"Well they sell your trade data to HFT firms before a trade is executed " Is this actually true? If so it blows me away this this is not illegal, or that the p

"Well they sell your trade data to HFT firms before a trade is executed " Is this actually true? If so it blows me away this this is not illegal, or that the press hasn't destroyed them for it. RobinHood is has one of the most ridiculous branding efforts ever: 'borne of the Occupy Wall Street' movement, the idea was to empower Millennials to 'break the system' ... by 'buying into the system'??? It's like the perfect script written by a NY agency for a bank to re-position the exact same financial products under the banner of a ridiculous 'empowerment branding', like Exxon creating a hipster brand to sell 'clean oil'. "Robinhood Raises $323M to Democratize Finance For All" [1]. "Trading app tries to fix a 'rigged' financial system" [2] from CNN. How does a startup get major news agencies to consistently promote their narratives unchallenged, especially when they're so ridiculous? We saw this a lot with WeWork as well. I can't figure out is how the press, particularly CNN bought into hook-line and sinker especially early on. They've been consistently promoting Robin Hood and their 'empowering message' with fluff stories, not remotely critical of the materiality of the business. Have a look [3] Recently, they've started to question some things, and perhaps the press will fall out of love with them and it'll be narrative in the other direction. There is absolutely something amiss here, if anyone with deep relationships in the PR and story placement care to comment, it would be enlightening as I think that's a big part of the underlying story. Edit: another great example of the press point-blank driving RH's branding, in this case 'intergenerational' [4]. What kind of agency can get this kind of coverage? [1] https://blog.robinhood.com/news/2019/7/21/robinhood-raises-323m-to-democratize-finance-for-all https://blog.robinhood.com/news/2019/7/21/robinhood-raises-3... [2] https://www.cnn.com/videos/business/2018/09/21/robinhood-founders-investing-fresh-money-orig.cnn https://www.cnn.com/videos/business/2018/09/21/robinhood-fou... [3] https://money.cnn.com/2017/09/08/investing/robinhood-baiju-bhatt-vlad-tenev-fresh-money/index.html https://money.cnn.com/2017/09/08/investing/robinhood-baiju-b... [4] https://www.trtworld.com/magazine/robinhood-and-merry-millennial-investors-stare-down-boomers-37200 https://www.trtworld.com/magazine/robinhood-and-merry-millen...