Half the fun of WSB is that it is enormously offensive. The foundation of the community is that a forum talking about stock investing strategies is, at its heart, really dumb. It’s harder than most people can manage to evaluate all the “DD” flying around and any advice other than playing it safe (r/investing) is stupid to take from a rando on a forum.
WSB’s culture is a reaction which embraces how stupid the exercise is, and then races to the bottom on rhetoric, which makes it all about meme irony. So they (excuse the language) call themselves “retards,” “degenerates,” and “autists” (again, their words). It sometimes gets more offensive from there, but they try to keep the insults self-targeted.
Generally speaking they’re pretty clever and witty in their behavior, but you know how this gets when it goes mainstream. Less clever people show up and attach to the “offensive” part without bringing along the “clever” part.
My general sense is that WSB works hard to moderate within its sensibility so it stays enjoyable, but with the big influx, I’d bet Facebook and Discord are either reacting to behavior which is slipping past the WSB mods due to the influxes, or they’re reacting to the aesthetic without understanding the underlying wit. Another side-effect of going mainstream: it becomes political, and politics is perception. Frankly though, I think most people would enjoy WSB culture right now, given the underdog narrative and the embrace of the irreverent.
If I were Facebook or Discord, I’d trust WSB mods to get things back under control and help them protect the community, not ban it. That said, I’d bet good money their reasons for banning are not evidence-free.
So the real question is, why aren’t these platforms helping WSB mods instead of banning the community.