Facebook disables popular Robinhood Stock Traders group amid GameStop chaos

Social media platform claims community was closed for violating policies on ‘adult sexual exploitation’

Facebook has been accused of playing into the GameStop row after it closed down the popular Wall Street discussion group, Robinhood Stock Traders, in the same week members of the group made headlines for buoying multiple companies’ shares.  

GameStop Corp, AMC Entertainment Holdings Inc and BlackBerry were all targeted by individual investors, coordinating on social media sites including Reddit, and using trading apps such as Robinhood, who bought shares to squeeze hedge funds that had bet huge sums on those struggling companies tanking.  

It has caused chaos in the US stock market, and sparked Wall Street investors to accuse “amateur investors” of interfering in official business.  

Allen Tran, a 23-year-old from Chicago who created Robinhood Stock Traders, said he received a notification on Wednesday from Facebook to say the 157,000-member group had been disabled – but supposedly not because of its involvement with the financial shake down.  

The notification, seen by Reuters, said without detail that the group had instead violated policies on “adult sexual exploitation”. Mr Tran rubbished these claims, though, saying he has “never” seen adult content on the group.

“We were first on the picking tree to be cut off because we are on Facebook, not a free platform like Reddit,” he said, referring to the well-known lighter moderation on the controversial discussion website.

Kristen Morea, a Facebook spokeswoman, said the group “was removed for violating our Community Standards, unrelated to the ongoing stock frenzy” but did not respond to requests to elaborate.

Facebook first suspended the group on 7 January, labelling it a “dangerous organisation”, according to a conversation between Mr Tran and the social media platform, seen by Reuters, though the company reinstated its privileges after the decision was appealed.  

Additional reporting by Reuters