GameStop Stock Growth May Have Been Fueled By Bots

GameStop stock has been rising and falling ever since its initial surge, and that activity may be driven in part by bots on social media sites like Reddit and Twitter. That claim comes from an analysis from the cybersecurity company PiiQ Media, which concluded that organized actors may be working together to fuel the surge.

That analysis found that bots used Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter to promote GameStop and other meme stocks such as AMC. However, it's unclear to what degree these bots actually contributed to the surge itself. PiiQ Media stated that it found similar patterns on GameStop-related posts, with activity on these accounts strongly correlating with the beginning and end of the market trading day. The firm concluded that these patterns indicate bot activity.

"We saw clear patterns of artificial behavior across the other four social media platforms," PiiQ Media's co-founder Aaron Barr told Reuters. "When you think of organic content, it’s variable in the day, variable day-to-day. It doesn't have the exact same pattern every day for a month."

The ongoing GameStop stock controversy has resulted in an SEC investigation and even a hearing in the US Congress. The SEC suspended trading for 15 companies due to unusual trading activity last week, amid apparent attempts to artificially inflate their stock prices. However, Barr stated that it's difficult for firms like PiiQ Media to measure the actual effect of these bot campaigns.