15 ms·
Robinhood Play Store listing went from 329K reviews to 180K in few hours
- buttholesurfer 6y agoLol, "just make your own platform"
- aml702 6y agoshame on google
- degenerate 6y agoWell, that was incredibly quick. Big money talks FAST.
- CobrastanJorji 6y agoOr, just possibly, a hundred thousand one star reviews in one day trigger some sort of automated spam system and not everything is the work of shadowy big financial institutes?
- myself248 6y agoIf that's the case, then the spam system is at fault and needs fixing. Actual users should be able to leave actual reviews about the app's actual behavior without being flagged as spam. As long as they're not violating other terms like vulgarity or whatever, those reviews are valid and removing them means the system is doing the wrong thing.
- aroman 6y agohave they acknowledged this? how can they justify it? are we should it's google and not robinhood somehow? IIRC, the iOS App Store allows developers some control over how ratings are presented (i.e. by allowing them the option to reset ratings when uploading a new version)
- franklampard 6y agoYeah the title is speculated, should be more factual: “robinhood’s Google store ratings recovered”
- djrogers 6y agoIf the reviews were reset, there wouldn’t be 180k+ reviews sitting there right now...
- rvnx 6y agoIt's not possible for an app publisher to delete reviews. However, in the Google Play Console, as an app publisher you can flag comments as against the Google ToS, about 100 per day maximum and then the reviews go through moderation at Google. Here, it's more like a bulk deletion was done (certainly manual action) and I doubt it's just one single moderator taking action to delete 100k+ reviews.
- distalx 6y agoNothing new to see here, they did similar things in the past for other apps too.
- jokethrowaway 6y agoIf someone predicted 10 years ago what Big Tech did in the last years, they would have been labeled conspiracy theorist.
- hoka-one-one 6y agoWell yes because conspiracy theories are usually associated with the far right political agenda. Plus a broken clock is correct twice a day.
- Fellshard 6y agoDo not speak without knowledge. A cursory glance at history will show it is not a unique phenomenon of one worldview.
- huntermeyer 6y agoThey're just ahead of the curve.
- api 6y agoModern surveillance capitalism is far beyond the wildest fever dreams of 90s shortwave radio conspiracy nuts.
- Avicebron 6y agoagreed, at least jack-booted thugs are visible to those they oppress
- Darmody 6y agoStalin would've loved it.
- rangibaby 6y agoIf you told Markus Wolf in 1989 that in 2021 most citizens in the world would write each other private and political communicatons via a tracking device that can’t be turned off, and that device has both microphones and cameras, he would raise and eyebrow and ask “How did we win the Cold War?”
- ariwilson 6y ago100k 1-star reviews sounds like bot spam FWIW also the link provides no proof
- loceng 6y agoIt might look like it from 100,000 foot view, however a bottom's up approach would show that there are millions, if not tens of millions, of people quite aware of Robinhood's shenanigans and are pissed off about it - enough to leave a review.
- MauranKilom 6y agoThere are over 5 million subscribers to /r/wallstreetbets as of right now. The majority of them joined this week. 2% of them voting on the app doesn't sound like bot spam to me.
- tqi 6y agoReddit is not exactly known for preventing spam account creation...
- benji_is_me 6y agoThe original (now banned) discord had >300k members alone.
- rnotaro 6y agoDiscord have an hard limit of 250 000 users so that's a lie.
- ripply 6y agoThe discord group is back up, you can see how many members it has yourself - 378,303 https://discord.com/invite/wallstreetbets https://discord.com/invite/wallstreetbets
- benji_is_me 6y ago
- partiallypro 6y agoHow were these not overall real reviews? If they can't prove otherwise, this just entrenches the idea that big money is vastly more powerful than small voices. I honestly don't see how if this trend continues how things will end well. It's not just about Robinhood, etc, it's deplatforming, using AWS, etc as a weapon against smaller voices. I can't see this ending well.
- mulmen 6y agoYou may think reviews are calculated as: SELECT app, AVG(stars) AS display_stars FROM customer_reviews GROUP BY app; It’s actually an ML algorithm that optimizes for revenue.
- dragosmocrii 6y agoThat's an excellent point
- DevKoala 6y agoI love this comment.
- fastball 6y agoDoes RH have in-app purchases? Otherwise not sure how wiping negative reviews optimizes for revenue.
- mandelbrotwurst 6y agoHigh ratings for apps in the store might help convince users that the store is worth using. Or, even better, high ratings for apps from large corporations encourage them to support the continuation of your store's monopoly power.
- simias 6y agoBut that's why there's no real need for manipulation. App store what highly rated apps and app makers want their apps to be highly rated so they use more or less dark patterns and incentives to incite users to leave good reviews. There's a massive selection bias at play which tends to naturally inflate review scores without any explicit fudging.
- empressplay 6y agoI think it's becoming crystal clear Americans live in an oligarchy, not a democracy.
- justinzollars 6y agoor Mussolini style Italian Fascism. Corporatist economics and authoritarianism
- sidlls 6y agoYou're being downvoted, but you're not really wrong. It might present differently, but the reality is that the government and large, powerful corporations are separate entities more or less in name only. If the interests of a large corporation serves the interest of the people in the government, they'll move every lever of government they can to support the corporation, and vice versa. That's basically exactly what the fascism you describe intended and attempted.
- sudosysgen 6y agoIndeed. What separates fascism from authoritarianism is the merger of state and corporation. If you mix the convergence of state and government along with the effective dissolution of the rights to privacy and the rights to free speech, along with the post-truth nature of so much of today's media (remember WMDs? It's not just Fox News), the argument that we're approaching some kind of fascism isn't completely devoid of merit.
- justinzollars 6y agoThanks.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- tesmar2 6y agoHow exactly was this not the free market? Did robinhood do something illegal and break their contract?
- _jal 6y ago"Incorrect opinion, Citizen Unit 263-29-2942."
- drstewart 6y agoPrivate company, they can do what they want. Or suddenly no?
- Avicebron 6y agoJust because a company can does what it wants doesn't mean there can't be vocal discourse denouncing that opinion
- drstewart 6y agoWSB users can just self host their own review platform in Russia if they care so much.
- tesmar2 6y agoThe sudden reversal is just amusing.
- happytoexplain 6y agoWhat reversal? If you're referring to a different scenario, then you should explain why they are comparable, instead of sarcastically declaring that they are.
- tesmar2 6y agoI meant the general tone of this forum in regards to private companies doing what they want. Last week it was parler being deplatformed and most here were happy with that as the free market was doing what it wants. Now the free market is doing the same and people are pissed. Unless you think that what robinhood did violated their contract, but I doubt the court will see it that way.
- TeMPOraL 6y agoFew more cases of this, and finally people will understand that this argument is bullshit for platforms this size. Quantity has its own quality, as the saying goes.
- cmdli 6y agoHonest question: why does Google care here? They don't really have a stake in the GME situation, with no short or long positions (I'm assuming). They aren't that connected to Wall Street companies. Why protect Robinhood at all?
- alexanderh 6y agoMoney. These people are fixing to lose to much, they'll pay their way out any way they can while they still can.
- harikb 6y agoI get RH might be paying money to cleanup play store reviews, but how much is enough to justify the negative PR ? There is another angle though - may be RH or some higher power is threatening to sue Google if they didn't help cleanup based on their own terms, which might have clause of active sabotage - I am sure they claim this is one such event.
- bonoboTP 6y agoThat's not how these things work. Google is interested in the status quo. So much turmoil around digital platforms angering the owner class is bad for their business, more tech regulation etc. They don't want any drama, just fun and consumption. RH didn't pay anything. Google knows what to do. The interests are way deeper than some pocket change moving around...
- whoisjuan 6y ago> They aren't that connected to Wall Street companies. Lol. Sure they aren't.
- mhh__ 6y agoMaybe, but Google are in a different league to these funds.
- fireeyed 6y ago"Its a big club and you ain't in it" - George Carlin Politicians + Government Lackeys, Media Hacks + Corrupt Wall Street + Think Tanks + 'not for profits' https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cKUaqFzZLxU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cKUaqFzZLxU
- zouhair 6y agoI like the guy but I disagree with his fatalism. If we managed as human beings to curtail what was considered normal for millennia, to wit slave trade, we can also make things way better. We need to start by making it illegal to be a billionaire.
- SllX 6y ago> We need to start by making it illegal to be a billionaire. I’m listening. What does this law look like?
- zouhair 6y agoTaxes. I think most human beings can survive with 100 millions of dollars of wealth (it's more than one can spend in multiple lifetimes). Anything over that can just be taxed. The problem of letting any private entities get that rich is they start to take control of everything. One such example is The East India Company having at one point a bigger private army than the British Army[0]. As things go we will soon be at that point again. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presidency_armies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presidency_armies
- SllX 6y agoSo you’re not making it illegal to be a billionaire, you’re just taking it in the form of raising revenue for the government. Except government revenue serves a purpose: paying for government services and salaries. What do you do with the surplus cash? What about when someone does not have a billion dollars in cash, but has billions in assets? Flesh this out for me please.
- fxtentacle 6y agoDid anyone actually think that online ratings represent anything meaningful? It's numbers in a database controlled by the seller who makes more money if the numbers are better. My insight that it's all fake came when I tried to purchase a baby carrier on Amazon and found a product with hundreds of 5 star reviews, but all the pictures were teenagers with their plush toys...
- newacct583 6y agoHN has lost its mind. Everything is suddenly a conspiracy against the noble individual investor. Story after story voted up to the front page with minimal relevance. I mean, just think: were there really 100k legitimate Robinhood accounts that were blocked from an HME buy to justify a bad review? No. This is spam. It's just spam. People are angry, and this is a tool. And it's treated by Google exactly the way any other review spam would be. There's no conspiracy here.
- adamnemecek 6y agoThe anger is justified.
- MauranKilom 6y ago> were there really 100k legitimate Robinhood accounts that were blocked from an HME buy to justify a bad review? According to Motherboard, the majority of RH accounts hold GME. There's also over 5 million subscribers to /r/wallstreetbets as we speak (most of them from this week). What percentage of those do you think would be "eligible" (according to your own criteria) to leave a legitimate review?
- TeMPOraL 6y ago> According to Motherboard, the majority of RH accounts hold GME. They retracted that later. "Correction: An earlier version of this article stated that 56 percent of Robinhood users hold GME stock. This is incorrect, based on a misreading of a statistic on Robinhood. Motherboard regrets the error." See the bottom of: https://www.vice.com/en/article/m7ak7y/robinhood-stops-users-from-trading-gamestop-stocks-other-reddit-yolo-picks https://www.vice.com/en/article/m7ak7y/robinhood-stops-users... They haven't provided an updated value. However, it's not hard to believe a significant chunk of Robin Hood users owned some GME today.
- MauranKilom 6y agoThank you! Would correct if I could still edit.
- vecinu 6y agoIf you sort by `Newest` and `1-Star`, I am seeing pages (paginated) and pages of reviews. What am I missing?
- Nightshaxx 6y agoI am a real user of the app and I can confirm my review was reviewed without my consent.
- aaomidi 6y agoWhy do people keep needing proof that big money runs everything.
- JKCalhoun 6y agoYeah, really. Can anyone point to counter-examples?
- ironmagma 6y agoThere are a few -- Glassdoor, and Google reviews let you post bad reviews of businesses even if they have tons of money. That's not to say I disagree that big money runs things, just that it's not 100%.
- Hasnep 6y agoEntirely anecdote, but I've heard of companies asking all their employees to give them good Glassdoor reviews.
- xenocratus 6y agoThere were stories here on HN (might dig them up) about how Glassdoor blackmails companies with "it would be a shame if your good reputation was ruined by some random bad reviews, eh?" and removes bad reviews for companies that hand over the dough :)
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- jollofricepeas 6y agoThis is definitely a thing. The startup I used to work for did this a ton before they were acquired. They would even request it during all-staff meetings.
- TeMPOraL 6y agoIIRC from recent HN threads, Glassdoor is considered to be completely gamed, and the company is in on it. See e.g.: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24789865 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24789865.
- hiimtroymclure 6y agoThere is some kind of revolution coming. The big catalysts are things like censorship on social media and wall st changing the rules on the retail investors. But actions like these only mount the problems. Why on earth would google remove these reviews? What Robinhood has done this week is an extremely reviewable act.
- iaHN 6y agoThe Google play store managers and/or their bosses probably have their hands deep in it. It'd be interesting to see what a real investigation into this produces.
- EGreg 6y agoThe owners have shown up: https://intercoin.org/nothingisfree https://intercoin.org/nothingisfree
- fbelzile 6y agoJan 28 2020 (14:05): 196,808 reviews (2.x star rating) https://web.archive.org/web/20210128140536/https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.robinhood.android https://web.archive.org/web/20210128140536/https://play.goog... Now: 180,500 reviews (4 star rating) https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.robinhood.android&showAllReviews=true&showAllReviews=true&1 https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.robinhood.... It seems like they just deleted all of today's ratings.
- rvnx 6y agoYou can see it in the screenshot: https://ibb.co/PwLD7Sh https://ibb.co/PwLD7Sh
- bitcharmer 6y agoThis page doesn't exist
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- croissants 6y agoSomething similar happened after Four Seasons Total Landscaping hosted an impromptu Trump press conference. Within hours there were thousands of 1-star reviews on their Google business page, and then a day or so later all of the recent reviews were gone and they were back to a few dozen old ones. This case is different since Robinhood did something that materially affects its users. And I guess a lot of these reviews must be legitimate? But I wonder if there's some switch that flips if a huge influx of reviews starts pouring in.
- nikisweeting 6y agoIt's still sitting at 4.7 stars on the iOS app store as well, with few 1 star reviews visible. I wonder if they have a queue that reviews have to sit in before they start showing up publicly.
- coding123 6y agoI wonder if the next phase of the internet is for groups of heck, 100000, maybe 1M or even 100M people to organize to take things down permanently. Maybe right now it's like baby steps, but what happens in a year?
- PragmaticPulp 6y agoThe WSB debacle gained momentum because everyone thought they were going to get rich in the process. I think people are going to become very disillusioned when they realize how much of the information posted to WSB was misinformation. WSB removes posts and comments that don't toe the line that everyone needs to buy and hold GME. Meanwhile, the only way to profit from this trade is to sell at exactly the right time, before everyone else does. There will also be a lot of frustration and disappointment when various hedge funds announce how they made record profits on the Gamestop frenzy. Some will suffer, of course, but others will make billions. Finally, living in a world where frenzied crowds conspire to take out services based on shared misunderstandings will not make for great outcomes.
- CamelCaseName 6y ago> WSB removes posts and comments that don't toe the line that everyone needs to buy and hold GME WSB allows both sides of the conversation, but because users have become especially dogmatic recently, any opinion that runs counter to the narrative gets downvoted.
- samizdis 6y agoFinal edit to add: IGNORE THIS COMMENT! Nothing to see here, but I can't delete this post. tl;dr I got excited because I couldn't see the RH app returned in a play store search, even though I could see the app via a direct link. A commenter has pointed out that this is because the app isn't available where I am, in the UK. Sorry for the fuss. ---------------------------------------- I've just posted the comment below in a dupe of this post [0], but am keen to see whether anyone else can reproduce my result: I just searched for the app so that I could see what reviews remained, using my desktop browser pointed at: https://play.google.com/store/search?q=robinhood%20trading&c https://play.google.com/store/search?q=robinhood%20trading&c... Top results include Trading 212, Webull, eToro and others - and the page goes on for quite a while (Coinbase, Bamboo, etc) before eventually ending up with kids' cartoon Robin Hood games. The Robinhood app itself hasn't been displayed. Can anyone else confirm this? Edit to add: Just tried searching using the suggestion [1] that came up after I typed the word "robinhood" into the query box - which was "robinhood trading app uk" - and chose that. I thought that perhaps there was some georestricted stuff going on. But no: I scrolled to the end and the Robinhood app was not listed. [1] https://play.google.com/store/search?q=robinhood%20trading%2 https://play.google.com/store/search?q=robinhood%20trading%2... --- Further edit to add that I followed the link given in this post, which took me to the RH app page with its (remaining) reviews, and then copied the title of the app as given "Robinhood - Investment & Trading, Commission-free", and pasted it into the search box. https://play.google.com/store/search?q=Robinhood%20-%20Investment%20%26%20Trading%2C%20Commission-free&c=apps https://play.google.com/store/search?q=Robinhood%20-%20Inves... Again, that search returned lots of other apps, but not the Robinhood one. Any ideas why? [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25951215 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25951215
- crote 6y agoSome apps are region-locked. It doesn't show up in my search either, but if I manually go to its play store page [0] it states "This app is not available for your device". Blocking apps you can't use from search isn't that unexpected. [0] https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.robinhood.android https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.robinhood....
- 6y ago
- mehlmao 6y agoI left a 1-star rating this morning. Just checked a minute ago and it appeared as if I had not left a rating. I quickly corrected this.
- PsylentKnight 6y agoCan confirm. This also happened to me.
- recursivedoubts 6y agoIt's a big club. And you ain't in it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i5dBZDSSky0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i5dBZDSSky0
- seany 6y agoI left a one star this morning. I deleted it and added a new one with different text string
- tester756 6y agoThey had over 300k rates and 1 star for solid reasons
- ramosu 6y agoWow, they don't even try to hide anymore.
- justaguy88 6y agoI guess everyone will have to resubmit their 1-stars :/
- sbussard 6y agoSilicon Valley is awesome but it’s a puppet factory
- tinyhouse 6y agoStop the conspiracy theories. It's not Parlor here. Google don't give a fuck about RH. But they need to protect businesses and cannot be the judge. Think about someone influential who wants to ruin a restaurant and organize something similar to that. A low rating these days kills a business. Not allowing organized activities like this is a good thing. Don't worry, RH's good rating will die over time.
- frongpik 6y agoWe must be watching a budget 1 star movie. In the first half of the movie, the action takes place in a casino. Players have figured how to win the rigged game and the casino is losing big money. Managers have to drop the pretense they follow the rules.
- segmondy 6y agoBig Tech is really begging for some regulation. They are really likely to get it soon too.
- kerng 6y agoHow is this possible? Can Robinhood just ask Google to remove 1 star reviews??
- vanattab 6y agoFor what its worth I edited my previous 4 star review to a 1 star today and it seems to still be active. But rating the app as 1 star is not enough. We need to take our money out of Robinhood even if we end up having to pay a few dollars per trade. Also I have not made any plays on gme or the other stocks and I would not recommend anyone else do so but this type of market manipulation is unacceptable and needs to be punished.
- varenc 6y agoModerating obvious brigading is standard practice. Huge influxes of retaliatory negative reviews in reaction to external events aren't considered very genuine. I don't think Robinhood is getting any special treatment from Google here.
- read_if_gay_ 6y agoIt’s not an external event.
- dilap 6y agoWhat exactly is "ungenuine" about giving a negative review to a stock-trading app because it did not let you trade stock?
- f430 6y agoI recall not too long ago people were balking at the idea. HN isn't immune either. Try posting any criticism of Github's half assed apology to the Jewish engineer who simply said "watch out for Nazis" on Capitol Hill. Try bringing up the anti-semitic memes being posted inside Github's work environment allegedly. I guarantee you will be downvoted and flagged. Not only that but all of your other comments in your history will be downvoted. Go ahead, try it. I've repeatedly experienced this and I don't care if I get banned now because it would confirm our greatest fears that not too long ago were brushed off as "partisan conspiracy theory". The silver lining is that Fediverse is gaining more and more support until one day it becomes a serious contender.
- kerng 6y agoQuestion: I gave a 1 star review on AppStore and when looking at it again it appears like I didnt give a review at all? Can someone else confirm- is this the same for others? So you just cant leave a 1 star review (it says thanks for feedback though)
- jeffbee 6y agoI get very different review counts when I reload this page. I think people are greatly overestimating the consistency of this number.
- luord 6y agoI have little to no interest in any stock market, but everything that's happening around r/wallstreetbets right now is nothing short of fascinating. Almost seems like a domino effect, revealing step by step how much control these companies have, at least beyond the tech sphere[1], and how interconnected they are. I mean, not that I'm really surprised by this happening with Google[2], but still I didn't expect them to get involved; don't see what they have to gain by this other than sharing on the bad publicity. Wonder if Apple will step in too. Hopefully these events will actually lead into more adoption of decentralized protocols and platforms (and more support for open hardware development, maybe), and I'm starting to wonder if this week will go into the history books. [1]: I mean to say that I know that many in the tech sector were already aware of it. But everyone at large was just kind of okay with it, so this is revelatory from that perspective. Well, hopefully it is. [2]: In fact, this was probably caused by the surge in activity triggering one of their (in)famously intransigent algorithms, which never seem to stop increasing in number.
- gerash 6y agoThings are often less intentionally sinister than they look. In this case I believe they're following the policy of removing a mob like review attack. However the effect is still undesired where a group of unhappy users can't express their dissatisfaction through the review system
- dalbasal 6y agoOK what? What the f%#$ is going on here?!! What triggered Alphabet to suddenly get involved? I'm assuming that these reviews didn't appear recently, suddenly or something. Discord shuts down WallStreetBets and reddit throttle them.. both for hate speech. Suddenly, simultaneously and coincidentally during their maneuver. The CEO of the NASDAQ rushes to a camera calling for SEC scrutiny and tightening regulation, wearing a look of disbelief on her own face. Financial press have a meltdown in the opposite direction of regular reporters. No laws seem to have been broken. Now google happen to be doing something with the RH app? WTF! This whole thing is saucier than soup.
- jquery 6y agoAll that’s missing is a dishonest Trump tweet telling everyone what to think about the situation.
- dalbasal 6y agoLol. I hadn't even thought of him. He's probably deep in twitter withdrawal atm. All this action. All the other famous billionaires tweeting.
- tzs 6y ago> What triggered Alphabet to suddenly get involved? I'm assuming that these reviews didn't appear recently, suddenly or something. They did appear recently. The latest pre-today copy of the page at archive.org [1] had it at 166469 reviews (average a tad over 4 stars). That was from 2020-11-17. The next copy there was at 14:06 today (2021-01-28) [2]. It's up to 196808 reviews (average 2.5 stars). They captured it several mores times today. Here's a table. 14:06 196808 17:17 295104 18:24 306315 19:17 327577 20:22 330648 21:02 319501 21:36 246084 22:25 202305 and they have two captures from tomorrow: 00:24 180490 02:23 178221 If we play it safe and assume that all the reviews as of 14:06 today were old reviews, there was a minimum of 133840 reviews today, which would have been 40% of the total reviews. More realistically, if we go with about 170k old reviews, it's more like 160k reviews today representing almost 50% of all reviews. [1] https://web.archive.org/web/20201117224019/https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.robinhood.android https://web.archive.org/web/20201117224019/https://play.goog... [2] https://web.archive.org/web/20201117224019/https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.robinhood.android https://web.archive.org/web/20201117224019/https://play.goog...
- ibraheemdev 6y agoGoogle is censoring reviews as we speak. If you refresh the page you can see the review count climb up, and then fall down.
- codecamper 6y agoWow. WSB == Hacker News?
- bilekas 6y agoIs it not market manipulation when you can control (a mojority in this case) buyers actions ? My belief is they wouldn't take action blocking trades without their intermediary influencing.. It makes no difference to them otherwise. So who is RH's intermediary? I couldn't find from a brief google search but I am curious how and why this occurred when it looks like such a bad move for RH. Especially with rumours of them wanting to move for an IPO themselves. 1) Something happened here, either they didn't have capacity tech wise, which is a legit concern. - I haven't heard that being the reason yet. 2) Their intermediary blocked their trades, and so they got cucked, can't think of a better expression. 3) Someone told them to slow that squeeze down - This is probably the most UNLIKELY, but the one that everyone wants to jump to. We might find out why, but really in the end it doesn't matter.. WSB and co has proven, the market is as strong as the confidence people give it. Lies propogate when money is involved, shorting +20% is considered risk, +100%.. I'm sorry but I personally don't have sympathy. Infact, I appreciate when it's caled out. I'd rather not bail out any more banks for bad practices that might be legal purely because they haven't had a light shone on them. I do worry about the losers in this all though, and it's not the people with money. If you're in this deep, rent money deep, get out. It's a good fight, but there is no unsung hero reward on this one. If you have money, pump that to pluto idk.
- bilekas 6y agoRobinHood has aspirations of an IPO. I think it's fair to say they've lost the confidence of their audience up to 90%. I honestly don't think it was their call. But highlights the demand for a decentralised market... Honestly, the people have spoken.
- jonp888 6y agoIt seems to me these are not really genuine app reviews. If I look at the reviews for a Smart TV companion app I want to see review of the app, not complaints about the picture quality on the TV.
- souprock 6y agoThe proper response from Google was really simple. The app is a fraud, so remove it from the play store and ban the developer.
- solomonb 6y agoI just checked and they removed my review I wrote earlier today. I am not a bot.
- underseacables 6y agoNothing like big technology companies deciding whose voice should be heard..
- dang 6y agoThe previous thread on this is https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25947697 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25947697. For pointers to other vertices of this story graph, see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25933543 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25933543. Large threads are paginated. If you want to see all the comments you'll need to click through the More links at the bottom, or like this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25951390&p=2 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25951390&p=2 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25951390&p=3 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25951390&p=3 (and so on)
- dang 6y ago(This is a stub reply so I can collapse the various comments responding to this, so as not to distract too much from the topic at hand. (Sorry, non-JS users.))
- JJJollyjim 6y agoHave you considered making the website actually show the comments instead of pinning yourself on every large post?
- Teever 6y agoHackernews has very few staff and most of them are busy with administration/moderation. I agree kind of odd to see pinned posts by Dang but I have a feeling that's the best they can do with the resources at hand.
- detaro 6y agoGiven that they specifically introduced pagination to avoid issues caused by too-large single pages, probably yes. (tbh I would have passive-agressively made the "next" link 100px Comic Sans, but it's probably a good thing I'm not responsible for that)
- dang 6y agoYes, but I don't want this temporary state to get too comfortable because it's not the desired solution: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24042165 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24042165 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25065663 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25065663 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25087113 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25087113 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25383091 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25383091 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25710620 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25710620 (thanks tzs!) "Every large post" is an exaggeration, of course—I probably do this on fewer than 10% of the paginated threads.
- Serious_Cheese 6y agoFor anyone looking for a proof: Before: https://web.archive.org/web/20210128202220/https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.robinhood.android https://web.archive.org/web/20210128202220/https://play.goog... Now: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.robinhood.android&showAllReviews=true&showAllReviews=true&1 https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.robinhood....
- laserjet25 6y agoI have used Robinhood in the past for a short period of time. Wouldn't have known my review was removed if i didn't see this article...
- bArray 6y agoJust a reminder to de-Google your life too. There are some decent alternatives out there, for example Nextcloud for storage and open-source Linux phones like the PinePhone and Librem 5. As for video platforms, Library is looking promising, as well as other peer networks like PeerTube and BitChute. Alternatives are out there! Bare in mind, Google have pulled these kinds of stunts before. Just recently they removed a bunch of negative comments and dislikes from Biden's presidential speech - whatever your political position, I think nobody should be above criticism. Vote with your feet!
- at_a_remove 6y agoRotten Tomatoes has pulled the same shenanigans before when a "this was supposed to be popular!" movie ended up with poor ratings from mere users. If anything, the lack of kickback to them has only emboldened moves like this one.
- perryizgr8 6y agoSame thing happened for tiktok in India. When people are posting reviews that call out actual grievances suddenly these are "fake reviews". But everybody justifies such actions by Google/Apple saying they have a right to allow/disallow whatever they want on their platform, no obligation at all. First they came for us, and you didn't speak out. Now they are coming for you.
- buffaloo 6y agoWe’ve got billions of people who need to feel sufficient confidence in the media and authorities to take vaccines nobody has used before at a time when every media outlet has some agenda to monkey around with what we know to be true. Not cool.
- recursive 6y agoPeople have taken them before. There were tests. A relative of mine was in one. Furthermore, the media doesn't certify which vaccines are safe. There are various governmental agencies in different countries for that.
- Nbox9 6y ago> Furthermore, the media doesn't certify which vaccines are safe. The media plays a critical role in encouraging people to get a vaccine.
- recursive 6y agoI would be very surprised if any reputable media was telling anyone a vaccine that wasn't certified.
- buffaloo 6y agoYeah, “media doesn’t certify the...” I think I’ve heard that before. Some government process does it all according to Hoyle, sure. Sounds familiar.
- phendrenad2 6y agoProbably an automated system, detecting reviews by people who haven't actually used the app. Google is basically an AI-run company at this point.
- suyash 6y agoDoesn't abstain them from taking responsibility. What if there were bunch of legit bad reviews that got deleted?
- lallysingh 6y ago.. responsibility? Google? I don't see how this would hurt their advertisers.
- yuliyp 6y agoResponsibility for what, exactly? They don't have a responsibility to publish any particular review in the store. They're free to include/exclude/weight the data they receive to give you star ratings for apps in any way they'd like. Vote clumps like this one tend to make star ratings less trustworthy as a measure of the true quality of an app, so I'd expect an app store operator to discount them.
- suyash 6y agoresponsibility for maintaining the integrity of app reviews
- yuliyp 6y agoFair enough. There's a tension here between integrity and usefulness that is interesting, though. If I were to put myself into their shoes I'd be hesitant to commit to a specific public-facing policy for filtering ratings and reviews, though.
- ulfw 6y agoAnd the 130,000 employees all work on new Messengers?
- nightski 6y agoI've been using Android for over a decade now I believe. Have only reviewed a handful of apps and generally been a good citizen. I left a thoughtful one star review today and it was deleted. I'm not going to lie, it irks me.
- dalbasal 6y agoThis energetic response from so many huge players even outside of WS have really elevated this meme stock saga to a monumental art piece. Another interesting aspect is the back-and-forward. Reddit throttled and seem to have restored the sub. Discord reversed the ban. FB & Google jumped in. Not to mention all the WS action, obviously. Financial press started with an emphatically anti-WSB position but public opinion and regular media went sharply in the other direction. I suspect tomorrow's press will be quite different. WSB nutters believe they have withstood an day of coordinated market manipulation efforts. They're very pumped for round 2. Meanwhile, it seems like brokers, clearing houses, market makers and the markets are getting ready to reopen trading again. The whole thing has become symbolic, and that might mean even more demand tomorrow.
- agumonkey 6y agoIt feels like picking votes in a democracy. An interesting concept.
- Barrin92 6y agocustomer reviews aren't really a 'democracy'. They're supposed to be authentic and reflect the overall quality of the app to the general user. A horde of outraged users bombarding the app even though most people won't care about this particular event distorts the rating comparable to disappointed TV viewers bombing imdb. It ruins the utility for everyone else.
- bazooka_penguin 6y agoI think the review is meant to reflect the entire product, not just the app. That includes robinhood's service, they're not separate. And robinhood passed a lot of people off by restricting the buying of certain stock. The backlash is warranted
- dataflow 6y agoI always thought of app reviews as being reviews of the applications... not of the companies or services behind them. So it's kind of jarring for me to see the app taking a hit when it's the service people have a complaint about. The app didn't misbehave, right? It's not like a different app interfacing with Robinhood would've worked any better. So while I don't particularly like what they're doing, I think I can understand it if this is their motivation for removing these reviews. Edit: Never mind—it turns out Google literally says "Your reviews should reflect the experience you've had with the content or service you're reviewing."... apparently they do want you to review the service... or at least at some point they thought they did. Pretty confusing to see how they're dealing with this now, if they truly want that. https://play.google.com/about/comment-posting-policy/ https://play.google.com/about/comment-posting-policy/
- epistasis 6y agoFor this app, it is inseparable from the services it provides, they are one and the same. Edit: imagine reviewing the Instagram app, but doing it only as a review of the app part and not of the service too? If Instagram is likely to lose your data, or otherwise misbehave, and its not the app code but the service itself, it still has a big impact on the app experience. I can't think of a single app review that's only based on the app code, everything is also about what the app lets you do, the services attached to it.
- dataflow 6y agoHow though? The website behaved the same way. By that logic it would be impossible to review the website? And it's not like it's hard to imagine an app with a worse interface in front of the same service. A worse app for the service should receive a lower rating, right?
- epistasis 6y agoYou can't use the app for anything except this one service. If you're not reviewing the service itself at the same time, what's the point of reviewing the app?
- altcognito 6y agoHuh, Apple hasn’t a review from today either, but no story on that.
- t-writescode 6y agoLooks like you found that! Go and let everyone know!
- barnaclejive 6y agoApple reporting is significantly delayed, always has been, seems like 24-48 hours. They seem to to do more batching than realtime with reporting. Tomorrow may be more interesting, or not, if they choose to delete activity from today.
- cudgy 6y agoGoogle should go ahead and adopt a new slogan “We are evil, so let’s let the world know it.”
- luxuryballs 6y agoI think they did just that when they retired the slogan “don’t be evil”.
- cudgy 6y agoTrue, but they haven’t come out and stated it explicitly yet. Now’s the time ... don’t miss this opportunity, Google.
- f430 6y ago"Don't be evil" has aged really well.
- gigatexal 6y agoThe system is rigged. Next we will find out Google Ventures invested in RobinHood. 100k bad reviews is a lot in recent days perhaps many were bots? I dunno
- freakynit 6y agoScrew the FAANG gang...they are not lawmakers and shouldn't behave like one.
- barnaclejive 6y agoJust keep doing it, next week, next month... how many bailouts is Google going to give them?
- Triv888 6y agoI stopped using Robinhood before all this non-sense because the interface sucks (and also, many stocks aren't available on RH).
- yellowait44 6y agoWhere does it end the censorship? This is starting to look real bad.
- loycombinate 6y agoJust post the neg review again...
- perryizgr8 6y agoGoogle is a company and not obligated to let anybody post any kind of review on their platform. This is a non-issue. Whoever doesn't like can build their own play store, android os, and smartphone. No need to whine.
- cyberpsybin 6y agoThere is no hope for average Joe
- TrianguloY 6y agoSo, if a free-to-use app suddenly becomes pay-to-use and all users lose their access to their data unless they pay (similar to an app getting malware but in a legal way), and then those users review with 1 stars...Google will remove those reviews? This is dangerous. I remember some cases where an app suddenly changes owner and adds ads and other unwanted features. What happened in those other cases?
- hydroii 6y agoThis is insane