REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo
- Former moderators of WallStreetBets have spoken up about what they say are the subreddit’s issues.
- A group of nine of these former moderators have decided to create “WallStreetBets 2.0.”
- Using “smart contracts” they hope to spark a community to “decentralize” away from Reddit.
- Visit Insider’s homepage for more stories.
Former moderators of WallStreetBets, the subreddit famed for sparking the GameStop stock buying spree that inspired international headlines and movie deals, are not happy with what the sub has evolved into. Now they want to strike out on their own in a new community.
On February 4, Reddit moderators on WallStreetBets removed two fellow mods, zjz and jamsi, in what has been described as a “coup” over a potential movie deal. The NY Times wrote that “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.”
Over the next week, three other moderators would step down before Reddit administrators got involved and removed the offending moderators. Since then, zjz has been reinstated as a moderator, but the others that were removed have been sharing what they believe to be fundamental issues with WallStreetBets.
A moderator’s job on Reddit is to filter through comments, removing spam and ensuring Redditors are following the site’s guidelines. With 9.4 million subscribers on Wall StreetBets that want to talk about GameStop stock and “tendies,” having good moderators is crucial for this subreddit’s survival.
Original WallStreetBets moderators want to ‘decentralize’ the community
On Monday, the WallStreetBets moderator Twitter account, which is now being run by a group of former moderators, tweeted out a message to the WallStreetBets community from the old moderators. The account announced that they want to create a “decentralized” hub of communication called WallStreetBets 2.0 that uses “smart contracts,” which is the same system used to trade blockchain cryptocurrency.
—wallstreetbets (@wsbmod) March 1, 2021
"It's time to stop using centralized platforms that can shut us down without warning," the post says. "It's time to stop using a broken financial system that is archaic and inefficient. It's time to decentralize."
The site also has a page talking about the "coup" which they believe was started because "some of the remaining moderators intentionally spread false information in order to sieze (sic) control for themselves." They claim that all money that would have been received for the movie deal would have gone to charity and that current moderator zjz had shared an edited screenshot to the NY Times implying that they were taking the money for themselves.
"We have no issue with them except that they lied in order to get us removed from the sub," the former moderators said over email. "We also clearly disagree on the decentralization issue." About nine former moderators "are supportive of this, but not all will be involved as part of the team building."
Zjz wrote on Reddit that the wsbmods Twitter account "was made by the previous tenants of the mod team" and that he "endorsed it at the time because it appeared to be necessary, but now it's just a bunch of unaffiliated people pretending to be us and giving interviews as if they're still here."
Zjz also said that the former mods "didn't contribute" to moderating the subreddit. The former moderators dispute that claim, telling Insider that they did impact the sub by "setting up AMAs" and "communicated with the other mods frequently."
"To say that we were inactive and uninvolved with the sub until the GME event is categorically false," the former moderators said. "We did let zjz and his bots take over more and more of the day-to-day moderating because that was working well."
Most of the bots and moderation tools used by WallStreetBets moderators were created by zjz and the subreddit struggled to handle the wave of new users. The original mods said that they banned zjz because "he was freaking the community out with lies" in regards to his post about the coup and "we were trying to prevent the community from being destabilized."
10 days after his ban, zjz was brought back onto WallStreetBets to moderate the sub. On Monday, zjz shared an official Twitter account for the current monderators and wrote that "unaffiliated people are impersonating us on Twitter and it's causing major issues."
—/r/wallstreetbets (@Official_WSB) February 26, 2021
New and old Reddit moderators continue to clash
Though the movie deal may have been the catalyst for the break, there seemed to be a clear divide on the moderator's opinions on cryptocurrency.
"They have warped views on crypto based on outdated experiences from many years ago when crypto was brand new and scams were everywhere," the old mods wrote. They referred to our plan to decentralize WSB as 'some crypto shit'".
In response to a user's question on Reddit about the posts, zjz wrote that they were "trying to run a crypto scam on wallstreetbets" and described their new site as a "decentralized crypto-based wallstreetbets."
Former WallStreetBets moderators believe that the subreddit is censoring posts
One of the mods removed in the initial wave was jamsi (not a part of the WallStreetBets 2.0), who claims to be a 13-year-veteran of internet moderation and had only worked on the sub for a week before getting removed. While zjz has rejoined the sub, jamsi still has not and does not plan on it because they believe that there is a "heavy amount of censorship in the subreddit."
"Posts and comments are being suppressed and removed all the time," jamsi told Insider. "Not for breaking the rules, but because they are not what the senior mod time want to see." Zjz did not return multiple requests for comment.
According to jamsi, the front page of the subreddit is being "manipulated" and posts with thousands of upvotes are being removed "because the moderators personally disagree with them." New subreddits have started to pop up in the wake of WSB's popularity like r/GME, r/WallStreetBetsNew and jamsi's creation r/HereWeTrade.
On these subs, you can find links to posts from disgruntled users, confused as to why their posts about GameStop gains or memes about DeepF-Value are being removed. Though these posts could simply be getting removed as spam, jamsi believes it has to do with a moderator's personal opinion.
"Certain tickers like GME, AMC, NOK, BB and NAKD posts and comments are being removed before they get to gain any traction," jamsi said. "And the ones that do make it past the automoderator get their posts removed once a moderator gets to them."
