A cybersecurity company found that bots were promoting GameStop shares on social media before and after the frantic increase in shares last month, Reuters reported. Massachusetts’ PiiQ Media says social media bots promoted Dogecoin, GameStop and other “meme” actions in posts on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube. The company estimated that tens of thousands of bots participated, but it is still unclear how much influence they did or did not have on the rise and fall of GME and other actions.
GME’s stock skyrocketed in January, when Reddit users of r / wallstreetbets climbed around the stocks in an attempt to squeeze out the hedge funds they had bet against the video game company. PiiQ said Reuters he detected “patterns of artificial behavior” in GameStop-related posts just before the chaos of January 28 through February 18.
PiiQ did not analyze Reddit’s traffic, and Reddit CEO Steve Huffman said at a hearing before House Financial Services in February that the platform had not detected any significant activity driven by foreign bot or actors on the subreddit as part of the advertising campaign. from GME.
The Securities and Exchange Commission is investigating the GameStop saga, and the Senate Banking Committee plans to hold a hearing on “the current state of the stock market”.