GameStop, AMC Entertainment Holdings and BlackBerry have
been at the centre of a market battle as individual investors coordinating on
social media including Reddit, and using trading apps such as Robinhood, bought
shares and squeezed hedge funds that had bet big on those struggling companies
to tank.
Allen Tran, a 23-year-old from Chicago who created Robinhood
Stock Traders, said he woke up on Wednesday to a notification that Facebook had
disabled the 1,57,000-member group. The notification, seen by Reuters, said
without detail that the group violated policies on "adult sexual
exploitation."
"We were first on the picking tree to be cut off
because we are on Facebook, not a free platform like Reddit," said Tran,
referring to the typically lighter moderation on the discussion website.
Some of his group's members made tens of thousands of
dollars in recent trades first popularised on Reddit's WallStreetBets forum, he
said.
Tran, who also runs the 20,000-member HaiKhuu Trading group
on chat app Discord, said he has never seen adult content on the Facebook
group.
Facebook spokeswoman Kristen Morea said, "This group
was removed for violating our Community Standards, unrelated to the ongoing
stock frenzy." She did not respond to requests to elaborate.
Tran said institutional investors are trying to separate
retail traders.
Facebook suspended his group on January 7 after labeling it
a "dangerous organisation," according to correspondence seen by
Reuters, though the company reinstated its privileges after he appealed to
contacts there.
"With all these major institutions being frustrated
with the success of retail, they are trying to target any groups they
can," said Tran, who was featured in a Wall Street Journal article in
November and described his Facebook group as the largest of its kind.
Tran expressed concern that a replacement group he formed to
carry on discussions also will be taken down.
© Reuters
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