In late January there were a few crazy days where GameStop (GME) saw unprecedented gains due to a group on Reddit pumping the stock. This stock was chosen because it was one of the most shorted stocks on the market and this action represented a fight against the current system.
A recent report though suggests that the gains experienced by GME and a few days later DOGE were most likely amplified by trading bots. These were the findings from a Massachusetts-based cybersecurity company.
It was reported by Reuters on Saturday, PiiQ Media, that there were certain patterns in posts as well as keywords posted on social media at set times which would suggest that bots were driving the craze.
Despite these suspicions, the company is unsure how much of an impact this seemingly had on the huge rise of both GME and DOGE. During this period GME saw gains of 1700% while DOGE saw gains of 900%. PiiQ CTO Aaron Barr said this in the report.
“We saw clear patterns of artificial behavior across the other four social media platforms. When you think of organic content, it’s variable in the day, variable day by day. It doesn’t have the exact same pattern every day for a month.”
This news is in complete contradiction to comments made by the CEO of Reddit Steve Huffman who told a congressional committee in February that bots or fake accounts did not play a significant role in the amount of traffic that lead users to the same post.
