Can't you create many many Reddit accounts and create a Bot (which uses many different IPs) to post to manipulate those ticker mention counts ? https://www.ft.com/content/dcd86860-09ed-420e-a5cc-d6d281863c03 Managers in the US and UK have begun using algorithms to scour forums such as r/WallStreetBets or other data sources to try to spot co-ordinated buying. While the practice is new to most western funds, this kind of surveillance is already common for many Asian managers, according to Patrick Ghali, managing partner at advisory firm Sussex Partners. Tiger cub Lee Ainslie’s Maverick Capital wrote to investors in April that its quant team “now systematically monitors Wall Street Bets and other similar forums that cater to less experienced, retail investors”. Moez Kassam, chief investment officer at Anson Funds in Toronto, said his firm has been building algorithms to follow commentary and sentiment on Reddit, as well as using some bought from external companies. Fintech company S3 now provides a company’s “short squeeze risk” score to Bloomberg terminal users, while alternative research provider Quiver Quantitative scrapes Reddit investment threads for ticker mentions and sentiment. “You don’t want your book to be exposed to the whims of r/WallStreetBets,” said Quiver founder James Kardatzke. Data group Sentifi, which buys data from the likes of Reddit and Twitter and uses it to score sentiment around stocks, said it detected a nearly 1,200 per cent rise in chatter around AMC between May 20 and June 1. The cinema chain’s shares had already started to rise by then, but then doubled on June 2. Sentifi said the number of customers using its platform had doubled over the past year. Swiss investment firm Unigestion has also started looking at how it can deploy its machine reading and data techniques — which it already uses to spot changing sentiment — around meme stocks. “It is an important, though short-term, risk factor” in markets, said Unigestion portfolio manager Salman Baig. “For us, any factor that can disrupt markets is of primary concern.”
You sure can, but: 1. Reddit continually fights spam, improves anti-spam tools and has lots of moderators and auto-moderators, often instantly auto-rejecting posts. And not only because of WSB. Trying to spam repeatedly (or even once for fresh accounts) will get you banned really fast. 2. Spam doesn't matter as much because lots of people tried and visibly continue trying promoting some stocks, but others rarely bite. Out of 50+ promoted stocks I've been seeing in the last few months, nothing wants to break through like AMC and GME did, except for non-optionable penny stocks that can go from $0.10 to $2, but that's been happening for years. 3. There is even more spam and stock promotion on Twitter and some Discord channels with 200k+ users, but they're also lucky if they get some momentum going. Most of them now settled for buying calls on big tech names, which worked for years without a need for spam. 4. Stock manipulation / pump-and-dump is illegal and hedge funds have more to lose by doing this then by simply following others and acting on what they see. 5. If some stock promoters are able to cause heavy buying then so what. They have to be just as lucky as people who jump on opportunities without promoting anything. It's been going on for 100 years and it's always been business as usual.
You are surely capable of coming up with conspiracy theories and speculations, making it sound not only true but also important. No wonder people believe in flat earth, vaccine shots implanting secret tracking devices, etc. Some guy may be messing something up with some counters, wow, that’s so bad, now everyone should stop using internet. Or something.