Google retrieved Robinhood’s star rating, excluding almost 100,000 negative comments

Google retrieved Robinhood’s star rating, excluding almost 100,000 negative comments

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Google is actively removing negative comments from the Google Play Store’s Robinhood app, the company confirmed The Verge. After some disgruntled Robinhood users organized campaigns to give the app a one-star rating on the Google Play Store and the Apple App Store – and managed to downgrade it to a one-star rating – the company has now deleted enough ratings to bring it back to almost four stars.

Robinhood came under intense scrutiny on Thursday after the stock trading app announced it would block purchases of GameStop, AMC and other shares popularized by the subreddit r / WallStreetBets, and some users have already replaced their excluded one-star reviews for new ones to make their anger heard.

Here is a screenshot of the Play Store page captured by 9to5Google when the app had a one star rating and almost 275,000 comments:

Robinhood’s page on the Play Store on Thursday.
Image: 9to5Google

And here is a screenshot that we took just before publishing this article, showing a rating of almost four stars and about 180,000 reviews.

Robinhood’s review on the Play Store on Thursday.

Deleting these posts is not out of Google’s reach. Google’s policies explicitly prohibit comments 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 comments.” Google says it has taken specific action in relation to comments it deemed violating these policies, says the company The Verge. Google says that companies do not have the ability to exclude reviews on their own.

On the Apple App Store, Robinhood has a rating of 4.7, and we didn’t see any comments more recent than Wednesday. However, popular apps like TikTok, Oneand Impact Genshin also had no comments on any wednesday when we checked out.

The unfortunate users of Robinhood are not only using ratings to show their ire – they are also calling for collective action. Later on Thursday, Robinhood said it would allow “limited purchases” of certain shares on Friday. The company said stopping purchases on Thursday was “a risk management decision”.

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