Reddit’s r / WallStreetBets has grown significantly due to the community’s role in raising stock prices for companies like GameStop, AMC and Nokia, and the whole saga has attracted so much attention that there are currently many movies and a TV show in progress. But that growing attention has also put pressure on the r / WallStreetBets community itself, forcing Reddit to intervene to help sort things out.
The problem started Wednesday night, according to The New York Times, while some moderators at r / WallStreetBets talked about trying to get a film contract. On Thursday morning, “the moderators of WallStreetBets who were considering the movie deal started kicking out other moderators who questioned them for trying to secretly profit from the forum’s success,” reports The New York Times. A highly-rated r / WallStreetBets post called the situation “a scam”, saying the moderators the community “knows and loves” were being expelled.
At some point, Reddit stepped in to prevent the acquisition, and the company confirmed The Verge which removed some mods from r / WallStreetBets. The company says it violated rule five of its moderator guidelines, which says:
Stable and active teams of moderators:
Healthy communities have moderators who are around to answer questions from their communities and interact with administrators.
The company did not disclose how many mods were removed. At the time of writing, there were 28 mods listed on the r / WallStreetBets mod page, and “in the past few weeks, there have been a few dozen,” according to The New York Times.
Reddit said it had to act due to the instability the situation created for the community, according to a message sent to r / WallStreetBets mods by Reddit that was obtained by Mashable. “We understand that many will be upset by our decisions today, however, it became clear to us that an intervention was necessary for the continued health of the r / wallstreetbets community,” part of the message said.
Mods removed by Reddit cannot be reinstated immediately as r / WallStreetBets moderators, the company said The Verge. The mods removed by the bad actors I can be reinstated as mods on r / WallStreetBets, but at the discretion of the current mod team. It is unclear which of the removed mods can return, or which ones were asked to do so.
Last week, Discord also had to step in to help moderate the WallStreetBets community. The company banned the original r / WallStreetBets server due to “hateful and discriminatory content” and has been helping the new mods with moderation.