Physics Department and INFN, Unversità di Roma Tor Vergata, 00133, Rome, Italy.
Centro Ricerche Enrico Fermi, 00184, Rome, Italy.
Sci Rep. 2022 Aug 12;12(1):13780. doi: 10.1038/s41598-022-17925-2.
The short squeeze of GameStop (GME) shares in mid-January 2021 has been primarily orchestrated by retail investors of the Reddit r/wallstreetbets community. As such, it represents a paramount example of collective coordination action on social media, resulting in large-scale consensus formation and significant market impact. In this work we characterise the structure and time evolution of Reddit conversation data, showing that the occurrence and sentiment of GME-related comments (representing how much users are engaged with GME) increased significantly much before the short squeeze actually took place. Taking inspiration from these early warnings as well as evidence from previous literature, we introduce a model of opinion dynamics where user engagement can trigger a self-reinforcing mechanism leading to the emergence of consensus, which in this particular case is associated to the success of the short squeeze operation. Analytical solutions and model simulations on interaction networks of Reddit users feature a phase transition from heterogeneous to homogeneous opinions as engagement grows, which we qualitatively compare to the sudden hike of GME stock price. Although the model cannot be validated with available data, it offers a possible and minimal interpretation for the increasingly important phenomenon of self-organized collective actions taking place on social networks.
2021 年 1 月中旬，游戏驿站（GME）股票的轧空主要是由 Reddit r/wallstreetbets 社区的散户投资者策划的。因此，这代表了社交媒体上集体协调行动的一个主要例子，导致了大规模的共识形成和重大的市场影响。在这项工作中，我们描述了 Reddit 对话数据的结构和时间演化，结果表明，与 GME 相关的评论的出现和情绪（代表用户对 GME 的参与程度）在轧空实际发生之前就显著增加了。受这些早期预警以及之前文献中的证据的启发，我们引入了一种意见动态模型，其中用户参与可以触发自我强化机制，导致共识的出现，在这种特殊情况下，共识的出现与轧空操作的成功相关。在 Reddit 用户的交互网络上的分析解和模型模拟中，随着参与度的增加，意见从异质到同质出现相变，我们将其与 GME 股票价格的突然飙升进行了定性比较。尽管该模型无法用现有数据进行验证，但它为在社交网络上发生的日益重要的自组织集体行动现象提供了一种可能的、最小的解释。
