- Robinhood users are furious after it blocked them from trading GameStop and other red-hot stocks.
- In more than 120,000 tweets in just two days, users called for a boycott of the app.
- This map, compiled by cryptocurrency news site Bitreporter, reveals where they are.
- Visit Business Insider’s homepage for more stories.
Robinhood sparked the outrage of its users this week after it throttled their ability to buy shares of GameStop and other red-hot stocks amid a market frenzy.
Bitreporter, an online cryptocurrency and financial news website, mapped out that anger using geotagged Twitter data, and unearthed more than 120,000 tweets over the past two days from users venting about the situation via hashtags like #boycottrobinhood, #deleterobinhood, and #cancelrobinhood.
The map revealed some interesting trends about who’s behind this week’s wild stock market activity — here’s which states’ Twitter users were the angriest about Robinhood.
New York, as well as other large states and those near the financial heart of America, such as Pennsylvania, were unsurprisingly, well-represented — but so were less-populated states like West Virginia, Utah, South Carolina, Hawai’i, and Wyoming.
“Another piece of the puzzle is the somewhat populist undertones of all this,” Bitreporter spokesperson Ryan Taylor told Insider. “The little guy taking on the ‘man’ type idea.”
“This is a popular theme in states like Florida, West Virginia, and South Carolina, especially in recent years. And when these people feel that they are being taken advantage of, or cheated, they are going to make it known they aren’t happy,” he said.
States where gambling is big, like Nevada and New Jersey, also saw a lot of activity.
“While Nevada is the top gambling state, it could be argued that New Jersey is the top ‘online’ betting state,” Taylor said, “so it’s no surprise that you see these states jumping on an app like Robinhood and engaging in what some would say is ‘gambling.'”
Taylor said the only surprise was that “there didn’t seem to be a lot of Robinhood outrage in California,” adding that, while it’s difficult to get exact location information Twitter users, “you would assume California has the greatest amount of Robinhood users.”
Read more:The Reddit traders driving up the price of GameStop are not what you think they are
Earlier this month, a Reddit-based online community of investors called r/WallStreetBets ignited a “short squeeze,” a buying spree that targeted GameStop, AMC Theaters, Nokia, and a handful of other stocks, sending their prices skyrocketing.
In the process, they also triggered massive losses for Wall Street short sellers who had bet those stocks would tank, and fueled a surge in market volatility this week as other investors rushed to get in on the action.
On Thursday, Robinhood, which allows anyone to buy and sell stocks without fees, briefly blocked users from buying GameStop and other stocks targeted by the short squeeze. On Friday, the company capped users at one share of GameStop and restricted trading for 22 other shares.
The move drew swift criticism from Robinhood’s users — as well as business leaders and some Democratic politicians — who claimed Robinhood was unfairly blocking retail investors from buying stocks that were still on their way up even as hedge funds and other Wall Street firms could still trade freely.
Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev defended the move, saying the company had to comply with regulations that became more stringent due to the market volatility.
But Robinhood users didn’t buy it, and voiced their anger by tanking the app’s reviews, filing lawsuits, and venting on social media.
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