7 ms·

Google reportedly scraps thousands of negative Robinhood reviews

108 points by guybedo 6y ago

lucasmullens 6y ago
"The company reportedly said that Google’s policies explicitly prohibit reviews aiming to manipulate an app’s rating" Literally the only reason someone rates something is to affect/manipulate the rating.
- wnevets 6y ago
  > Literally the only reason someone Well, no. Maybe we're splitting hairs but when I rate something its to describe my experience, not to affect its overall rating. At no point do I think my one rating would have a meaningful impact on its overall score unless it has very few ratings to begin with.
  - osrec 6y ago
    I think it depends on whether your experience was positive or negative. If positive, I think your description applies. If negative, I think people really do want to impact the rating negatively.
    - jessriedel 6y ago
      When I find a good product and review it, it's because I want to benefit the developer and help other people find it. I am trying to affect the overall rating.
    - wnevets 6y ago
      So if you were to leave a 1 star review on the facebook app on the google play store, you actually think you're impacting their overall score in a meaningful way?
      - RobLach 6y ago
        If you're joined by a billion other people...
        wnevets 6y ago
        most people rating apps aren't expecting to be joined by a billion other people. So there MUST be another reason why people are leaving ratings. AKA the complete opposite of what the original commenter is claiming.
      - t-writescode 6y ago
        How is your question different from asking "when you vote for a particular candidate, you actually think you're impacting the overall vote in a particular direction?" Validated app purchase, app-store rating is a democracy.
        wnevets 6y ago
        > "when you vote for a particular candidate, you actually think you're impacting the overall vote in a particular direction?" I absolutely don't.
        cryptoz 6y ago
        What is voting then? Nobody's vote matters? Is democracy a sham to you? The math is simple though. Your vote is 1 added to a total. So is everyone's. The totals don't go above 0 tied with 0 based on your description. But clearly our votes don't all end in a 0-0 tie.
        wnevets 6y ago
        I can guarantee you that my vote in the 2020 presidential election had absolutely zero impact on who my state electors voted for, let alone impacting the race at a national level. I would have to be a complete moron to think my vote had any impact on choosing the winner.
      - 6y ago
- 3327 6y ago
  Google is trash the system is rigged. Never thought i would join the camp but the days events have proven all the “its rigged” sayers right. They were right. GME , BB, NOK to the moon.
- jbay808 6y ago
  If I think an app deserves three stars, then I should give it a three star review, even if it currently has four stars. If I say "well, this deserves three stars, so I'll give it a one-star review so as to pull the average closer to three" then I'm aiming to manipulate its rating, rather than rating it. Note: I'm only guessing at Google's thought process here at the distinction between reviews and manipulation, and guessing at their detection algorithm; I'm not myself suggesting or implying that one-star reviewers are always engaging in manipulation. Of course you could honestly think an app deserves one star. The difference is unknowable to an outside observer. Only you can really know whether you're being honest, but that won't stop Google from assuming the worst.
  - gnicholas 6y ago
    True, but it seems that most of the current reviewers think that it should have 1 star, so giving 1 star reviews isn't an example of this kind of manipulation.
    - jbay808 6y ago
      I agree that that's what happened here, but maybe Google didn't think so, or automatically assumes that the above is typically the scenario where one-star reviews are given. Such reviews will naturally be at one end of the spectrum or the other - either one star or five stars, so as to maximize your voting power. So they might detect it in the case of reviews being bimodally distributed. I'd expect that two star reviews should always be treated as honest, so I'd recommend that as a review floor to prevent getting accused of manipulation and deleted.
      - gnicholas 6y ago
        I think reviews are naturally bimodally distributed because people are most likely to take the time to review a business when it is either amazing or horrible. I would speculate that this is the reason that Yelp created its Elite program — to incentivize people to write tons of reviews, including for places that were neither amazing nor horrible. This gives Yelp the crucial middle ground reviews that as you say are more likely to be accurate than just the highs and lows.
- skeeter2020 6y ago
  My immediate response too. Even more ridiculous than "prevent the manipulation of a stock", you know the entire point of economics and markets...
- fasdf1122 6y ago
  don't worry, we can just do it again.
- kerng 6y ago
  Is Google not following the news and sees what's going on? These seem legit reviews of upset customers, not some random prank.
  - xiphias2 6y ago
    The news doesn't have experts in securities tradings law, and it's still not clear what happened. What's going on right now is unprecedented, so it has to go through a complex review process. Just following the news is witch hunting.
jjjeii3 6y ago
A year ago I left a negative review for a dentist on Google Maps, then they contacted Google, said that such reviews are illegal in Germany (because a negative review can negatively impact their visitor numbers) and Google just removed my review... So Google reviews are absolutely useless.
- b3kart 6y ago
  So unless you know the proportion of good reviews to no. of visits there’s no way for you to compare places? Odd.
- actuator 6y ago
  > said that such reviews are illegal in Germany (because a negative review can negatively impact their visitor numbers) and Google just removed my review This seems weird. Are they actually illegal? If yes, then shouldn't reviews be disabled in Germany.
  - corty 6y ago
    They are only legal if the reviewer attaches proof of all claims made in the review and the interest of the reviewer of publishing the negative review outweighs the interest of the reviewee of not having it published. Which is the courts way of saying "it is illegal when we see it, we just leave some nominal loophole noone can fulfil so we don't go against the letter of the law". All of this is just a lot of court cases influenced by some elaborate schemes to pick the right court (LG Hamburg preferably). But unfortunately those stand as long there isn't an explicit law changing the situation. Which won't happen, because the exact same laws and especially judgements defend corrupt politicians against journalists. Also, any kind of free-speech movement is a no-go in Germany because "buhuh, but then the NeoNazis can say what they like!".
- ChuckNorris89 6y ago
  This is not new in Germany/DACH area due to super weird and archaic privacy, anti-hate and anti-libel laws that could be interpreted in ways which open them to abuse and turned into censorship by malicious actors with enough resources/connections. Basically in Germany/DACH free speech is heavily policed (ironically to stop NeoNazis voicing themselves) as to ensure it doesn't offend anyone so you end up with everyone only allowed to say either good or meh things in public/online. Best example is the Austrian politician who had forced Facebook through a court order to have posts on her wall where people called her a corrupt traitor, deleted worldwide, under the argument that unless you can show proof of corruption, you calling them corrupt is libel according to the Austrian law, lol. Even on platforms like Kununu (basically the Glasdoor of DACH) where employees can review their employers, if companies don't like the negative review employees leave, they can ask to have them removed citing similar laws, which makes the platform pretty much useless in the end as all reviews are either good or meh. Honestly, Americans don't know how good they have it in the free speech category. Imagine not being able to call Trump corrupt on Twitter or say that Swaggy Bro Tech is an abusive sweatshop on Glassdoor/Google.
TeMPOraL 6y ago
Try hundreds of thousands.
MattGaiser 6y ago
Does anyone allow review bombing?
- cm2012 6y ago
  Review bombing is non customers with an agenda leaving reviews. Not a company doing something genuinely bad and real customers stating their dissatisfaction.
  - Traster 6y ago
    It would absolutely not be surprising for people to be downloading the app to leave a 1 star review because they're an angry redditor.
    - zug_zug 6y ago
      If google is only removing reviews from people who first installed the app yesterday, they should say exactly that, and that's fair
    - M4v3R 6y ago
      Probably some did that. But Google removed ALL negative reviews, not only from people who did the above. That's the problem.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    - mattnewton 6y ago
      They’re an angry redditor who downloaded their app to trade and then was locked out of buying GME or AMC. If that’s why they downloaded the app it’s no different than downloading Uber to get home, Uber experiencing an outage, and then leaving a 1 star review because the app did not work as promised and you are still stuck without a ride.
      - Traster 6y ago
        I doubt that 100,000 people did that all at the same time and decided to review the app.
YuccaGloriosa 6y ago
The purpose of reviews is to inform others what they can expect from the app. If they have a negative experience it will be expressed as such. F*k Google. * (1 star)
stretchcat 6y ago
Reviews are always published by corporations for the benifit of corporations, not consumers.
corytheboyd 6y ago
For the sake of discussion: What if it were an app allowing the purchase of meme stocks that was review bombed by hedge fund managers? Should those reviews be removed?
- rodiger 6y ago
  If they had genuine gripes with the product then no.
- jrodthree24 6y ago
  Probably. Because hedge fund managers would not be trading on robinhood in the first place and are only reviewing it in the hopes of tanking the app's usage. Whereas the users prevented from buying meme stocks are actually using the app and unhappy that they can no longer trade meme stocks.
- PKop 6y ago
  The app literally took actions to the detriment of their users, to benefit of big, connected insiders, going against something as fundamental as the name of the company itself. Why all the obfuscation and thought experiments around such a simple and blatant reality?
psyc 6y ago
Another day, another story about the digital powers that be rearranging the furniture to make sure the plebes don’t run amok.
hn_asker 6y ago
We're all in the Cuckoo's Nest. If those reviews weren't legitimate (i.e bots) then fine. But if legitimate users want to express their reviews they should - even when they are misinformed. Google should at most put an asterisk letting people know of possible misinformation before submitting their review.
SllX 6y ago
I was curious about its ratings in the App Store, so I took a look. There are 2.4M ratings total, I don’t know how many there were prior to today or yesterday, but right now there are 2.4M. If you sort by most recent, there are loads of 1 star written reviews. You don’t need to write a review to leave a rating, you just need to “own” the app, meaning you have to hit Get on the free app. This acts like a $0 purchase. I stopped the download immediately after. Now here is where my commentary becomes useless. I tried leaving a 1 star just to see if anything would happen. Nothing, so I start looking around for a way to undo because I don’t actually use Robinhood. Couldn’t find one before I made my way back to the page just to see the star rating I gave was removed. Now one of two things could have happened, and the first is fairly likely. 1. By taking the actions I took in the sequence and time that I took them, Apple could have registered my rating as an attempt to bomb the score. That’s fine, I wasn’t intending to leave it. 2. Apple could also be monitoring scores and reviews. Actually there’s a third possibility: 3. There could be a delay between when reviews are written and when they affect the score, so if a review was left yesterday, it might not act as a weight on the score until next Tuesday or whatever the delay is. I’m not familiar enough with the App Store to say. It does look like there were a lot more reviews in the App Store than the Google Play Store to begin with, so it would take more negative reviews to significantly affect it. Mostly I’m just curious why we’re seeing this in the Google Play Store but are not hearing anything about what is going on in the Google Play Store. Perhaps someone else with a history with the App could follow up on this that has actually used the App or is motivated to re-rate it to see if their rating goes through.
- rodiger 6y ago
  I have used the app for years and left a 1-star rating. It is still there, but think it's most likely shadow-removed from the visible ratings.
mgleason_3 6y ago
“On Jan. 28, Robinhood halted trading of several rallying stocks including GameStop and AMC Entertainment” No, Robinhood did not halt trading. They prevented _buying_ Gamestop and only allowed selling which can only do one thing - drive the price down. That’s entirely different. There’s a word for it: manipulation It’s illegal.
- maest 6y ago
  They did it to avoid going out of business due to DTCC collateral calls. Stop spreading FUD.
  - cccc4all 6y ago
    No they did not. The Robinhood co founder stated in every interview that it was not liquidity issue. Listen to his explanations, he never says what were the legal or business justification for stopping the buys and only allowing the sells. His only explanations were that the company took the actions just because.
  - mdoms 6y ago
    If you believe this narrative I have a bridge for sale. Here's an obvious litmus test: did they re-open buying for GME after they raised an additional billion[0] which easily covers them in this position? [0] https://www.ft.com/content/9a1b24e6-0433-462a-a860-c2504ea565e4 https://www.ft.com/content/9a1b24e6-0433-462a-a860-c2504ea56...
    - fancy_pantser 6y ago
      They re-opened buying this morning, yes.
      - generj 6y ago
        Not really - they only allowed buying to bring the total position to 5 shares, and then lowered that to 2 shares and now 1 share! And if you already held more than that quantity of shares you couldn’t buy more shares.
phantom_oracle 6y ago
For all those thinking that this is some type of large-scale conspiracy by different entities, consider the following: - Google automates everything and adds its 'AI' to it - Even 10K reviews in such a short space of time will trigger the AI and then it will probably flag or even remove those reviews by itself (the AI is probably trained to see this as fraudulent) - The whole app review thing is probably gamed already and the actual fraudulent reviews are never picked up because fraudsters are (sometimes) good at being fraudulent I have no vested interest in Google and actually think people should de-Google as much as possible, but this is the same company that gets featured on HN frequently for its non-existent support.
fasdf1122 6y ago
Let's give Google apps 1 star on the apple app store
ChrisArchitect 6y ago
[dupe] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25951390 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25951390
kvetching 6y ago
Ballsy. Amazing to see these mega-corps flex to help their billionaire friends. They feel invincible now with the new political environment. DLive recently destroyed people's ability to be monetized if they weren't streaming gaming content. They had a similar hit to their reviews. Doesn't look like Google took action there. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=io.dlive&hl=en_US&gl=US https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=io.dlive&hl=en...
alea_iacta_est 6y ago
It's systematic and coordinated at this point: they will do whatever it takes to protect themselves, and their lords, against the little guy trying to make some money without them taking the lion's share. Who's "they" is an interesting and debatable question, big tech, the finance sector, the gov, whoever else, but one thing for sure, we're the peasants in that story.

108 points by guybedo 6y ago

"The company reportedly said that Google’s policies explicitly prohibit reviews aiming to manipulate an app’s rating" Literally the only reason someone rates something is to affect/manipulate the rating.

wnevets 6y ago
> Literally the only reason someone Well, no. Maybe we're splitting hairs but when I rate something its to describe my experience, not to affect its overall rating. At no point do I think my one rating would have a meaningful impact on its overall score unless it has very few ratings to begin with.
- osrec 6y ago
  I think it depends on whether your experience was positive or negative. If positive, I think your description applies. If negative, I think people really do want to impact the rating negatively.
  - jessriedel 6y ago
    When I find a good product and review it, it's because I want to benefit the developer and help other people find it. I am trying to affect the overall rating.
  - wnevets 6y ago
    So if you were to leave a 1 star review on the facebook app on the google play store, you actually think you're impacting their overall score in a meaningful way?
    - RobLach 6y ago
      If you're joined by a billion other people...
      - wnevets 6y ago
        most people rating apps aren't expecting to be joined by a billion other people. So there MUST be another reason why people are leaving ratings. AKA the complete opposite of what the original commenter is claiming.
    - t-writescode 6y ago
      How is your question different from asking "when you vote for a particular candidate, you actually think you're impacting the overall vote in a particular direction?" Validated app purchase, app-store rating is a democracy.
      - wnevets 6y ago
        > "when you vote for a particular candidate, you actually think you're impacting the overall vote in a particular direction?" I absolutely don't.
        cryptoz 6y ago
        What is voting then? Nobody's vote matters? Is democracy a sham to you? The math is simple though. Your vote is 1 added to a total. So is everyone's. The totals don't go above 0 tied with 0 based on your description. But clearly our votes don't all end in a 0-0 tie.
        wnevets 6y ago
        I can guarantee you that my vote in the 2020 presidential election had absolutely zero impact on who my state electors voted for, let alone impacting the race at a national level. I would have to be a complete moron to think my vote had any impact on choosing the winner.
    - 6y ago
3327 6y ago
Google is trash the system is rigged. Never thought i would join the camp but the days events have proven all the “its rigged” sayers right. They were right. GME , BB, NOK to the moon.
jbay808 6y ago
If I think an app deserves three stars, then I should give it a three star review, even if it currently has four stars. If I say "well, this deserves three stars, so I'll give it a one-star review so as to pull the average closer to three" then I'm aiming to manipulate its rating, rather than rating it. Note: I'm only guessing at Google's thought process here at the distinction between reviews and manipulation, and guessing at their detection algorithm; I'm not myself suggesting or implying that one-star reviewers are always engaging in manipulation. Of course you could honestly think an app deserves one star. The difference is unknowable to an outside observer. Only you can really know whether you're being honest, but that won't stop Google from assuming the worst.
- gnicholas 6y ago
  True, but it seems that most of the current reviewers think that it should have 1 star, so giving 1 star reviews isn't an example of this kind of manipulation.
  - jbay808 6y ago
    I agree that that's what happened here, but maybe Google didn't think so, or automatically assumes that the above is typically the scenario where one-star reviews are given. Such reviews will naturally be at one end of the spectrum or the other - either one star or five stars, so as to maximize your voting power. So they might detect it in the case of reviews being bimodally distributed. I'd expect that two star reviews should always be treated as honest, so I'd recommend that as a review floor to prevent getting accused of manipulation and deleted.
    - gnicholas 6y ago
      I think reviews are naturally bimodally distributed because people are most likely to take the time to review a business when it is either amazing or horrible. I would speculate that this is the reason that Yelp created its Elite program — to incentivize people to write tons of reviews, including for places that were neither amazing nor horrible. This gives Yelp the crucial middle ground reviews that as you say are more likely to be accurate than just the highs and lows.
skeeter2020 6y ago
My immediate response too. Even more ridiculous than "prevent the manipulation of a stock", you know the entire point of economics and markets...
fasdf1122 6y ago
don't worry, we can just do it again.
kerng 6y ago
Is Google not following the news and sees what's going on? These seem legit reviews of upset customers, not some random prank.
- xiphias2 6y ago
  The news doesn't have experts in securities tradings law, and it's still not clear what happened. What's going on right now is unprecedented, so it has to go through a complex review process. Just following the news is witch hunting.

jjjeii3 6y ago

A year ago I left a negative review for a dentist on Google Maps, then they contacted Google, said that such reviews are illegal in Germany (because a negative review can negatively impact their visitor numbers) and Google just removed my review... So Google reviews are absolutely useless.

b3kart 6y ago
So unless you know the proportion of good reviews to no. of visits there’s no way for you to compare places? Odd.
actuator 6y ago
> said that such reviews are illegal in Germany (because a negative review can negatively impact their visitor numbers) and Google just removed my review This seems weird. Are they actually illegal? If yes, then shouldn't reviews be disabled in Germany.
- corty 6y ago
  They are only legal if the reviewer attaches proof of all claims made in the review and the interest of the reviewer of publishing the negative review outweighs the interest of the reviewee of not having it published. Which is the courts way of saying "it is illegal when we see it, we just leave some nominal loophole noone can fulfil so we don't go against the letter of the law". All of this is just a lot of court cases influenced by some elaborate schemes to pick the right court (LG Hamburg preferably). But unfortunately those stand as long there isn't an explicit law changing the situation. Which won't happen, because the exact same laws and especially judgements defend corrupt politicians against journalists. Also, any kind of free-speech movement is a no-go in Germany because "buhuh, but then the NeoNazis can say what they like!".
ChuckNorris89 6y ago
This is not new in Germany/DACH area due to super weird and archaic privacy, anti-hate and anti-libel laws that could be interpreted in ways which open them to abuse and turned into censorship by malicious actors with enough resources/connections. Basically in Germany/DACH free speech is heavily policed (ironically to stop NeoNazis voicing themselves) as to ensure it doesn't offend anyone so you end up with everyone only allowed to say either good or meh things in public/online. Best example is the Austrian politician who had forced Facebook through a court order to have posts on her wall where people called her a corrupt traitor, deleted worldwide, under the argument that unless you can show proof of corruption, you calling them corrupt is libel according to the Austrian law, lol. Even on platforms like Kununu (basically the Glasdoor of DACH) where employees can review their employers, if companies don't like the negative review employees leave, they can ask to have them removed citing similar laws, which makes the platform pretty much useless in the end as all reviews are either good or meh. Honestly, Americans don't know how good they have it in the free speech category. Imagine not being able to call Trump corrupt on Twitter or say that Swaggy Bro Tech is an abusive sweatshop on Glassdoor/Google.

TeMPOraL 6y ago

Try hundreds of thousands.

MattGaiser 6y ago

Does anyone allow review bombing?

cm2012 6y ago
Review bombing is non customers with an agenda leaving reviews. Not a company doing something genuinely bad and real customers stating their dissatisfaction.
- Traster 6y ago
  It would absolutely not be surprising for people to be downloading the app to leave a 1 star review because they're an angry redditor.
  - zug_zug 6y ago
    If google is only removing reviews from people who first installed the app yesterday, they should say exactly that, and that's fair
  - M4v3R 6y ago
    Probably some did that. But Google removed ALL negative reviews, not only from people who did the above. That's the problem.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - mattnewton 6y ago
    They’re an angry redditor who downloaded their app to trade and then was locked out of buying GME or AMC. If that’s why they downloaded the app it’s no different than downloading Uber to get home, Uber experiencing an outage, and then leaving a 1 star review because the app did not work as promised and you are still stuck without a ride.
    - Traster 6y ago
      I doubt that 100,000 people did that all at the same time and decided to review the app.

YuccaGloriosa 6y ago

The purpose of reviews is to inform others what they can expect from the app. If they have a negative experience it will be expressed as such. F*k Google. * (1 star)

stretchcat 6y ago

Reviews are always published by corporations for the benifit of corporations, not consumers.

corytheboyd 6y ago

For the sake of discussion: What if it were an app allowing the purchase of meme stocks that was review bombed by hedge fund managers? Should those reviews be removed?

rodiger 6y ago
If they had genuine gripes with the product then no.
jrodthree24 6y ago
Probably. Because hedge fund managers would not be trading on robinhood in the first place and are only reviewing it in the hopes of tanking the app's usage. Whereas the users prevented from buying meme stocks are actually using the app and unhappy that they can no longer trade meme stocks.
PKop 6y ago
The app literally took actions to the detriment of their users, to benefit of big, connected insiders, going against something as fundamental as the name of the company itself. Why all the obfuscation and thought experiments around such a simple and blatant reality?

psyc 6y ago

Another day, another story about the digital powers that be rearranging the furniture to make sure the plebes don’t run amok.

hn_asker 6y ago

We're all in the Cuckoo's Nest. If those reviews weren't legitimate (i.e bots) then fine. But if legitimate users want to express their reviews they should - even when they are misinformed. Google should at most put an asterisk letting people know of possible misinformation before submitting their review.

SllX 6y ago

I was curious about its ratings in the App Store, so I took a look. There are 2.4M ratings total, I don’t know how many there were prior to today or yesterday, but right now there are 2.4M. If you sort by most recent, there are loads of 1 star written reviews. You don’t need to write a review to leave a rating, you just need to “own” the app, meaning you have to hit Get on the free app. This acts like a $0 purchase. I stopped the download immediately after. Now here is where my commentary becomes useless. I tried leaving a 1 star just to see if anything would happen. Nothing, so I start looking around for a way to undo because I don’t actually use Robinhood. Couldn’t find one before I made my way back to the page just to see the star rating I gave was removed. Now one of two things could have happened, and the first is fairly likely. 1. By taking the actions I took in the sequence and time that I took them, Apple could have registered my rating as an attempt to bomb the score. That’s fine, I wasn’t intending to leave it. 2. Apple could also be monitoring scores and reviews. Actually there’s a third possibility: 3. There could be a delay between when reviews are written and when they affect the score, so if a review was left yesterday, it might not act as a weight on the score until next Tuesday or whatever the delay is. I’m not familiar enough with the App Store to say. It does look like there were a lot more reviews in the App Store than the Google Play Store to begin with, so it would take more negative reviews to significantly affect it. Mostly I’m just curious why we’re seeing this in the Google Play Store but are not hearing anything about what is going on in the Google Play Store. Perhaps someone else with a history with the App could follow up on this that has actually used the App or is motivated to re-rate it to see if their rating goes through.

rodiger 6y ago
I have used the app for years and left a 1-star rating. It is still there, but think it's most likely shadow-removed from the visible ratings.

mgleason_3 6y ago

“On Jan. 28, Robinhood halted trading of several rallying stocks including GameStop and AMC Entertainment” No, Robinhood did not halt trading. They prevented _buying_ Gamestop and only allowed selling which can only do one thing - drive the price down. That’s entirely different. There’s a word for it: manipulation It’s illegal.

maest 6y ago
They did it to avoid going out of business due to DTCC collateral calls. Stop spreading FUD.
- cccc4all 6y ago
  No they did not. The Robinhood co founder stated in every interview that it was not liquidity issue. Listen to his explanations, he never says what were the legal or business justification for stopping the buys and only allowing the sells. His only explanations were that the company took the actions just because.
- mdoms 6y ago
  If you believe this narrative I have a bridge for sale. Here's an obvious litmus test: did they re-open buying for GME after they raised an additional billion[0] which easily covers them in this position? [0] https://www.ft.com/content/9a1b24e6-0433-462a-a860-c2504ea565e4 https://www.ft.com/content/9a1b24e6-0433-462a-a860-c2504ea56...
  - fancy_pantser 6y ago
    They re-opened buying this morning, yes.
    - generj 6y ago
      Not really - they only allowed buying to bring the total position to 5 shares, and then lowered that to 2 shares and now 1 share! And if you already held more than that quantity of shares you couldn’t buy more shares.

phantom_oracle 6y ago

For all those thinking that this is some type of large-scale conspiracy by different entities, consider the following: - Google automates everything and adds its 'AI' to it - Even 10K reviews in such a short space of time will trigger the AI and then it will probably flag or even remove those reviews by itself (the AI is probably trained to see this as fraudulent) - The whole app review thing is probably gamed already and the actual fraudulent reviews are never picked up because fraudsters are (sometimes) good at being fraudulent I have no vested interest in Google and actually think people should de-Google as much as possible, but this is the same company that gets featured on HN frequently for its non-existent support.

fasdf1122 6y ago

Let's give Google apps 1 star on the apple app store

ChrisArchitect 6y ago

[dupe] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25951390 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25951390

kvetching 6y ago

Ballsy. Amazing to see these mega-corps flex to help their billionaire friends. They feel invincible now with the new political environment. DLive recently destroyed people's ability to be monetized if they weren't streaming gaming content. They had a similar hit to their reviews. Doesn't look like Google took action there. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=io.dlive&hl=en_US&gl=US https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=io.dlive&hl=en...

alea_iacta_est 6y ago

It's systematic and coordinated at this point: they will do whatever it takes to protect themselves, and their lords, against the little guy trying to make some money without them taking the lion's share. Who's "they" is an interesting and debatable question, big tech, the finance sector, the gov, whoever else, but one thing for sure, we're the peasants in that story.