Reddit slapped with lawsuit by mastermind behind forum that helped spark meme stock craze
Founder of WallStreetBets chat forum sues Reddit for banning his moderator account, trademark infringement
WallStreetBets founder Jaime Rogozinski discusses his lawsuit against Reddit for banning him as moderator from the forum he created on 'The Claman Countdown.'
After three years of deliberations, Jaime Rogozinski, the founder of meme stock chat room WallStreetBets, is suing Reddit for wrongly banning him and violating his trademark rights.
"Let me be clear: Reddit picked the time. I have been silent about this for three years, hoping to find an amicable, mutually beneficial solution to this problem. And I think that Reddit is surprised that I finally decided to fight back," Rogozinski said in an exclusive interview on "The Claman Countdown" Thursday.
The WallStreetBets founder, who essentially popped off the meme stock craze in 2020, filed a lawsuit on Wednesday seeking at least $1 million in damages for breach of contract after Reddit allegedly removed him as a moderator from the forum he created in 2012, and violated his rights to trademark the WallStreetBets name.
"I want to understand, without legalese, why it is that after I was kicked out, Reddit is chasing me and trying to take away my intellectual property. I can understand it's up to the courts to figure out exactly whether or not that was right, or not right," Rogozinski told host Liz Claman. "They kick me out, then they chase after me. I've been blocked from taking this idea elsewhere. In other words, they've just usurped this."
Reddit claimed that Rogozinski used the platform to enrich himself, violating the company’s user guidelines. Arguably, Claman mentioned in Thursday’s segment, Reddit’s defense could be that they own the WallStreetBets forum since it operates on their site.
After being banned from the Reddit forum he created, WallStreetBets founder Jaime Rogozinski refuses "sitting back with my arms crossed," he said on "The Claman Countdown" Thursday. (Getty Images)
"If I were in Reddit's shoes, I would want to be trying to promote this message of, 'Hey, let's bring in more people.' Social media companies rely on content creators that want to come to their site with good ideas and actually create the content," Rogozinski noted. "Reddit is trying to claim the fact that they're actually producing the posts and the moderation of WallStreetBets."
The chat room founder also responded to claims that if allowed back on the platform, some current moderators and users wouldn’t give him a warm welcome.
"That excuse, they didn't think that all the way through here," Rogozinski refuted. "On one hand, they're saying that 13 out of the 14 million members showed up after I left, because when I was there, it was 1 million. Meaning, practically nobody there knows me, or practically nobody who's there now, was there when I was around. So nobody knows who I am, but nobody there wants me. So how can nobody want me if nobody knows who I am?"
WallStreetBets founder Jamie Rogozinski reacts to the resurgence of meme stocks and if it's a fad that will blow over on 'The Claman Countdown.'
The motivation for the lawsuit isn’t monetary, Rogozinski claimed, but rather his "passionate" drive to take back his creative and intellectual property.
"I believe that Reddit is just fighting for money, and that's a much weaker incentive. I don't understand why Reddit decided to push me to the other side," the forum founder said. "They could have the same exact fury fighting for them, instead of against them."
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"I can understand that Reddit says, 'I wanted to protect this community, and that's why I kicked him out.' Sure, let's go ahead and give you that argument for just the sake right now," he added. "But why chase after me? When did Reddit turn into Goliath?"
In a statement to FOX Business, a Reddit spokesperson said: "This is a completely frivolous lawsuit with no basis in reality. Jaime was removed as a moderator of r/WallStreetBets by Reddit and banned by the community moderators for attempting to enrich himself. This lawsuit is another transparent attempt to enrich himself. It’s telling that he is filing this suit three years after he was banned by r/WallStreetBets and long after the community rose in mainstream popularity without his involvement. We’ll respond directly in court and continue to protest the best interest of the communities and moderators on our platform."