Ryan Cohen is the executive chairman of GameStop and is also obviously somewhat of a celebrity among GME (and also BBBYQ) investors.
In the before times, it went without saying that anything at all that RC said or did or something that he was mentioned in, was relevant to the interests of GME investors on Superstonk and in other communities, and therefore had merit to be posted in the subreddit.
Reasonably you would think, therefore, that any tweet, or any “like” on Twitter / X that RC does is something that is relevant to GME investors on superstonk and merits being posted there and merits being discussed by those that want to discuss it.
Superstonk mods clearly don’t see things this way. They have a long list of rules to choose from that allow them to remove a variety of content that they don’t like for some reason.
A ton of content is posted on superstonk every day that is not explicitly related to GameStop. But their rule 2 says that “Posts & Comments: Must be relevant to GME”, and this rule is used in any instance where something is not relevant to GME and the mods want to get rid of it. If there is something that is not related to GME, e.g. Evergrande, or many other subjects, the content typically does not get removed.
But if the content in any way shape or form related to BBBY, suddenly it is naughty and gets removed.
RC recently liked a generic tweet that Pulte made. RC, the executive chairman of GameStop “liked” something on Twitter. This is relevant to the interests of GME investors on superstonk and elsewhere.
But the post was removed by the mods for breaking rule 2: not related to GME. The online activity of the executive chairman of GameStop is not relevant to GME.
Another post was made, this time it wasn’t removed, but it was locked.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Superstonk/comments/16q9imu/rcs_latest_like/
The post was locked because, apparently, “some of the commenters decided to break Rules 1, 3, 5 and 8.”
“This post has been identified as being brigaded from outside of this subreddit and actions have been taken where needed.”
“This post is locked to prevent further “shilling” of other stocks, potential brigading of other subs due to attempts to redirect Superstonk traffic and rude/insulting behaviour.”
“For those of you that engaged in good faith and are just enjoying the weekend vibe I apologise for this interruption and hope you’re having a great time! 💜”
Damn, that’s a lot of rule breaking. Good thing the mods were there to put a stop to all that rule breaking and all of that bad faith discussion and shilling of other stocks.
The truth is that the mods have clearly demonstrated through their actions that they don’t want anyone talking about anything at all related to BBBY, even if it is Ryan Cohen himself.
There was the time they temporarily censored discussions about WSJ reporting that RC was under investigation by the SEC, for the time that he sold his shares of BBBY. They later backtracked about this one claiming that it was an honest mistake.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Superstonk/comments/16crwx2/wsj_news_exclusive_sec_probes_ryan_cohens_bed/
There was the time that, in a discussion about RC buying shares of Nordstrom, that a mod on superstonk pinned a post to the top of the discussion stating: “RC’s buys are not your buys. Only one stock is the play.” “Keep in mind that RC got out of towel leaving a lot of tin-foil theories and why he did and causing plenty of dual investing apes holding the bags of a company that is heading towards bankruptcy at full speed.”
There was also that time on September 17 when somebody in superstonk posted a thread called “Consider this. a business structure called Keiretsu”
Post was removed by mods, stating: “Please take your thinly veiled bbbyq chatter elsewhere”, removed for rule 2, not related to GME.
What has been demonstrated by the mods of that subreddit is a pattern of persistent censorship of any discussions at all that so much as hints at anything at all about Bed Bath and Beyond, spanning over nearly a year, even if the source of the discussion comes from the executive chairman of GameStop himself.
Many things get posted to superstonk all the time that are not even remotely related to GME, that don’t end up getting removed. But if something that GME investors want to discuss gets posted there that happens to be even loosely relate to Bed Bath and Beyond, it gets removed, even if it relates back to GameStop or Ryan Cohen.
If, in the not so distant future, Bed Bath and Beyond emerges successfully from their bankruptcy as many speculate will happen, and transforms into Teddy or anything like that, and if Ryan Cohen is one of the primary individuals behind all of this, then this pattern of censorship will be evidence that superstonk mods have been proactively trying to prevent GME investors in “their” subreddit from giving any attention at all to this particular narrative, and to the benefit of who?
Put another way, if BBBYQ, a stock in the basket of naked shorted stocks, was a vulnerable spot for the short hedge funds, and if Ryan Cohen was planning some action on that company that would cause the stock price to go up, what kind of actions on social media would be beneficial for the short hedge funds that wouldn’t want investors purchasing BBBYQ?
If Reddit was strangling the subreddit and implementing all these rules - and the mods there were truly interested in having an open community with transparent moderation - then they’d set a Lemmy instance up. Bit rhetorical, but why wouldn’t they?
I try not to spend too much time with hypotheticals. It could be as simple as modding a subreddit already takes a lot of their time and they don’t want to mod another. Or maybe they fell victim to ‘lemmy is communist’ misinfo. Or maybe they just think lemmy is shit and doesn’t have a future (fwiw I think this place is great).
spend a little time directly addressing the fact that they banned the use of the word ‘lemmy’?