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Facebook Pressurized to Crack Down on Groups Seeking Fake Amazon Reviews


Facebook is a hub where a variety of activities take place ranging from business, just having fun, the list is endless.

The platform has proven as the ultimate place for advertising owing to the massive usage numbers the platform draws every day. Back in June, the Capital Markets Authority urged both Facebook and eBay to crack down groups and listings that sold fake Amazon reviews respectively.

CMA had conducted a study in a period running from November 2018 to June 2019 discovering 26 Facebook groups and over 100 eBay listings offering phony product reviews.

However, a consumer group named Who? has publicly revealed that Facebook has not yet tackled the problem entirely.

The BBC reports that Which? uncovered several groups on the platform which recruit individuals for fake reviews.

Which? joined 10 different Facebook groups in search of recruits. In those groups over 55,000 posts were created in 30 days by recruiters seeking individuals to write fake testimonials in exchange for free products.

The social media giant claims to have already removed nine of the groups sparing the last one for further investigations. Besides, the company plans to develop improved tools and technologies which could help to find groups faster.

eBay seemingly has played their part well with the consumer group, Which? only finding one advert that sold fake reviews.

It will not be surprising if the CMA corners Facebook concerning this matter. Which? States an “enforcement action” should be opted for to make Facebook act.

CMA’s Senior Director termed it as “unacceptable” with this only marks the beginning of their fight to combat fake online reviews in the future. He urged Facebook to “take effective steps to deal with this problem by quickly removing the material and stop it from resurfacing.”

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Alvin Wanjala

Alvin Wanjala has been writing about technology for over 2 years. He writes about different topics in the consumer tech space. He loves streaming music, programming, and gaming during downtimes.

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