Google reclaimed Robinhood’s one-star rating by deleting nearly 100,000 negative reviews

Google Actively Removes Negative Reviews of Robinhood App from Google Play Store, Company Confirmed The edge. After some disgruntled Robinhood users organized campaigns to give the app a one-star rating on Google’s Play Store and Apple’s App Store – and has successfully bombed it up to one star – the company has now removed enough reviews to bring it back to almost four stars.

Robinhood came under scrutiny on Thursday, after the stock trading app announced it would block purchases of GameStop, AMC and other stocks made popular by the sub-reddit r / WallStreetBets, and some users have already replaced their deleted one-star reviews with new ones. to voice their anger.

Here is a screenshot of the Play Store page captured by 9to5Google when the app earned a one star rating and nearly 275,000 reviews:

Picture: 9to5Google

And here’s a screenshot we took shortly before publishing this article, showing an almost four-star rating and around 180,000 reviews.

It is not Google’s responsibility to remove these posts. Google’s policies explicitly prohibit notices intended to manipulate an app’s rating, and the company says it has a system that “combines human intelligence and machine learning to detect and enforce policy violations in business areas. ratings and reviews ”. Google says it has specifically taken action on reviews it says violated those policies, the company said. The edge. Google says businesses don’t have the option to delete reviews on their own.

On the Apple App Store, Robinhood has a 4.7 rating and we haven’t seen any reviews more recent than Wednesday. However, popular apps like TikTok, A, and Genshin impact We also didn’t have any comments later than Wednesday when we checked out.

The hapless Robinhood users aren’t just using reviews to show their anger – they’re also calling for a class action lawsuit. Later Thursday, Robinhood said it would allow “limited purchases” of certain stocks on Friday. The company said halting purchases on Thursday was “a risk management decision.”