this post was submitted on 16 Aug 2024
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[–] alyaza@beehaw.org 29 points 2 months ago

Along with prohibiting reviews written by nonhumans, the FTC’s rule also forbids companies from paying for either positive or negative reviews to falsely boost or denigrate a product. It also forbids marketers from exaggerating their own influence by, for example, paying for bots to inflate their follower count.

Violations of the rule could result in fines being issued for each violation, according to the rule. This means that for an e-commerce site with hundreds of thousands of reviews, penalties for fake or manipulated reviews could quickly add up.

[–] umami_wasbi@lemmy.ml 29 points 2 months ago (2 children)

So how are they going to detect, proof, and enforce?

[–] alyaza@beehaw.org 15 points 2 months ago (1 children)

unclear (they don't tend to announce enforcement mechanisms in these and it's not a final rule until it's a final rule), but it's not like the FTC is lacking in power as an agency

[–] SineSwiper@discuss.tchncs.de 5 points 2 months ago

Well, that is until the Chevron decision got knocked down.

[–] Mongostein@lemmy.ca 13 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Probably by taking down the companies doing it rather than the people using them. Just set up an account and ask around for where to buy some likes.

[–] umami_wasbi@lemmy.ml 1 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

Does that counts as emtrapment?

[–] I_am_10_squirrels@beehaw.org 4 points 2 months ago

Entrapment is enticing someone to do something they wouldn't do otherwise.

If you ask someone where to buy drugs, and they give you the name of their dealer, you're not entrapping the dealer since they normally sell drugs.

[–] FlashMobOfOne@beehaw.org 27 points 2 months ago (1 children)

LOL at the comments suggesting nothing should be done because this is hard to enforce.

That reasoning is why we don't have legal abortion, universal health care, a living wage, or term limits.

Some things may be hard to do. It's no excuse not to try.

[–] GenderNeutralBro@lemmy.sdf.org 12 points 2 months ago

For sure. It'll never be enforced completely, but it gives teeth to go after some big offenders.

[–] algorithmae@lemmy.sdf.org 20 points 2 months ago (2 children)

Their heart is in the right place, but good luck doing anything about it

[–] altima_neo@lemmy.zip 17 points 2 months ago

Gotta start somewhere I guess. And it's a path in the right direction, at least.

[–] Kissaki@beehaw.org 1 points 2 months ago

it's not hard to find them when they're selling fake reviews as a service

The article teaser beginning should make that clear as well

Amazon sued more than 10,000 Facebook group administrators in July 2022

[–] Gaywallet@beehaw.org 18 points 2 months ago

Extremely based, good job FTC

[–] lps@lemmy.ml 12 points 2 months ago

She's killing it! Bravo! someone in government with a moral compass🙌

[–] Moriarty@startrek.website 11 points 2 months ago

Lina Khan is fantastic.

[–] prole@beehaw.org 8 points 2 months ago

Wish this woman could be our president.

[–] AngryishHumanoid@reddthat.com 6 points 2 months ago (2 children)

How long before Trump publicly rants about this?

[–] alyaza@beehaw.org 11 points 2 months ago

i'm honestly not sure Trump knows anything about the FTC, and if his campaign was smart these are the kinds of things they'd propose instead of "IVF should be illegal but also you're a degenerate for not having children"

[–] Gsus4@mander.xyz 6 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

I can already see it: "They're gonna give everyone healthcare, they're gonna jail review scammers, they're gonna let anyone join a union. The monsters."