In the modern world the right to waste money is held to be very sacred - I have always viewed casinos as a great money -> fun conversion machine for those who can sensibly enjoy it... but for those who can't there isn't anyone stopping them at the door and saying "We already have 90% of your money, why don't you go home and enjoy a quiet evening of netflix".

The stock market has a long reputation of saying "Well, sucks to be you" when various scams are committed - even when a hedge fund manager burns through a bunch of retirement funds and then shows up at the company demanding their annual retainer so I am quite reluctant to buy that this one instance is when altruism is coming in to play.

A bunch of people are choosing to loose a bit of their money in exchange for warm fuzzy feelings - I think it's absolutely idiotic but then again I don't tend to patronize casinos either. If there is someone behind this running a pump & dump scam they absolutely should be prosecuted as normal, but falling victim to a financial scam on the stock market is one of those properties capitalist libertarians always hold up and they can't change their mind just because this one instance ended up screwing them over instead.