This week, during a tug-of-war between solo stock traders heading to GameStop and experienced hedge funds betting against the US video game retailer unleashed a flurry of copy trading, social media users shared an alleged snapshot of a CNN headline saying: ‘White Supremacist Internet Gamers buy Gamestop (sic) has shares to deliberately bankrupt the Jewish Hedge Fund on International Holocaust Remembrance Day. The alleged heading, which uses some words incorrectly and not others, is changed digitally. CNN does not report anything like that.
Examples of posts sharing this alleged screenshot can be found here, here and here.
As outlined here by Reuters, the increase in retail shares over the past year has ignited the fuse that recently pushed GameStop Corp shares higher without a clear case, and hedge funds that have pledged against the video game retailer and other companies. outside the favor on Wall Street.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, online discussions about shares on social media platforms like Reddit, Twitter and Facebook seem to be gaining more traction. Investors have pointed to discussion threads like ‘WallStreetBets’ on Reddit (here) to drive the boom in GameStop.
Holocaust Remembrance Day, the 76th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz by Soviet troops in 1945, took place on January 27 (here). The anniversary has nothing to do with the short print of GameStop.
Matt Dornic, head of strategic communications for CNN Worldwide, told Reuters in an email that the alleged CNN story, headline and outline (which a reporter named “Moshie R. Horowitz” admits) were all false.
“CNN did not publish that piece, nor do we employ a writer by name,” Dornic said. ‘It is clear that the creator of the image is trying to pass on anti-Semitism as a kind of satire. It’s not cute or clever – it’s hateful and disgusting. ”
The real headlines for recent CNN stories about the GameStop craze include ‘GameStop’s Rise: Reddit Traders Against Hedge Funds’ (here) and ‘The GameStop Phenomenon Became Global’ (here).
Reuters found no stories from CNN reporting on what the reports claimed.
VERDICT
Alter. CNN did not report a story with the headline “White Supremacist Internet Gamers Buy Gamestop (SIC) Shares to Deliberately Bank the Jewish Hedge Fund on International Holocaust Remembrance Day.” The image has been digitally altered.
This article was produced by the Reuters Fact Check team. Read more about our fact-checking work here.