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Amid Bickering Over Movie Rights, Reddit Removes Top 'WallStreetBets' Moderators (nytimes.com) 76

Posted by EditorDavid from the pumping-and-dumping dept.
The New York Times reports: Late on Wednesday, a moderator of the popular Reddit message board WallStreetBets posted several screenshots on the chat app Discord. They showed that other moderators had quietly started talking among themselves about landing a movie deal.

"What's our cut?" one of the moderators had asked in a Discord chat, according to the screenshots.

By Thursday morning, that quest for Hollywood riches had exploded into an ugly battle, giving a glimpse into the unruly nature of a suddenly famous Reddit community. That was when the WallStreetBets moderators who were considering the film deal began booting out other moderators who had questioned them for secretly trying to profit from the forum's success. Eventually, employees at Reddit weighed in to try to quell the unrest....

One moderator said he was in touch with Ben Mezrich, an author of the book that became the movie "The Social Network," who last week secured deals to write a book and help with a movie about the GameStop saga, according to screenshots from the forum shared with The Times. "Oof we gotta go fast i think," another moderator wrote back. "While the studios are competing...."

The conversation heated up after WallStreetBets founder Jaime Rogozinski announced that he had sold the rights to his own story to a movie studio this week. Mr. Rogozinski did not respond to requests for comment... Some began criticizing the top moderators for moves they had made to raise their profile, like creating a Twitter account and hiring a public relations representative. Some also made death threats. Late Wednesday and early Thursday, the top moderators began removing lower-ranking moderators who were asking questions....

On Thursday afternoon, Reddit stepped in to remove the top WallStreetBets moderators.
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Amid Bickering Over Movie Rights, Reddit Removes Top 'WallStreetBets' Moderators More

Amid Bickering Over Movie Rights, Reddit Removes Top 'WallStreetBets' Moderators

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  • Greedy a**holes gonna greed (Score:5, Insightful)

    by The_Assimilator ( 7344480 ) on Monday February 08, 2021 @03:59AM (#61039380)
    It's almost like these guys are no more moral than the hedge funds they decry - just less successful.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by fph il quozientatore ( 971015 )
      Or maybe they just don't want Hollywood companies making money off them any more than they wanted hedge funds to do the same thing?
    • Yeah, the name of the sub is WallStreetBets not FightEvilWallStreet. Everybody seems to ignore this obvious fact.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by kbg ( 241421 )

      What exactly is the problem with telling the story to some writer and making a movie out of it? It's not like the forum itself is a private property. I really don't see what the problem is here.

      • The problem is in deciding who to pay for said rights, who to feature in the film, who did what and who was responsible for what.

        It’s like a band where a record company comes along and offers the lead singer money for the band’s catalog. Well, the drummer helped write the songs, so why does the lead singer get all the money and glory? The drummer is a squirrel that wants his nut too. They there’s the bass player that came up with the whole intro riff to the bands third-most popular song.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by kbg ( 241421 )

          But the problem it's not like a band because song writing has elaborate legal laws specially covering it. It's more like a group of people who decide to go on travel adventure and something interesting happens. Each one of those people in the group can tell their individual story and try to get a movie deal. In fact you are allowed to make a documentary about anyone without needing their permission.

    • Re:Greedy a**holes gonna greed (Score:5, Informative)

      by crypticedge ( 1335931 ) on Monday February 08, 2021 @07:04AM (#61039644)

      Not exactly. The "top moderators" who attempted to sell the rights and were subsequently removed were log inactive after the sub's creator was removed for trying to monetize the sub previously, and only showed up when they smelled money potential. These top mods that showed back up also happened to be friends with the founder of the sub, basically just lying in wait for the next chance to monetize. The active WSB mods should have petitioned to have them purged a long time ago but they didn't.

      One super active mod was caught up in it, and reddit removed him as well due to some of his comments in the whole mess (I haven't seen them, but I suspect that's where the death threats part came in to play), but he was one of the ones fighting against trying to monetize the sub

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by dbialac ( 320955 )
      Yeah. Regardless, who's going to watch a movie of a bunch of people typing into textboxes on reddit?
      • It's Hollywood, do you honestly believe that any sort of reality will be involved?

      • Yeah. Regardless, who's going to watch a movie of a bunch of people typing into textboxes on reddit?

        Replace the dorky dude with a half naked hot young up-and-comer, throw in a gratuitous shower scene .... everybody?

    • And we are surprised that the moderates of 'wall street bets' are greedy?
    • They probably bought GME at $400, and need to recoup their losses somehow...

  • Apparently you can’t have social media... (Score:3)

    by 93 Escort Wagon ( 326346 ) on Monday February 08, 2021 @04:01AM (#61039382)

    ... without someone making death threats.

    • What the hell is even a death threat at this point? Is a guy saying "Am gonna beat the shit out of you 1v1" from the other side of the planet behind an anonymous account a death threat, now?

    • Death threats on social media are the equivalent of a strongly worded letter to the editor of a newspaper. If you haven't had death threats yet, you are being too moderate in your public opinions.
      • It seems the social media progression is: 1. Hyperbolic opinions 2. Death threats 3. Doxing 4. Swatting 5. Oh look--a new topic to get enraged about!

  • typical reddit move (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Nife Cat ( 5950278 )

    Typical Reddit move. They will remove the mods, then claim the sub is unmoderated, and install a bunch of corrupt powermods that will turn the subreddit into shit.

    • that will turn the subreddit into shit.

      I'm not sure I understand. Are you saying you haven't been to that sub yet? It's 4chan only with screenshots of stock apps instead of nudes.

      To quote Basil: "It IS shit Austin!"

  • Liberté OK, Égalité & Fraternit (Score:3, Insightful)

    by peppepz ( 1311345 ) on Monday February 08, 2021 @04:12AM (#61039394)
    From the Revolution to the Terror, it's a short step.

  • Yeah, that'll be an exciting film (Score:5, Funny)

    by Viol8 ( 599362 ) on Monday February 08, 2021 @04:20AM (#61039410) Homepage

    Watch in thrilled amazement as Tom Cruise types stuff on his laptop! Look stunned when he gets up and goes and makes a coffee. Then sits back down again! Gasp when he briefly starts typing and clicking even faster and looks vaguely animated!

    Well worth the ticket price I'm sure.

    Sorry, but films about people doing stuff on computers or phones just doesn't cut it. Even Wargames was mostly NOT sitting in front of a machine.

    • I didn't want to hear all the stupid news stories, late night shows, and podcasters talking about it incessantly, didn't liked how it spammed all of reddit on every subreddit for a week (and still remains as like 70% of the posts, and 20% super-duper sportsball game), and definitely won't see any stupid movie about it. Especially if it's in the style of the social network (will never watch that either).
    • Tom Cruise cast as a potato-assed reddit desk-monkey? Tom Arnold maybe.

    • Haven't you seen a Tom Cruise movie before?

      He wouldn't "go" and get cough. He'd RUN, man! RUN!

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by Ichijo ( 607641 )

      Since it's all car analogies, just make a movie about cars. Done.

    • Watch in thrilled amazement as Tom Cruise types stuff on his laptop! Look stunned when he gets up and goes and makes a coffee. Then sits back down again! Gasp when he briefly starts typing and clicking even faster and looks vaguely animated!

      Well worth the ticket price I'm sure.

      Hollywood can find ways to make the mundane, look exciting. YouTube certainly took on the challenge. This is hilarious.

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      The Social Network was quite enjoyable. Not really about the coding, it was about the way that Facebook developed and how Zuck screwed over everyone.

      In this case I guess it will be about the people who came up with the original idea to buy GameStop, and who hyped it, and the hedge fund guys who called up Robinhood to tell them to shut it down fast because they were losing billions.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by ytene ( 4376651 )
        Not condoning the actions of the moderators... But in response to your observation, I wonder which is the better analogy: "The Social Network" or "The Big Short" (the story of the sub-prime crisis that led to the financial meltdown of 2008/9).

        I'm kinda thinking that the latter is a closer match...

  • This was coming from a mile away (Score:3, Funny)

    by kbg ( 241421 ) on Monday February 08, 2021 @04:20AM (#61039412)

    So the moderators that pissed of Wall Street from a reddit forum suddenly got removed from that reddit forum. Yes not a coincidence at all and not related. Just go about your business nothing to see here.

    • Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • Don't attribute to powerful forces what can adequately be explained by a bunch of feuding kids.

  • One problem with the reddit moderator hierarchy... (Score:5, Informative)

    by fleeped ( 1945926 ) on Monday February 08, 2021 @04:30AM (#61039428)

    which keeps popping up in a few subreddits that I read (as well as /wallstreetbets which I don't, but is mentioned in the article), is that the "senior" moderators are inactive for years, and then whenever suits, they return and have more control/power over the moderators who do day-to-day work and are most involved. And they might ban other mods at will, etc. It's a pretty broken system.

    • Calling Reddit a "broken system" is an understatement.

      • Well it works sometimes though. Smaller communities, e.g. some niche game development, are much nicer, as the stakes are lower, and bad actors are not that interested due to low impact and low karma-whoring potential.

        • Ive come to the conclusion recently that social media simply doesn't work at scale. Too many problems of polarized communities, parties with agendas trying to manipulate the platform etc when you get beyond a certain size. And I think that's just another example. While not perfect by any stretch, smaller forums and subreddits have far fewer problems than larger sites or large subreddits which can rival entire social media platforms in scale.

          • Amen to that. When the stakes get too high, the sharks approach. It's not a problem with society, but with its manipulators.

    • There's a chart floating around showing how many of the most popular groups also share a lot of the same moderators. They like to ban people for posting that.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Luthair ( 847766 )
      Isn't this like complaining the business owner doesn't show up to work everyday?

  • There will never be a diffeence between online "moderator" ruling class groups and state dictstorships.

    It will always be a bunch of backstabbing psychopaths on a power trip, gaining the equivalent of sexual gratification from having power over others. It's a Stanford Prison Experiment each time

    Not because they are bad people offline, per se. (Which is what that experiment made clear.)
    But simply because it is online. Because they don't meet, they don't see or touch each other, and can never feel each other,

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by ytene ( 4376651 )
      "There will never be a diffeence between online "moderator" ruling class groups and state dictstorships."

      I'm certainly not qualified to judge, but I'd offer a little bit of feedback on that... First is that right here, on slashdot, we find one of the most neutral and defensible moderation strategies I've seen. The idea that there are no permanent moderators and that your invitation to moderate stems from the content you make are both very useful design elements.

      Worth pointing out that the design is st

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by sfcat ( 872532 )

        Worth pointing out that the design is still flawed: there is little in the slashdot model that could defend against the sort of self-re-enforcing spiral into weirdness that we've seen from, say the QAnon crowd. In other words, there's more to do.

        I disagree. I believe we have fended off the QAnon folks quite well. There is still quite a bit of partisan bickering but that's to be expected. Its not like QAnon folks haven't tried to post quite a bit here and they were mod'ed down.

        I honestly don't know if that's "a thing" on slashdot, but maybe there is a case to make for a second tier of moderating that keeps an eye on the hands-on stuff, just in case there is systemic abuse going on.

        Its not a thing here, AmiMojo and Blindseer and other extremists still get to post here and when they post good comments they get mod'ed up. When they post tripe, they get mod'ed down as the system intends.

        Frustratingly, the one thing I'd like to see happen with moderation is the ability to more effectively stop the nastier species of Troll - you know, the "Positive White Nationalism" crowd. They deserve to spend more time sewing mailbags, courtesy Uncle Sam.

        Which is why I hope you never get mod points. There is the politic

  • Way to skimp on essential details. (Score:5, Informative)

    by SharpFang ( 651121 ) on Monday February 08, 2021 @06:57AM (#61039638) Homepage Journal

    These "Top" moderators were long inactive and never visiting the subreddit. The "new", "bottom" mods were handling the workload of moderating the sub when it exploded growing several times over, and they remained faithful to the user base and its ideals.

    Then the "Top" moderators noticed "their" sub is now in the spotlight and tried to take over, and removing the "new" moderators who'd question their motives.

    Reddit did the right thing - they have a good policy for cases like this, where an owner/founder of an active sub abandons it, and then after a long time tries to subvert it for own purposes. A similar situation happened with r/KotakuInAction, where the owner went 'woke' and attempted to delete the sub.

  • These people are being removed for the sole reason of causing Wall Street to lose money. Everything else is an excuse and/or selective enforcement of the rules. Watch the same people getting banned from Twitter for misgendering someone 20 years ago.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by EvilSS ( 557649 )

      These people are being removed for the sole reason of causing Wall Street to lose money. Everything else is an excuse and/or selective enforcement of the rules. Watch the same people getting banned from Twitter for misgendering someone 20 years ago.

      No, the mods being removed are old, inactive mods who came back to WSB when they smelled money and fame. They are parasites who had nothing to do with the GME run. They were removed for breaking reddit rules on profiting from being a mod, and at the request of the WSB users and mods who were active at the time the GME squeeze started.

  • To me this sounds like a convenient excuse to remove the top moderators and hence the direction of the sub-reddit.

    Realistically nobody needs any authorization to make a movie about the general events that happened - they only need permissions to use actual likenesses and such, and for that they only need permission from a select few group of people.

    If the studios are making a movie about Vietnam they don't need signed waivers from every soldier at a battle they reenact.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by EvilSS ( 557649 )
      Keep in mind, these top mods in WSB were inactive until the GME thing came along. Hell one is so hated they ran him off a few years ago for doing other shady shit. They came back to take over and try to profit from the situation.
  • Reddit owns wsb and all the content, read the tos
  • Dumb question... am I the only person who found themselves subscribed to the WallStreetBets board who had no interest at all in the topic, and no memory of ever hitting the subscribe button? Or to put it another way: is it at all possible that this board only became "popular" because it was force fed to people?

  • I love the man but how many mods made out when Cowboy Neil sold /. out to the man?

  • The question isn't whether this will be monetized but rather who's names are attached as "consulting experts" and "writer".
    "In a closed society where everybody’s guilty, the only crime is getting caught. In a world of thieves, the only final sin is stupidity."

  • Making money! It always was! The mob turned it into some optimistic force of change. Yuck! How naive are these people to think that hedgefunds and investors are/were ever just going to give up billions because "oops I guess those are the rules and we messed up!". Power protects power. Money protects money. Those have always been the rules.
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion

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