Discord bans subreddit accused of manipulating GameStop stock price to ruin hedge funds: report

On Wednesday, The Verge reported that the networking platform Discord has banned the server for r/WallStreetBets, the community on Reddit that has bragged about manipulating the stock market.

r/WallStreetBets gained national attention this week after a campaign to aggressively buy up shares in GameStop, the nationwide video game retailer, after learning that several large Wall Street hedge funds were short-selling the stock due to the chain's financial struggles. The campaign dramatically drove up the price of GameStop shares, wiping out millions of dollars in value at these hedge funds at a stroke.

According to Discord, the ban has nothing to do with the efforts to hurt hedge funds, but rather ongoing violations of hate speech policies.

"The server has been on our Trust & Safety team's radar for some time due to occasional content that violates our Community Guidelines, including hate speech, glorifying violence, and spreading misinformation. Over the past few months, we have issued multiple warnings to the server admin," said Discord in a statement. "To be clear, we did not ban this server due to financial fraud related to GameStop or other stocks. Discord welcomes a broad variety of personal finance discussions, from investment clubs and day traders to college students and professional financial advisors."