Discord bans r/WallStreetBets server over hate speech amid the group driving GameStop shares through the roof

January 27, 2021

Discord bans r/WallStreetBets server over hate speech amid the group driving GameStop shares through the roof

Discord shut down the r/WallStreetBets server Wednesday for repeatedly allowing hate speech.
The move came amid the online community fueling a massive rally of GameStop shares.
The group's Reddit forum briefly went dark but was back online Wednesday evening.
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Discord said on Wednesday it had banned the r/WallStreetBets server for repeatedly violating its policies against hate speech.

"The WallStreetBets 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," a Discord spokesperson told Insider.

"Today, we decided to remove the server and its owner from Discord for continuing to allow hateful and discriminatory content after repeated warnings," they said.

The move came as Reddit's r/WallStreetBets, an overlapping online community, had been fueling a massive stock market rally over the past several days that has sent GameStop and AMC Theaters shares soaring.

Moderators of the Reddit community slammed the move.

"We're suffering from success and our Discord was the first casualty. You know as well as I do that if you gather 250k people in one spot someone is going to say something that makes you look bad. That room was golden and the people that run it are awesome," they said in a Reddit post Wednesday.

"Discord did us dirty and I am not impressed with them destroying our community instead of stepping in with the wrench we may have needed to fix things, especially after we got over 1,000 server boosts. That is pretty unethical," they said.

But Discord said its decision wasn't connected to the group's discussion of trading activity.

"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," the spokesperson said. "We are monitoring this situation and in the event there are allegations of illegal activities, we will cooperate with authorities as appropriate."

The r/WallStreetBets Reddit forum became invite-only for a short time on Wednesday, according to The Verge, but has since restored public access.

The stock market volatility has caused the White House to chime in to say it's monitoring the situation, and the broker TD Ameritrade stopped allowing customers to trade the stocks being pushed by r/WallStreetBets, CNET reported.

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