Once the media reports broke saying "Redditors now buying silver!", there was no one on WSB actively discussing buying silver. The more likely story is that the hedge funds researched recent WSB discussion, saw some talk about silver, loaded up on silver futures options, "leaked" a hot new WSB story to their media shills(maybe even providing the same references as you did), and the media ran with it so they could report a "scoop". Loading up on the futures options probably drove the price up, giving more credibility to the fake news story. Then they probably unloaded their long positions and shorted silver since the price was temporarily propped up by the news-watching suckers who ran out and bought it. If you look at the $SLV chart from last week, the price movements would support my hypothesis. They probably did this because they needed short term cash quickly, and wanted to distract from $GME.
This video explains exactly what the hedge funds are doing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gMShFx5rThI
Once the media reports broke saying "Redditors now buying silver!", there was no one on WSB actively discussing buying silver. The more likely story is that the hedge funds researched recent WSB discussion, saw some talk about silver, loaded up on silver futures options, "leaked" a hot new WSB story to their media shills(maybe even providing the same references as you did), and the media ran with it so they could report a "scoop". Loading up on the futures options probably drove the price up, giving more credibility to the fake news story. Then they probably unloaded their long positions and shorted silver since the price was temporarily propped up by the news-watching suckers who ran out and bought it. If you look at the $SLV chart from last week, the price movements would support my hypothesis. They probably did this because they needed short term cash quickly, and wanted to distract from $GME.