Go on, use actual words to make a substantial allegation.

Pension funds don't tend to follow the S&P 500, much less automatically. They're sophisticated institutional investors like CalPERS [1] who dabble in everything from public stocks to private equity.

It's other retirement assets, e.g. 401(k)s and other self-directed systems, that tend to follow the S&P 500. But again, with substantial variation.

S&P including these companies would have driven a lot of money towards them. But there was a lot of misinformation around the magnitude of that drive, as well as the breadth of whom it would affect.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CalPERS

The only substantial effect I've seen of the influencers who were doomsplaining this decision was some minor churn in retirement assets from low-cost S&P 500 followers to higher-cost funds. (The market, broadly, never priced in a rebalancing of the S&P 500. So this was almost entirely whipped up by influencers.)

Not really. One, it was unlikely to happen. The market not pricing in any rebalancing communicated that. Two, the magnitude–even for the S&P 500–would have been small. About a third of stocks are in passive strategies, about 15% in any index, and while most of that is the S&P 500, the index market is incredibly competitive.

S&P made the right move. But the tragedy this episode has revealed, at least to me, is in how venal and influential this new breed of financial influencers on YouTube and X are, and the degree to which they're willing to misinform to get clicks.