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I seem to remember the last time a bunch of noobs lost their shirts on Robinhood journalists coming out of the woodwork to blame Robinhood for not stopping naive users from making bad decisions. Now these same people are mad at Robinhood for intervening.
If you want to bring attention to how the finance industry fucks the little guy to enrich the powerful I recommend you look at regulatory capture, the SEC, and the revolving door. Itâs not as easy, simple, and sexy as âRobinhood is evilâ but itâs the far bigger problem.
This is a perfect example of how social media algorithms lead to poor policy. Some shithead is going to suggest regulating Robinhood while financiers continue to fuck everyone with impunity because theyâve managed to avoid âtrendingâ lately. This isnât how journalism should work.
Algorithms reward journalists for writing about whatever people already think is important. But people donât know whatâs important. Weâre easily taken in by simple, compelling narratives. A journalistâs most important duty is to determine whatâs actually important vs noise.
Reminder: Multiple whistleblowers told the SEC about Bernie Madoff for years. They ignored the tips because he had family connections. Robinhood has far more to fear from the SEC, who is in bed with hedge funds, than the hedge funds themselves.
But journalists arenât going to tell that story because it requires actual reporting which is time-consuming and expensive. By the time they win their FOIA lawsuits everyoneâs attention will have moved on. And theyâll have alienated people with real power.
And donât get it twisted. This isnât an indictment of any particular journalist or even journalists generally so much as a critique of a system we created that rewards outrage at easy targets and fails to fund the grueling and expensive work of actually holding power to account.
