FTC bans fake online reviews, inflated social media influence; rule takes effect in October
www.cnbc.com
Amazon sued more than 10,000 Facebook group administrators in July 2022 for allegedly brokering fake reviews.

Takes effect in October, finally some good news

  • Boozilla@lemmy.worldEnglish
    122·
    4 months ago

    Lina Khan is a champion of the people. She’s one of a zillion reasons voting matters.

    • mipadaitu@lemmy.worldEnglish
      73·
      4 months ago

      Maybe they shouldn’t have 6,000 versions of the same thing under different fake brands sold by fake companies.

      Clean that up and the rest becomes a hell of a lot easier.

      • Brokkr@lemmy.world
        8·
        4 months ago

        I think a lot of that stuff is people buying items in bulk off alibaba, rebranding it, and listing. Most of it is crap, but that’s how stuff like it can be so cheaply produced, it’s one or two factories producing at scale.

      • Blackmist@feddit.ukEnglish
        4·
        4 months ago

        All the DCRYTJT HDMI cables for a start. Got a couple of bad reviews? Just run your hand over the keyboard at random, there’s your new brand name. They’re now XDCRHJT HDMI cables.

        Generic products should just be listed together.

      • Wogi@lemmy.world
        8·
        4 months ago

        Lowe’s is horrible about this too. Most of the big box stores are but Lowe’s seems to be the most egregious about it

    • bustAsh@lemmy.world
      17·
      4 months ago

      I updated my Firefox browser. Now, when viewing a product on Amazon, Firefox rates the reviews A-F based on whether or not they are reliable.

        • bustAsh@lemmy.world
          1·
          4 months ago

          On the last update, I browsed Amazon for some product, and Amazon had a pop up, kind of, that asked if I would like them to weed out fake reviews. Of course I opted in. Had it save me a couple times now.

          Sorry for the late reply.

      • Psythik@lemmy.world
        32·
        4 months ago

        Literally every retailer steals shit and rebrands it; what did you think generic store brands were?

        • SpacetimeMachine@lemmy.world
          8·
          4 months ago

          No they literally go to the manufacturer and undercut the other businesses that use them so they can sell the item for cheaper until that business goes under, and then they raise the price. It’s not just a normal stealing of a product.

  • EndOfLine@lemm.eeEnglish
    62·
    4 months ago

    The ban also forbids marketers from exaggerating their own influence by, for example, paying for bots to inflate their follower count.

    I wonder if “followers” includes users and how that will impact Twitter, Reddit, Facebooky, Instagram, TikTok, etc who use stats like active users to drive ad sales.

    • xmunk@sh.itjust.works
      21·
      4 months ago

      But I thought Elon got rid of all the bots… does that mean my sweetheart’s link isn’t actually in their bio?

      I am devastated.

    • Good_morning@lemmynsfw.comOP
      16·
      4 months ago

      I’m curious about that too, I assumed the main target was online storefronts but it seems more expansive than that. Was surprised to learn about Amazon suing admins of FB groups.

    • Crismus@lemmy.world
      3·
      4 months ago

      Let’s hope this means the constant calls I get on What’s App to work as a fake promoter bumping review scores will stop.

      I was starting to be tempted because I hate poverty.

    • FlowVoid@lemmy.worldEnglish
      18·
      4 months ago

      Here’s one way to enforce it: the FTC could set up fronts that sell fake reviews. If anyone tries to buy fake reviews, the FTC busts them.

      After doing this enough, companies will be suspicious of anyone selling fake reviews. Maybe suspicious enough to not risk buying them. Kind of like how it’s common knowledge that every supposed killer-for-hire is actually an FBI agent waiting to arrest you.

      Eventually, nobody want to buy fake reviews. And when nobody wants to pay for them, they will disappear.

      • mlg@lemmy.worldEnglish
        2·
        4 months ago

        That only works for 3rd party vendors.

        Amazon doesn’t even bother and just does shady content filtering to make their products always appear first and show real reviews that they think will make you buy the product.

        There’s a partial chance they can shadow ban reviews or screw with the total rating too, but I think they entice enough people to produce a passable rating, even if the product is subpar.

        Still anything is a start, FTC been making rounds lately.

      • FuglyDuck@lemmy.worldEnglish
        1·
        4 months ago

        Well the ones that call themselves that are probably fbi agents.

        The real ones likely don’t take walkins.

    • mke@lemmy.world
      3·
      4 months ago

      Perhaps the value is in having something explicitly written in a book, so that we can actually throw it at them.

      They won’t catch all cases, but maybe the fear of slipping and becoming the unlucky company that gets caught and punished will have a positive effect on the industry.

      I don’t have a backgrounder in law, this is simply optimistic speculation in response to pessimistic speculation.

    • brbposting@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      31·
      4 months ago

      To post a review, submit your SSN / verify with a third party.

      Cue a whole new identity sales & theft industry!

      (I’ve wanted to see some verified reviewer concept for a long time now but it seems dangerous and only half useful.)

      • Tja@programming.dev
        2·
        4 months ago

        Amazon marks your review with a special flag if you purchased the product. Still plenty of fake reviews.

  • julysfire@lemmy.world
    25·
    4 months ago

    The enforcement of this is going to be pretty tough. And the fake reviews by bots will get argued to high hell and back in court. “They aren’t bots, they are real people in click farms”.

    Love the direction but I am not holding my breath until we see some actionable change from this.

    • DreamlandLividity@lemmy.world
      7·
      4 months ago

      That’s not how this works. The rule can’t stop you as a private person. You can still post bot reviews.

      It will apply to businesses, which don’t have the right to remain silent or against searches. If they suspect a business is breaking the rules, they can subpoena the employees, computers and bank records to check if they are breaking the rule. And if they think the employees would risk jail time for perjury or destruction of evidence to protect their employer, they can just raid the offices and seize the computers.

    • FlowVoid@lemmy.worldEnglish
      7·
      4 months ago

      The new rule bans writing, buying or selling fake reviews.

      It does not require Amazon or Apple to identify or delete fake reviews.

  • bradorsomething@ttrpg.network
    222·
    4 months ago

    I purchased an FTC and was very pleased with my product. It can be loud at times and make bold claims, but in the end does nothing.

    • solarvector@lemmy.zip
      161·
      4 months ago

      Not sure why you’re being down voted. It’s a legit question even if you support the law. Enforcement seems very difficult and other laws and courts make even easier enforcement difficult.

      I still think it’s a very positive direction from the FTC.

      • AtomicTacoSauce@lemmy.worldEnglish
        112·
        4 months ago

        Not sure why you’re being down voted

        I guess Reddit habits never die, eh?

        But, I’d love to see this come to fruition. I just don’t see how enforcement could keep up with the sheer numbers of fake reviews.

    • FlowVoid@lemmy.worldEnglish
      6·
      4 months ago

      The rule targets people who write or sell fake reviews. So the FTC could pretend to be a manufacturer soliciting fake reviews, and then go after anyone who offers to sell them.

    • 4am@lemm.ee
      5·
      4 months ago

      Might just give way to an arms race for realistic fake reviews, but at least this gives teeth to investigators. If they can prove that a company did it, then they have a rule to cite that it’s an offense, instead of the fuck-all we have now.

      • JimSamtanko@lemm.ee
        4·
        4 months ago

        Because this isn’t a law like- breaking and entry is a law. It’s won’t be so easy to prove, and it’s a lot easier to tie this up in appeals.

      • AtomicTacoSauce@lemmy.worldEnglish
        65·
        4 months ago

        Um, there are thousands of laws that can be enforced through direct observation of a crime. How do you propose that bots or fake reviews be banned in reality? That’s like saying that I want to ban farts at my house. Ok, great. Saying you want something banned and actually having the means to do so are two completely different things.

  • TacticsConsort@yiffit.net
    19·
    4 months ago

    Now there’s an interesting one. If this is actually enforced properly then it could really have a big impact on some sites that are notorious for bot spamming to make themselves look impressive.

    • Mog_fanatic@lemmy.world
      7·
      4 months ago

      Very true but man this is gonna be tough to actually enforce. Not only just bots but how the heck are paid reviews gonna be found and banned? Those are legit reviews by actual people, just saying bull crap because they were paid or received a free product or something

      • FabledAepitaph@lemmy.world
        2·
        4 months ago

        Its a step in the right direction. They’ve gone from having hundreds or thousands of AI reviews to having one or two real reviews for the same price. In theory, anyways.

  • SomeGuy69@lemmy.world
    17·
    4 months ago

    This will be fun to Amazon, either 95% of all reviews will suddenly disappear or they’re no longer legal.

  • thesohoriots@lemmy.worldEnglish
    14·
    4 months ago

    Hopefully they address those companies that force frontload all the 5-star, then 4-star, etc. with no way to sort except by going through hundreds of pages.

  • some_guy@lemmy.sdf.org
    14·
    4 months ago

    So, they’re gonna start policing Apple’s App Store for the many obviously fake reviews and make Apple do something about it, right? Please be yes.