Robinhood, the investing app, is getting blasted by many of its users because it halted purchases of specific stocks.
Thousands of individuals left scathing reviews about the business on the Google Play app store, causing its rating to drop to just one star. But Google went ahead and deleted about 100,000 of those reviews causing the stars to increase.
Stock prices increased dramatically for companies like GameStop after Reddit users encouraged folks to buy, causing the prices to run-up.
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On Wednesday, the app had about four out of five stars; by Thursday, it had dropped down to just one star.
A spokesperson from Google confirmed to Gizmodo it had deleted the reviews because they do not support “coordinated or inorganic reviews.” When Gizmodo pushed back and asked Google why the comments were viewed as “inorganic,” it stopped responding to the publication.
Since Google deleted the negative comments the company’s stars on Google Play went back to about four stars. But now users have come together to leave negative one-star reviews. The company is now a little over three stars.
Many app users also took to Twitter to air out their Robinhood grievances.
“Thank you @RobinhoodApp for uniting America,” The Daily Show correspondent, Ronny Chieng, joked on Twitter.
Entrepreneur Dan Price even poked fun at how ‘manipulating’ the stock market truly is.
It is still unclear why Robinhood blocked users from buying certain stocks, as previously reported by theGrio.
GameStop stock has rocketed from below $20 earlier this month to more than $400 Thursday as a volunteer army of investors on social media challenged big institutions who had placed market bets that the stock would fall.
Among the restrictions announced by Robinhood on Thursday, investors would only be able to sell their positions and not open new ones in some cases, and Robinhood will try to slow the amount of trading using borrowed money.
Besides GameStop, Robinhood said trading in stocks such as AMC Entertainment, Bed Bath & Beyond, Blackberry, Nokia, Express Inc., Koss Corp., and Naked Brand Group would be affected by the new restrictions.
Vlad Tenev, co-founder Robinhood app, took to Twitter to address the fallout between users and the app.
He wrote, “We cannot control, however, the lightning-fast spread of information and misinformation that takes place on social media, and for that I am incredibly sorry to our customers and staff for this.”
He followed up with how the company will keep monitoring market conditions and will update this Help Center article with the latest changes.”
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