Online mobs are likely to remain a dangerous reality
By The Washington Post
By Drew Harwell
When the stock market opened one morning last month, Jake was working a job he hated inside a cavernous Amazon fulfillment center, trying desperately to spend some of the $1,452.45 in his checking account on shares of a failing chain of video game stores.
At home alone in Des Moines, he had immersed himself in the euphoria of WallStreetBets, the raucous Reddit forum where followers were cheering one another toward a leap of faith: A mass buy of GameStop stock, they thought, would decimate hedge funds and earn them life-changing cash.
The chaos of WallStreetBets and the QAnon-fueled storming of the U.S. Capitol showcased the reality-shaping power of Internet communities. Who’s supposed to stop them when they go too far?
(Bloomberg) The Redditor revolt that made stock markets go haywire in recent weeks owes its origins, in part, to a humpback whale named Mister Splashy Pants.