In January, a Reddit message board called r/WallStreetBets sent the stock of a beleaguered video-game retailer, GameStop, skyrocketing, costing some Wall Street hedge funds billions of dollars. Wild as the story of retail traders rocking markets may be, we’ve seen this kind of thing happen before: The saga is just the latest chaotic consequence of people’s ability to communicate and coordinate, en masse, on online platforms. Its recent precedents vary dramatically, from the relatively benign (thousands of teens coordinating on TikTok to inflate attendance expectations for a Trump rally, for example) to the malignant (insurrectionists using the platforms Gab and Parler to plan and execute their attack on the U.S. Capitol). It’s a story that we’ll likely see repeated in new ways, with increasing regularity, from here on out.