Obviously the blocking of buys will have an effect on the price and availability of the stock. Not that it provides any reasonable justification for RH either way.

> If your "short squeeze" is dependent on people buying more in order to create a short squeeze, then you are just coordinating to create a short squeeze, not dealing with a "natural occurring" one.

Even if you want to buy the stock because you know there is a short squeeze ongoing, that is not illegal. That is just analysing the market conditions and seeing the obvious.

I'm honestly having trouble grasping what you and others think could possibly be illegal about this. Short sellers aren't prohibited from losing money by law.

Who said that was the situation though?

The problem is that buying the stock became something that was largely barred from retail investors, while institutional investors faced no such issue. Indeed, when a stock can only be sold, that means it can only go down, so the pressure of the short squeeze was alleviated as a natural amount of selling occurred while buying was artificially deflated by multiple brokers and entities preventing retail investors from purchasing a stock that was > 100% shorted.

This was guaranteed money for these traders too, the short squeeze was already on - the shorters were on the hook for this money.

The fact that there are huge financial relationships across the chain from one of the biggest shorters of the stock all the way to Robinhood makes this the controversy it is today. The market prevented natural market mechanics dictating a short squeeze that was already on.