Catch up on stories from the past week (and beyond) at the Slashdot story archive

 



Forgot your password?
typodupeerror
×
Google

Google Deletes Nearly 100,000 Negative Reviews of Robinhood App (theverge.com) 204

According to The Verge, Google has removed nearly 100,000 negative reviews of the Robinhood app from the Google Play Store. From the report: After some disgruntled Robinhood users organized campaigns to give the app a one-star review on Google's Play Store and Apple's App Store -- and succeeded in review-bombing it all the way down to a one-star rating -- the company has now deleted enough reviews to bring it back up to nearly four stars. Robinhood came under intense scrutiny on Thursday, after the stock trading app announced it would block purchases of GameStop, AMC, and other stocks made popular by the r/WallStreetBets subreddit, and some users have already replaced their deleted one-star reviews with new ones to make their anger heard.

It's not outside Google's purview to delete these posts. Google's policies explicitly prohibit reviews intended to manipulate an app's rating, and the company says it has a system that "combines human intelligence with machine learning to detect and enforce policy violations in ratings and reviews." Google says it specifically took action on reviews that it felt confident violated those policies, the company tells The Verge. Google says companies do not have the ability to delete reviews themselves. On Apple's App Store, Robinhood has a 4.7 rating, and we didn't see any reviews newer than Wednesday.

This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

Google Deletes Nearly 100,000 Negative Reviews of Robinhood App

Comments Filter:
  • trust (Score:5, Insightful)

    by awwshit ( 6214476 ) on Thursday January 28, 2021 @08:33PM (#61004062)

    Good to know that app store reviews are so well manipulated. What is the point of a walled garden that you don't trust?

    • Re:trust (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 28, 2021 @08:36PM (#61004072)
      Yep. Google is no better than the hedge fund guys and everyone else manipulating stock prices...
      • Re:trust (Score:5, Insightful)

        by saloomy ( 2817221 ) on Thursday January 28, 2021 @09:40PM (#61004270)
        Thats the problem now. Our infrastructure is flat-out broken. A handful of organizations now control what you can do and what you can say online and on your devices (Apple, I am looking at you). Those reviews were legitimate. 100,000 people were upset with Robinhood, and spoke their minds. Google chose to ignore them and decided what Robinhood did was correct, even when we collectively disagreed with it vocally.

        For some reason, people thing coordinated buying of a stock is manipulation (no, it is not). What is manipulation is these brokerages limiting a segment of investors from increasing the price further, resulting in the price being artificially held lower (to save some hedge funds that shorted it). In a just world, they would be arrested and tried for market manipulation. The assuaging words of these CEOs does nothing to address the critical issue, you upset the system, it overrides you. Kind of reminds me of the last election.
        • Re:trust (Score:5, Informative)

          by Ol Olsoc ( 1175323 ) on Thursday January 28, 2021 @09:57PM (#61004340)

          Thats the problem now. Our infrastructure is flat-out broken. A handful of organizations now control what you can do and what you can say online and on your devices (Apple, I am looking at you). Those reviews were legitimate. 100,000 people were upset with Robinhood, and spoke their minds. Google chose to ignore them and decided what Robinhood did was correct, even when we collectively disagreed with it vocally.

          A couple years back, Rotten Tomatoes started doing it with movie reviews. Some Disney films were highly rated by the critics for the obvious reasons, like wanting access to Disney products, but the general fans hated the films. So RT messed with the ratings. Some of the films in the end, didn't make near the money expected. But the bigger damage was to Rotten Tomatoes and other reviewing sites. This largely includes the Play Store as well.

          Singling out Apple - is kinda strange - do you have the cites on their involvement in this review mess?

          • A couple years back, Rotten Tomatoes started doing it with movie reviews.

            I never understood this strategy. RT's whole business model was based around trust and independence, and they decided to throw that in the bin for some brownie points with the studios. RT's name is now trash and can never come back from that.

          • Re:trust (Score:4, Interesting)

            by AmiMoJo ( 196126 ) on Friday January 29, 2021 @05:12AM (#61004952) Homepage Journal

            RT only started adjusting the way they rate movies when 4chan started review bombing it. Same with Google, review bombing is against the ToS and makes the app's rating unreliable.

            Come on, do you think 100,000 users left reviews since Wednesday? Of course not, someone paid to have the app review bombed by a review farm and Google bulk deleted their spam.

            To be clear I'm saying that the app's rating should reflect the opinion of the majority of users, not the one or two who can afford to pay to have it bombed, or the minority of pissed off Reddit users.

            • Re:trust (Score:5, Insightful)

              by SharpFang ( 651121 ) on Friday January 29, 2021 @06:04AM (#61005042) Homepage Journal

              "Come on, do you think 100,000 users left reviews since Wednesday?"

              Do you know how many people are on the hype train now? Do you know how many wanted to buy in and couldn't?

              Reviews are inherently biased negatively - a satisfied user will usually go about their way, a dissatisfied one will leave a negative review. In this case Robinhood made millions of people very dissatisfied.

              With stuff like Rottentomatoes, a movie will get review-bombed by a couple Internet fora with a couple thousand users each. Here we have thing in all news channels, loud in all media worldwide. If one person in a thousand, of those who heard of it got curious and decided to buy $10 worth of shares just to have something to tell children about, and 10% of them found out they can't and left a 1-star review, you still have more than 100,000 genuine reviews.

            • RT only started adjusting the way they rate movies when 4chan started review bombing it. Same with Google, review bombing is against the ToS and makes the app's rating unreliable.

              Come on, do you think 100,000 users left reviews since Wednesday? Of course not, someone paid to have the app review bombed by a review farm and Google bulk deleted their spam.

              To be clear I'm saying that the app's rating should reflect the opinion of the majority of users, not the one or two who can afford to pay to have it bombed, or the minority of pissed off Reddit users.

              A lot of people use Robinhood, a lot of people were prevented from using it for what it is used to do. So the software was more or less bricked for them.

              I can believe that 100 thousand people who used Robinhood were frustrated.

              But let's assume that you are correct, and this is a botfarm. It still means that Google and it's review system are to be given zero trust. Because if non-users non-humans can review, then reviews mean nothing.

            • To be clear I'm saying that the app's rating should reflect the opinion of the majority of users, not the one or two who can afford to pay to have it bombed, or the minority of pissed off Reddit users.

              I'd be willing to bet the current opinion of the majority of users is much lower than the minimum rating of one star.

            • Re:trust (Score:5, Informative)

              by Wraithlyn ( 133796 ) on Friday January 29, 2021 @01:16PM (#61006354)

              /r/wallstreetbets has (at time of writing) over 6 million subscribers.

              100,000 is only ~1.5% of that. Not hard to believe at all, why do you find that so implausible?

              There's certainly an argument to be made that it qualifies as "coordinated effort to manipulate an app's rating", but I don't know why you would assume that it must be a bot farm.

            • If anything the lack of negative reviews on bad, broken, and malicious apps are unrealistically low. I've seen this with apps that simply don't work anymore having 4 star ratings, and apps that abuse permissions they don't need maintaining a lofty rating from years ago.

              Do you really think it's legitimate for an app which has majority 1 star ratings over the last two years to have a 3.5 average because it didn't used to be abusive? https://play.google.com/store/... [google.com]

        • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

          by scdeimos ( 632778 )
          It's funny how you think in a "just world" the hedge funds should be arrested and tried for market manipulation. Seems a bit cock-eyed, aren't the redditors doing exactly the same thing?
          • Re:trust (Score:5, Insightful)

            by alexo ( 9335 ) on Thursday January 28, 2021 @11:21PM (#61004514) Journal

            It's funny how you think in a "just world" the hedge funds should be arrested and tried for market manipulation. Seems a bit cock-eyed, aren't the redditors doing exactly the same thing?

            Reading comprehension is important:

            What is manipulation is these brokerages limiting a segment of investors from increasing the price further, resulting in the price being artificially held lower (to save some hedge funds that shorted it). In a just world, they would be arrested and tried for market manipulation.

          • by Bert64 ( 520050 )

            Well no...
            The market should be open to everyone equally. The fact that a huge number of people want to buy shares is not market manipulation, it's how the market is supposed to function. Those people are buying shares as a result of publicly available information, they are not insider traders or anything else shady.

            Brokerages preventing those people from buying the shares they want is manipulation, because they are artificially restricting the market.

        • Agreed. I see the situation as analogous to what bitcoin would be like if a small group of people of people gained control of over 50% of the blockchain. "Trust us, your stash is safe!"
        • by teg ( 97890 )

          Thats the problem now. Our infrastructure is flat-out broken. A handful of organizations now control what you can do and what you can say online and on your devices (Apple, I am looking at you). Those reviews were legitimate. 100,000 people were upset with Robinhood, and spoke their minds. Google chose to ignore them and decided what Robinhood did was correct, even when we collectively disagreed with it vocally.

          I don't see those reviews being more legitimate than people giving Harry Potter books and movies one star reviews because they disagree with Rowling's view on the trans issue. Reviews should be about the book or app in question, if it's just an organized instance of "we're upset with the entity behind this" is just noise to be avoided.

          • Re:trust (Score:5, Insightful)

            by NormalVisual ( 565491 ) on Friday January 29, 2021 @01:10AM (#61004682)

            So if all of a sudden, Amazon started removing books from your Kindle library without warning, the Kindle app itself should continue to get high reviews just because it functions properly without bugs?

            Reviews apply to both the app and the service being provided by the app. Separating one from the other is disingenuous.

          • Re:trust (Score:5, Insightful)

            by saloomy ( 2817221 ) on Friday January 29, 2021 @01:13AM (#61004684)

            I don't see those reviews being more legitimate than...

            And there is where you missed the point. The reviews were legitimate because the users spoke their minds about how the app operated. If I advertised an app and said "All Super Nintendo Games", and then revoked the right to play any Super Nintendo game that was developed by Nintendo itself, barring out Zelda and Mario, you would be perfectly right to review the app negatively. Thats exactly what Robinhood did. Not even getting into WHY they did it, it was very shitty, and the users should trash it if it impacted their ability to use the app for what it was intended for (to trade securities).

            But beyond that. Legit reviews are reviews coming from legit users. If a botnet posted a bunch of reviews, sure, those are not legitimate. But thats not what happened here. Users expressed their opinion. You decided you didn't like WHY they expressed those opinions specifically, and you think thats grounds for removing them. Its quite authoritarian of you to try to control why someone else may be able to share a thought.

            On Amazon, you can vote reviews as "helpful" or not, and that would be appropriate for you to do here, if it didn't help you determine what you wanted to know about the app.

            But thinking its right for Google to outright remove the review that someone else would find helpful (for me, if I knew the app might one day just sell my stocks because they decided to, thats important information), is just plain evil.

            • Re:trust (Score:5, Insightful)

              by fred911 ( 83970 ) on Friday January 29, 2021 @05:10AM (#61004946) Journal

              ''impacted their ability to use the app for what it was intended for (to trade securities).''

              Actually, it you have read their TOS they are very unfriendly toward trading. You must jump through hoops if you are marked as a high frequency trader. Whereas I don't necessarily agree with their decision, there's also no way I would ever consider using them to do other than invest.

              Only a fool would consider using a broker who says order execution is free, uses their quotes and trades on a mobile platform. Professional traders would realize either the quotes are delayed, they aren't executing trades on the inside market, or they are receiving commission from whoever is executing the trade [IE not an inside trade at the time of the order].

              If they are limiting purchase of securities I assume that it is due to the fact that some of those executions are made from inventory they hold, and they are attempting to limit their exposure to volatility. They are not a direct access brokerage, you can't decide what market you want your order to be executed.

              Either way their TOS plainly states they aren't trader friendly.

        • remember when short selling was illegal?
    • Re:trust (Score:5, Funny)

      by gizmo2199 ( 458329 ) on Thursday January 28, 2021 @09:31PM (#61004240) Homepage

      Hey, it's a private service! You agree to their terms when you use it. If you don't like it start your own Google Play store!

      'big /sarcasm'

      • Re:trust (Score:5, Funny)

        by Cylix ( 55374 ) on Thursday January 28, 2021 @10:23PM (#61004408) Homepage Journal

        I did and they called my new Play Store racist and shut it down!

      • by Sloppy ( 14984 )

        Not sarcasm: why not start your own review site? A store can't possibly present reviews without a conflict of interest. That goes for Google and anywhere else. If you went to McDonalds and they said the Big Mac was rated 4.8/5, would you believe them?

    • Re:trust (Score:5, Informative)

      by Tailhook ( 98486 ) on Thursday January 28, 2021 @09:45PM (#61004290)

      Watch [phzoe.com] Youtube delete downvotes of Whitehouse videos.

    • Re:trust (Score:4, Insightful)

      by phalse phace ( 454635 ) on Thursday January 28, 2021 @10:26PM (#61004416)

      Time for everyone who left a negative Robinhood app review that got deleted to leave a negative review about Google.

    • by shanen ( 462549 )

      I'm getting the impression that none of this Robin Hood stuff would have mattered if some rich bastards hadn't gotten burned. It's almost like your handle hit the fan?

      (And your FP deserves the favorable moderation, even if it's so brief.)

  • review-"bombing" (Score:4, Insightful)

    by BAReFO0t ( 6240524 ) on Thursday January 28, 2021 @08:36PM (#61004078)

    It's what they call it, when real humans dominate the scores, instead of the usual masses of paid bots.

    Thanks, Nanny Google!
    We trust you so much!

    • The shitty company behavior has nothing to do with the app itself.

      Reviews are for the app, not the company

      • by BytePusher ( 209961 ) on Thursday January 28, 2021 @09:18PM (#61004208) Homepage
        You mean the company who purposefully cripples their app by prohibiting it from doing exactly what it is meant to do? How can you separate the company from the app?
      • by Bert64 ( 520050 )

        The app is not a generic client that can be used with any service. It is a client tied to a specific service.
        Thus functionality and performance of the app is dependent on the service, and the two are inextricably linked. Any review of the app would naturally include the service to which it's tied too, as the app is completely useless without the service.

  • by AlexHilbertRyan ( 7255798 ) on Thursday January 28, 2021 @08:38PM (#61004086)
    The real enemy of the west are corporations like Google. There would be no china if it wasnt for the same corporate rich people who shipped factories and know how which built China.
    • Corporations ARE the West. 1000 years of conflict among a succession of colonialist rivals culminating in the takeover of the Americas is, in particular, precisely how the USA came to be.
    • You realize that you just quoted nearly verbatim this week Putin speech at Davos?

      No, this is not in jest - grab the translation, you will find it verbatim except China is replaced by "Globalism".

      One one had, he has a point, there are no democracies any more, multiple western countires have corporatism as the actual system of government. On another hand - Russia got there first so he should actually look in the "Gasprom/Deripaska Mirror (tm)".

  • Relevant xkcd (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Actually, I do RTFA ( 1058596 ) on Thursday January 28, 2021 @08:38PM (#61004092)
    Relevant xkcd [xkcd.com]
    • I was reminded of this one: https://xkcd.com/1494/ [xkcd.com]

      Geeks tend to think that everything should run on auto pilot, and that it is incumbent on companies to allow them to hack the system. If Google is removing absolutely all all negative reviews of RobinHood, then fuck them and you're wise to use a different store (Frdoid or whatever). If Google is removing negative reviews because they are part of a reviewbombing campaign, then where is the fault: how is the review useful to potential customers? The same go

      • Re:Relevant xkcd (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Mr. Dollar Ton ( 5495648 ) on Thursday January 28, 2021 @11:26PM (#61004522)

        how is the review useful to potential customers?

        What are you blabbering about?

        A negative review that warns potential customers of a stock trading application that the said app may arbitrarily limit or remove access to your ability to trade assets that you own and expose you to losses because of this is extremely useful to the said potential customers.

        • While what you said about it being a relevant review, it doesn't expose you to losses. It may prevent gains, but not buying cannot cause you to suffer a loss.

          • Re:Relevant xkcd (Score:4, Insightful)

            by Mr. Dollar Ton ( 5495648 ) on Thursday January 28, 2021 @11:46PM (#61004570)

            Actually, reading is not running your eyes over the letters, it is taking in what they mean and making sense of it.

            If an app you're using restricts your ability to trade, it most definitely exposes you to a loss risk. Depending on what you're trading, it may be a very significant loss risk.

            A review that tells potential app users that the app may restrict trading ability is therefore informative and useful to all potential users who do not wish to be exposed to loss risks.

            • Not being able to buy cannot result in a loss. Not being able to trade (buy and sell) or just not being able to sell can. Or explain how not being able to buy can result in a loss as opposed to not being able to gain.

              Words mean things

              • I think you need to look into the kinds of trades being discussed in TFA. In this case, not being able to trade DOES lead to people losing money.

                This is about people playing chicken with each other with options and shorts, and RH limiting the trades of its customers increases the risk of those customers' options and shorts.

              • Re:Relevant xkcd (Score:5, Insightful)

                by Mr. Dollar Ton ( 5495648 ) on Friday January 29, 2021 @02:41AM (#61004800)

                Not being able to buy can definitely result in a loss.

                If I've done my research and preparation and I want to buy a stock with the expectation that it will increase in value, and it does increase in value, but I am not able to purchase it because of an arbitrary decision of my broker to not let me do so is definitely a loss.

                Not only is this a loss, but it is a loss directly attributable to a shitty company/app, which is acting against me, their customer.

                Having reviews that point out the shitty behavior of such a broker and allowing me to avoid them is extremely useful to me.

                You can, of course, disregard all negative reviews and keep using such a platform - but even this decision will be a better one because you've made an informed choice.

              • by Ambvai ( 1106941 )

                Disclaimer: I have six-digits of skin in the GME drama playing out.

                It definitely did result in losses, both direct and indirect.

                If you were monitoring the order book at the time, there was artificial forcing of the price downward generally referred to as a ladder attack.(1) At one point, being able to buy the next fifteen ask orders would've been enough to reset the nominal price from ~200 to ~400-- when there's fifteen transactions in the way of a 100% price increase, something's fishy. One of the major im

              • by Mouldy ( 1322581 )
                Not being able to buy can result in a loss. That is literally what is killing Melvin Capital. They are obliged to buy because they owe someone some stock that they don't currently own.

                Melvin cannot buy if the stock price keeps going up because they literally don't have enough money. That's the squeeze. That's what's going on with this GME nonsense. Retail traders are buying up the stock and refusing to sell it, driving up the price and putting Melvin further and further into debt.

                Obviously, Melvin
              • Re:Relevant xkcd (Score:4, Interesting)

                by fuzznutz ( 789413 ) on Friday January 29, 2021 @10:42AM (#61005766)
                Robin Hood SOLD some of my kid's GME stock without authorization. This was stock purchased with cash. It was sold at a loss. Does that meet your requirements, Mr Apologist?

                It seems he was not alone either... https://www.google.com/search?... [google.com]
            • by Xenx ( 2211586 )
              Except, as they pointed out, Robinhood only blocked the ability to purchase. Users were still able to close out positions. Since Robinhood was the topic of conversation, they would be in the right to correct you as to how the issue would affect users.
              • Except that if I cannot realise an advantageous trade because of arbitrary restrictions on purchases that I was not made aware when signing a contract with the brokerage, I'm hurt/affected just the same.

                • by Xenx ( 2211586 )
                  Then I can only say that between the two of you, you're the one that cannot read. They gave your example as a possible downside, but noted that it's not a loss as it pertains to investing. You're just missing out on the opportunity to potentially make money.
        • First: I'm not sure RobinHood is being arbitrary. But it is a "free" service which probably means you are the product, which leads me to . . .

          Second: RH has always seemed supersketchy and I've never used it. But I'm not sure how much the the users really own. My understanding is that a lot of these are margin trades where even reputable brokers make you jump though hoops and agree to seemingly onerous conditions (I've never bought on margin for this reason+interest).

          Third, if google is removing useful revie

      • I like that one as well. It also factors in with the GME traders who think they uncovered an infinite money hack. In reality, their trades have great payoffs, but also great risk. And someone is going to get caught holding the bag. It may be hedge funds, but it's probably going to include a lot of retail traders too.

  • Not review bombing (Score:5, Insightful)

    by belthize ( 990217 ) on Thursday January 28, 2021 @08:40PM (#61004100)

    A large number of people wanted to use the app, weren't able to for the purpose they wanted because RH was in the process of partnering with Citadel to decide how to bail out a hedge fund.

    There are now multiple lawsuits filed, including a class action in NY plus calls from the house and senate floor from both parties for an investigation.

    You gotta fuck up pretty hard, probably 1 start hard, to get AOC and Cruz to agree on something. So seems like relatively legit ratings.

    • > You gotta fuck up pretty hard, probably 1 start hard, to get AOC and Cruz to agree on something. So seems like relatively legit ratings.

      That is a great point. Though really they just want attention.

    • by Motard ( 1553251 ) on Thursday January 28, 2021 @08:57PM (#61004144)

      You gotta fuck up pretty hard, probably 1 start hard, to get AOC and Cruz to agree on something.

      Nah, I'm pretty sure a well placed fart would do it.

      AOC is not the person to solve this. Needless to say, Cruz isn't either.

      As they say, opinions are like assholes. And Twitter has a monopoly.

    • Citadel is denying link to RH. Decide for yourself if that's the truth. Ultimately, follow the money. It may or may not be Citadel but either RH is afraid of it's customers not being able to pay up (leaving RH stuck) or a hedge fund/bank is pulling the strings because they don't want to get stuck with losses.

      • How could RH's customers being unable to pay up happen? They buy stock, they pay for it right away, done.
        The ones making contracts that could bankrupt them are the short sellers. The brokers working with them have to be afraid a lot more.

    • by sjames ( 1099 )

      Exactly this. There seems to be good reason to believe the ratings were sincere in this case. This isn't like a case where company A bombs B's competing and comparable app.

    • by Dan667 ( 564390 )
      AOC and cruz agreeing is hilarious and really saying something of the hot water they are in. They had no leg to stand on to do that, but collusion. I hope they bury robinhood to the ground and take those hedge funds hemorrhaging with them.
  • What a clusterfuck (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Amiga Trombone ( 592952 ) on Thursday January 28, 2021 @08:52PM (#61004128)

    Seriously, is there a single accurate source of information on the internet anymore? And if there is, how would you know? Everything is manipulated to keep up appearances, despite the whole world knowing it's manipulated. They do it despite not fooling anyone, and they know they're not fooling anyone. How sick is that?

    • North Korea sick.

    • by sjames ( 1099 )

      Why limit that to the net? It's not like TV and newspapers have done any better.

    • Seriously, is there a single accurate source of information on the internet anymore?

      Was there ever?

    • There's no way to win. If companies get destroyed by maliciously bad reviews from rivals, or customers with an axe to grind, would people be happy with that? People can't even review properly, like reviewing the delivery service when that has nothing to do with a product.

      Free speech comes with responsibilities, and unfortunately, people here want to argue that they have no responsibility. People should be able to lie and cheat all they want and fuck the consequences because 'muricafreespeech!
    • Seriously, is there a single accurate source of information on the internet anymore? And if there is, how would you know? Everything is manipulated to keep up appearances, despite the whole world knowing it's manipulated. They do it despite not fooling anyone, and they know they're not fooling anyone. How sick is that?

      This is pretty much my view.

  • Fuck Google (Score:5, Insightful)

    by AbRASiON ( 589899 ) * on Thursday January 28, 2021 @09:10PM (#61004180) Journal

    Robinhood literally 'ganged up' on normal home traders for the big funds? Are you kidding me?

    The app should be reported as a scam at this point, not just 1 star rated, but removed entirely.

    Again: Fuck google, as usual.

  • by Fly Swatter ( 30498 ) on Thursday January 28, 2021 @09:31PM (#61004242) Homepage
    Every review manipulates ratings, that is the purpose of a review. Just take out ratings altogether and have a permanent 5 star picture next to every app. No one will notice.

    Every step from the stock shorting up to this ratings censorship just proves everything people do is manipulated to bring an individual in line if you didn't do what you were told.
  • Et tu, Apple? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Kendallvision ( 7672786 ) on Thursday January 28, 2021 @09:37PM (#61004260)
    Am I the only one not seeing any reviews on the Apple App Store for any time after Wed? Seems Apple deserves our scorn as well.
  • by cygnusvis ( 6168614 ) on Thursday January 28, 2021 @09:48PM (#61004298)
    Robin hood actually did things to justify the reviews. Did they do bad things? Who knows, but they did things the users didnt like.
  • by sinij ( 911942 ) on Thursday January 28, 2021 @10:19PM (#61004392)
    If you don't like justified 100,000 negative reviews being deleted, build your own Internet.
  • I would go tell google to blow it out their ass except google has 16 years of my un-backed up emails, life, purchases... I'll just sit here full of regret, maybe one day I can kick these terrorist to the curb.

  • Google's policies explicitly prohibit reviews intended to manipulate an app's rating,

    Surely all individual ratings are intended to manipulate the overall rating? Why else would anyone rate an app?

  • I hate Google as much as the next guy, but for once I think this is justified.

    See the thing is, an app review is a review of the app: I expect to read whether it crashes my Android system, asks too many permissions or whether the UI is horrible: App reviews aren't really meant to review the policies of the company behind the app, now are they?

    So yeah, Google removed reviews of RobinHood-as-a-company because they were off-topic.

    The problem fundamentally is that people turn any place they can write something

    • If I buy a game that connects to a server so I can find another person to play with, and it turns out that server crashes all the time. If the app works fine I shouldn't down grade it. I don't think so.
    • by alexo ( 9335 ) on Friday January 29, 2021 @12:11AM (#61004624) Journal

      See the thing is, an app review is a review of the app: I expect to read whether it crashes my Android system, asks too many permissions or whether the UI is horrible: App reviews aren't really meant to review the policies of the company behind the app, now are they?

      Normally not, unless said policies prevent you from using the app for the purpose you got it for.

      People get the Robinhood app to trade stocks. If they cannot use it to execute the trades that they got it for -- regardless if it's due to a buggy implementation or a deliberate policy -- then a low rating is justified.

  • Google's policies explicitly prohibit reviews intended to manipulate an app's rating,

    Wouldn't that apply to any negative review?

Those who do things in a noble spirit of self-sacrifice are to be avoided at all costs. -- N. Alexander.

Working...