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Robinhood now has a 1-Star rating on the Google Play Store

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Re: Robinhood now has a 1-Star rating on the Google Play Store

#461

Post by jhayward »

daenz wrote: post #159
alangibson wrote: post #80

One of the good things I see coming out of Robinhood blocking trading, Twitter and Reddit booting problematic users, Parler getting vaporized, etc. is a sudden realization amongst people of just how easily major parts of their lives can be instantly turned off by intermediaries. My hope is that this will drive a reformist movement around digital rights (speech, commerce, etc.) As well as a movement from platforms to…

At the risk of sounding like an "I told you so" type of person, it is frustrating to speak out and see others speak out about future consequences of these kinds of actions, only to be drowned out by people liberally applying the slippery slope fallacy argument.

Ok, since it's a fallacy, I have some mountain trails I'd like you to walk today. They are icy, but since it's a fallacy, I doubt you'll fall to your death.

Re: Robinhood now has a 1-Star rating on the Google Play Store

#462

Post by zarkov99 »

AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #386
zarkov99 wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you central questions it the most important one, but the dichotomy between private and public is forced. A phone company is not forced to moderate the communication of its clients.

I don't believe parent said they were forced, only that they would do it. And that makes sense, since their desire is to minimize damage to their brand. There is a simple solution to this if you don't like the way they behave: stop using their product, and recommend others do the same. Of course, your not using it doesn't prevent others from using it if they want to, but that's freedom of choice for you.

I am all for the free market, but when companies grow too dominant it no longer works, and we should not pretend otherwise. Just look at what happened to Parler.

Re: Robinhood now has a 1-Star rating on the Google Play Store

#463

Post by chaostheory »

alangibson wrote: post #80

One of the good things I see coming out of Robinhood blocking trading, Twitter and Reddit booting problematic users, Parler getting vaporized, etc. is a sudden realization amongst people of just how easily major parts of their lives can be instantly turned off by intermediaries. My hope is that this will drive a reformist movement around digital rights (speech, commerce, etc.) As well as a movement from platforms to…

This should help kickstart a new decentralization movement.

Re: Robinhood now has a 1-Star rating on the Google Play Store

#464

Post by silexia »

defen wrote: post #450
silexia wrote: post #378

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This will probably be my least popular post ever, but the explanation needs to get out there for why Robinhood stopped trading on GME. Selling a stock short is NOT illegal. It is a perfectly valid type of investment according to the SEC: “D. Are short sales legal? Although the vast majority of short sales are legal, abusive short sale practices are illegal. For example, it is prohibited for any person to engage in a…

> For example, picture a retail investor with a Robinhood account had sold call options in the amount of $100,000 and their account was worth $200,000. If the price gapped from 300 to 5000 and those options were exercised, that trader could have a loss of $10,000,000. He would lose the value of his account, $200,000… but the brokerage would have to make up the rest of the settlement and take a loss of $9,800,000. Now…

Exactly. So the risk department told them to shut down trading till things were saner.

Re: Robinhood now has a 1-Star rating on the Google Play Store

#465

Post by zarkov99 »

monkeywork wrote: post #388
zarkov99 wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you central questions it the most important one, but the dichotomy between private and public is forced. A phone company is not forced to moderate the communication of its clients.

true but the analogy falls apart when you realize that 99% of phone conversations are peer to peer and between 2-4 people. social media posts can be a single person communicating with millions. the damage per unit of effort is much much lower for the unmoderated phone vs the unmoderated social

I agree, its an open problem. One one hand no one elected these companies as arbiters of what is good but on the other society at large is not equipped to handle the tsunami of speech that the internet enabled. Something has to be done.

Re: Robinhood now has a 1-Star rating on the Google Play Store

#466

Post by miguelrochefort »

silexia wrote: post #378
shrimpx wrote: post #345

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a bit of knowledge from friends who work in fintech, and the sentiment among fintech companies seems to be that SEC doesn't matter. The fine is small and comes way too late. You can simply account for an approximate future fine and move forward with your shady business.

This will probably be my least popular post ever, but the explanation needs to get out there for why Robinhood stopped trading on GME. Selling a stock short is NOT illegal. It is a perfectly valid type of investment according to the SEC: “D. Are short sales legal? Although the vast majority of short sales are legal, abusive short sale practices are illegal. For example, it is prohibited for any person to engage in a…

> If the price gapped from 300 to 5000 and those options were exercised, that trader could have a loss of $10,000,000. He would lose the value of his account, $200,000… but the brokerage would have to make up the rest of the settlement and take a loss of $9,800,000.

What if the price of a stock went from $300 to $5000 for legitimate reasons, perhaps due to some technological breakthrough. The exact same situation would happen. Would shutting down trading also be justified?

Re: Robinhood now has a 1-Star rating on the Google Play Store

#467

Post by ant6n »

sebmellen wrote: post #153
alangibson wrote: post #80

One of the good things I see coming out of Robinhood blocking trading, Twitter and Reddit booting problematic users, Parler getting vaporized, etc. is a sudden realization amongst people of just how easily major parts of their lives can be instantly turned off by intermediaries. My hope is that this will drive a reformist movement around digital rights (speech, commerce, etc.) As well as a movement from platforms to…

There was a relevant document posted earlier today at this link: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25942632 . "Protocols, Not Platforms: A Technological Approach to Free Speech (2019)" Article subtitle: > Altering the internet's economic and digital infrastructure to promote free speech I am somewhat skeptical of crypto, but I do hope that the DeFi ecosystem, 20 years in the future, will act as a democratizing for…

But how can you get rich with protocols instead of platforms?

Re: Robinhood now has a 1-Star rating on the Google Play Store

#468

Post by g9yuayon »

shostack wrote: post #405
g9yuayon wrote: post #223

Robinhood phrased their message as if it was for user's own good. Moralizing everything beyond protocol and rules and law has serious consequences. It does nothing but driving people cynical. Didn't the elites learn the stories of USSR political jokes, the stories of how East Germans (and ancient Chinese people) talked to each other via eye contacts only? It's not hard to guess what will happen when enough number of…

Any links to good reading on the eye contact communication? That sounds really interesting.

I don't know if there's any communication protocol with eye contact. People were so afraid of persecution that they used only eye contact to exchange feelings, or so I read. One may argue that it's different this time aforementioned persecution came from the governments. Well, it's worth remembering that it was ordinary people who voluntarily snitched each other during those horrible times, believing that they were on moral high ground. Or just ask Chinese: who beat professors and school principals to death? Who thought that business owners deserved to starve to death? Who thought eating flesh of person was righteous because that person was born in a middle-class family?

It looks many Chinese have learned their lessons from their own painful history, yet Americans didn't even care about history at all.

Re: Robinhood now has a 1-Star rating on the Google Play Store

#469

Post by FiberBundle »

silexia wrote: post #435
FiberBundle wrote: post #409

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well I think probably most of the people on wsb have no idea what they're doing, those that trade on margin are extremely reckless and irrational. Having said that I still find absolutely ridiculous and highly corrupt that they solely stopped buy orders. If you stop trading that's reasonable, but to cap this off on one side and allow Wallstreet to make up for losses is unacceptable.

Robinhood's platform was allowing illegal activity - many people had come out publicly [0] saying they were attempting a short squeeze on GME which is illegal. Robinhood is extremely vulnerable to lawsuits for enabling that activity if they did not take action. 0- https://www.reddit.com/r/wallstreetbets/comments/l594yg/gme_...

Do you have a source for why that is illegal?

Re: Robinhood now has a 1-Star rating on the Google Play Store

#470

Post by pa7x1 »

root_axis wrote: post #395
michaelsbradley wrote: post #371

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, DeFi will simply migrate to L2 solutions as they become viable.

Yeah, funny how the solution to all the inherent problems with blockchains is to move off the blockchain. The future of "DeFi" is centralization.

You are a bit out of date on your assumptions. You can read further here: https://vitalik.ca/general/2021/01/05/rollup.html
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