Just remember that Knight Capital episode. Algorithm ran amok, they lost a decent chunk of money (460M US$!) and were bought out a couple of weeks later (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knight_Capital_Group#2012_stock...).
HFT isn't based on market manipulation. Some HFT firms perform market manipulation, as do some non HFT firms, but this practice is illegal. (For example, newedge was recently fined for market manipulation)
Losing your money in the stock market != market manipulation.