www.reddit.com/r/wallstreetbets/comments/l6n4ay/the_biggest_risk_we_face_and_why_its_nothing_to/ https://www.reddit.com/r/wallstreetbets/comments/l6n4ay/the_... Quote: Discord has had significant investment from private equity funds including FirstMark Capital, Greenoaks Capital Partners, Index Ventures, IVP, Greylock Partners, Benchmark, Accel, General Catalyst, Ridge Ventures, Spark Capital, and Tencent Holdings. At least one of these firms has invested with Point72 Ventures, which recently helped Melvin Capital.
- boringg 6y ago
  The connection is pretty conspiratorial. By that logic every company in the valley could be heavily influenced to shutdown products for different people if it as any connection to a VC (which is pretty much every company). I think discord probably made some calculations on its own as opposed to pressure from Melvin/Point72. Though in this day and age it seems that the truth ends up being stranger than fiction.
  - thomasz 6y ago
    > By that logic every company in the valley could be heavily influenced to shutdown products for different people if it as any connection to a VC (which is pretty much every company). Well, yes...?
    - 6y ago