Amazon fights fake reviews on social media

That Amazon fights fake reviews on social media now a well-known fact. We ourselves have published a few articles on the topic in the past. And when we heard about the latest initiatives of the Seattle-based giant, we couldn’t but deal with the subject again today. Amazon is increasingly determined to clean up the fake reviews found online, on social networks and elsewhere as they are often misleading in consumers’ purchasing decisions.

A seemingly unequal struggle, waged tenaciously

The phenomenon of fake reviews on social media is extremely widespread.  To date, Jeff Bezos’ company has already reported more than 10,000 groups on Facebook. These communities provide false comments on products purchased on Amazon. The mechanism they use to do it nowadays is rather well-known but not less entrenched than it used to be.

In the statement presenting its new law enforcement actions, Amazon specifies that these groups attract bad users interested in obtaining money or various kinds of rewards , prompting them to write comments about purchases they never made. Through such levers, the groups reward one operator and/or punish another.

According to the results of the research released by the company, the countries most affected by the phenomenon are:

• The United States
• The United Kingdom
• France
• Italy
• Germany
• Spain
• Japan

For example, the main group discovered by Amazon, called Amazon Product Review, had more than 40,000 members. It was promptly removed by Facebook at the request of Jeff Bezos’ company.

Meta, the parent company of Facebook, also wanted to have its say on the phenomenon. It reassured everyone that it is working with Amazon on this issue. Zuckerberg’s group wants to continue working together to tackle fake reviews across the industry and prosecute groups that violate the social network’s rules.

A phenomenon that is not new, but still relevant

The phenomenon, as all of our most attentive readers probably already know, is certainly not new. An investigation conducted by the Washington Post in 2018 had already discovered that certain product categories such as health supplements were completely at the mercy of fake reviews. The system, the dossier said, could move products up or down in the rankings depending on the intentions of the bad actors organizing the fake review campaigns. The newspaper had at the time found there was an actual market for buying and selling fake reviews on Facebook.

Meanwhile, through its vice president Selling Partner Services, Amazon has confirmed that it blocks millions of suspicious reviews before they can reach users. It has stated that this legal action is a further step towards exposing the culprits operating on social media.

Finally, the company said it employs more than 12,000 people worldwide in activities protecting customers, brands, and sales partners against:

• counterfeiting
• fraud
• other forms of abuse, including fake reviews.

It achieves these goals by using a combination of advanced technology, experienced investigators, and continuous monitoring to help intercept fake reviews.