In my opinion, if you have to state multiple times in your plan that what you're planning isn't illegal/manipulation, it's very grey at best.
The fact that one of the premises presented here for the price going up is "We buy a bunch of options, to force (ie, manipulate) someone else into buying the stock, so that the price can go up" doesn't boad well for a "it's not market manipuation" argument either.
Straight from this post:
> It looks like this: RH Call Option buying -> MM Delta hedging/share purchase -> short squeezing -> Greater retail/RHers price action chasing/call option buying -> MM Delta hedging/share purchase -> short squeezing -> Institutional and new channels flip the script -> GME to $400+
They've presented a chain of events that starts only with "We try to buy a lot of it", has a bunch of "other people have to buy based directly on our actions", they even through in a "other people see the price going up and try to pile in" (ie, screw the rest of retail).
> the extent of their sympathy for the little guy will determine the outcome
I don't see the masses of people ending up facing consequences here. I wouldn't be surprised if a group of WSB pushers who made out like bandits do see consequences. I also think it's going to be difficult to consider them the little guy if they make a bunch of money, and the much larger mass of non-WSB retail lose their shirts.