Google removed at least 100,000 negative comments from the Google Play app store Robinhood stock trading app after angry users sent out a flood of critical comments that caused the app’s rating to plummet Thursday. The app’s rating went from about four stars out of five on Wednesday to just one star on Thursday. Robinhood users understandably engaged after the company stopped buying GameStop shares and other actions promoted by Reddit’s WallStreetBets community.
A Google spokesman confirmed that the tech giant suppressed the reviews and defended the decision overnight, telling Gizmodo via email that it had rules against “coordinated or inorganic reviews.” Gizmodo asked how negative reviews could be considered “inorganic” when people seem reasonably upset by Robinhood’s actions in recent days. Google stopped responding to Gizmodo emails after this investigation.
The Robinhood score on the Google Play app store has risen more than four stars since Google removed negative reviews. The app also has a 4.7 rating in Apple’s app store, though it’s unclear what kind of moderation Apple has made on its reviews of Robinhood this week.
There are still questions about what really led Robinhood to stop buying stocks picked up by Reddit’s WallStreetBets on Thursday, stocks that include not only GameStop, but Nokia, Blackberry and AMC Theaters, among others. An initial theory was that hedge funds that had reduced the shares had relied on Robinhood to stop trading, but an alternative theory emerged that Robinhood simply did not have the cash flow to continue processing so many stock purchases.
The latter theory appears to have been reinforced by a new report in early Friday New York News claiming that Robinhood has raised approximately $ 1 billion from existing investors such as Sequoia Capital and Ribbit Capital. Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev denied the company had liquidity problems CNBC yesterday, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t anticipate liquidity problems in the very near future.
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Robinhood users angry at the company’s decision to stop GameStop shopping filed a file class action lawsuit on Thursday, a move that seems to give credibility to the idea that a negative app score on Google Play isn’t necessarily “inorganic”.
It has been a turbulent week in the stock market, as Reddit activist retail investors have shown that the whole system is a scam in favor of the rich. But no one knows where this will leave the US financial markets in the coming days and weeks.
Most Americans know in their hearts that gambling is manipulated. But this week’s actions by activist investors on Reddit have made the rules clear to everyone. The rich will not tolerate the average person making money while they suffer.
The question is to what extent hedge fund managers and other wealthy people are willing to do so to defend their class interests. If the story is a guide, the answer is “damn it.”