yeah - this is just a squeeze. they happen. any sophisticated player in the market will recognize this as a normal (though not common) thing.
the weird and new part is that the people cornering the market are a horde of retail traders who are colluding in the open, but in a way regulators probably don't have tools to address.
what you are describing is not collusion or market manipulation. If it was, CNBC should be investigated for recommending stocks daily.
random people post analysis and others decide if they agree. Even if there were people saying to buy to cause a short squeeze, that is also perfectly fine. Institutions trade on momentum all the time, that is basically the entire HFT sector. If anything, the people on reddit are even less egregious that wall street because they are doing it in a public forum, where institutions do it in secrecy during three martini lunches or "idea dinners"
the weird and new part is that the people cornering the market are a horde of retail traders who are colluding in the open, but in a way regulators probably don't have tools to address.