[HN Gopher] Up to 30% of online reviews are fake and consumers c... ___________________________________________________________________ Up to 30% of online reviews are fake and consumers can't tell the difference Author : elorant Score : 80 points Date : 2022-11-04 20:00 UTC (3 hours ago) (HTM) web link (cbsaustin.com) (TXT) w3m dump (cbsaustin.com) | ravenstine wrote: | What I'm curious of is how reliably people can identify fake | reviews. Is it that ~30% of customers suck at distinguishing | them, or is it fuzzier than that and there's an overall 30% | chance the review you think is trustworthy actually isn't? | | I've bought a _lot_ of stuff on Amazon, and while I do think | there 's tons of fake reviews and craptacular products for sale, | I've yet to come away with the same opinion of Amazon that many | people have here. That is, the idea that Amazon is basically an | unnavigable swamp of a marketplace. Somehow, I've avoided bad | products to such an extent that I can't name a bad purchase off | the top of my head. Ok, there was _one_ time I got an air filter | that was used and repackaged (eww!) but it wasn't obvious and | Amazon didn't know about it, and that's different than flimsy | Chinese goods with fake 5 star reviews. I feel like I can spot | fake reviews and other nonsense from a mile away, but I don't | know if that feeling is real or not. | regular wrote: | baxtr wrote: | Is there a browser plug-in which Scans reviews and then does some | AI magic to say if a review is fake or not? | prottog wrote: | Online reviews and rating systems do need an overhaul. I once | tried to leave a review of a poor experience I had while staying | at a short-term rental property, sticking to the facts with no | melodrama; and the platform rejected my review as being "against | policy". There's clearly no incentive at all for the platform to | accept anyone's poor review, since that would mean less business | for the platform. | | Not to mention all the e-commerce reviews that are along the | lines of, "1-star: item was perfect and was everything I wanted | it to be but it arrived three days late" or "5-stars: item sucks | so bad that I returned it but the platform's return policy is | great". | tracker1 wrote: | I kind of wish Amazon would have three up/neutral/down vote | options... product, seller, amazon platform... so that they can | distinguish between customer service experience and the product | itself. Then aggregate the scoring into an overall review | experience. | | Leaving descriptive reviews ranked by positive/negative on the | product itself. An leaning heavier on "insightful" feedback to | shape rankings a bit. | spacemadness wrote: | I think it's incredibly convenient for Amazon to wrap it up | in one score so it looks like the seller is at fault. | cutenewt wrote: | Netflix removed 5-star ratings a while back; they don't have | reviews either. | | Seems like it hasn't impacted the user experience. Arguably | improved the experience. | | Perhaps other sites like Amazon and AirBnb should remove | ratings and reviews too? | another_devy wrote: | In case of e-commerce reviews are crucial not sure of | ratings. If I'm buying an item and couple of reviews point | out something wrong in design or usage I avoid it. Without | reviews it's not possible | jokethrowaway wrote: | Don't you have access to everything on Netflix? It's a | different model | | On other platforms you're spending time and money, on Netflix | only time. | marcosdumay wrote: | The user experience on Netflix is quite bad. Trying to deduce | things for a well optimized application from their example is | hopeless. | yakak wrote: | I was pretty disappointed with Netflix after they canceled | the star system. Before they cancelled it they could fit my | likes to other people with similar likes, after they | cancelled it they could insist their own content was good | enough for everyone. | superbaconman wrote: | Three star reviews feel more intuitive anyway: 1 bad 2 | average 3 good. | | But when it comes to product reviews, accounts of hardware | failures is super important imo. | insane_dreamer wrote: | Fake reviews are not the only problem. It's the fact that most | reviews are going to either be from someone who loved the product | enough to take the time to write about, or had such a bad | experience (which could be anything and maybe not related to the | problem) that they feel compelled to write about. So you wind up | with 5-stars and 1-stars and not much inbetween. | hcurtiss wrote: | It seems like this is a thesis that could be tested | empirically. It makes intuitive sense to me, but if I'm honest, | that kind of inverted bell is not what I actually see very | often on Amazon. | insane_dreamer wrote: | I have not done any systematic check, but I often see this | type of inverted curve in product reviews. -- Though either | the 5-star side or the 1-star side will be significantly | higher than the other. | r00fus wrote: | Amazon has a lot of paid-for reviews, so you would likely see | it if you remove the paid entries. | | In some cases on very bad products, you see tons of 5 star | reviews and a lot of 1 star reviews - and if it's high on the | fakespot list, I can only conclude it's a bad product. | | I've mostly given up on Amazon except where I can't find the | product elsewhere (or on time). | tracker1 wrote: | I still use amazon a lot.. but not always reviews... often | I know the product I'm looking for. I'll also tend to look | at the negative reviews.. are the reviewers just not | knowledgeable about what they bought, broke in shipping, or | actually a bad product/seller. It will vary a bit. What | sucks, is competitors will pay for bad reviews too. | taeric wrote: | I'd go farther with this thought experiment. As long as the | reviews are done by consumers that are not trained or practiced | at the art of reviewing, you will expect a lot of "worked for | me" and "I paid enough that I am compelled to like this" style | reviews. It is literally the idea behind luxury pricing. | | Turns out, objective reviewing of items is difficult. And will | almost certainly lead to a gaming of the reviews if the | companies are able to do so. | tracker1 wrote: | I'm more inclined to review if it's a technical product and | there aren't already (many) quality reviews, good or bad. It's | really hard picking certain items from the pack, and sometimes | unless you already know, you have no idea. | jraby3 wrote: | Do fakespot and similar services work? | Someone1234 wrote: | Fakespot does its best, but Amazon and similar don't expose | very much information to determine if a review is fake (be it | manual review OR via a service like Fakespot). | | Plus there are two kinds of "fake reviews": Automated reviews | ("spam"), and then reviewers who got free samples/paid. The | second is almost impossible to detect as real people are really | writing the reviews (and even calling them "fake" is hard | because the person may still give an honest review sometimes). | | You can sometimes spot fake reviews, but that is just due to | laziness, if they're trying even a little bit it could be very | hard to spot in particularly at volume. I will say one good | trick is to read "new" reviews rather than most helpful/liked, | since they game those too. | insane_dreamer wrote: | I'd like to think I'm pretty good at spotting which reviews are | fake, but I'd love to do a test to find out if the ones I thought | were real were actually fake. | | It won't be long before someone writes a GPT-3 model that can | write hundreds of different reviews indistinguishable from real | ones, and that sound and look different from each other, based on | a product description and images. | rdtwo wrote: | Only 30%. No way like 90% | yamtaddle wrote: | 30% are fake and fool shoppers. | | 60% are fake but don't fool shoppers. | | 9% are fake but so good they fooled the researchers, too. | smittywerben wrote: | The 5% that fool themselves: '1/5 stars - This stupid modem | doesn't have wifi. The $20 a month modem from Comcast has | wifi.' | seydor wrote: | You can find a review to confirm your biases every time. In the | end , everything is a hunch | [deleted] | dam_broke_it wrote: | Always go by the 1 or 2 star reviews..... | acchow wrote: | Isn't that attack spam from competitors? | spamizbad wrote: | In my experience its always best to leave negative reviews in 3 | star reviews. 1 star reviews get buried/removed, but if you let | that criticism sneak into a 3-star review it's likely not bad | enough for the platform to notice. | unity1001 wrote: | You'd end up not being able to buy anything... | mikestew wrote: | 2 and 3 star reviews. 1 star reviews, in my observation, are | consistently along the lines of "UPS left the package in the | rain! 1 star!", which has fuck all to do with the product. | Toutouxc wrote: | Also people who don't seem to understand how the product, | their life and the universe in general work. The "can't make | coffee from cat litter, blames Obama in all seriousness, two | typos per word" kind. I always wonder how these people look | in real life and if I meet some of them on the street. | nebula8804 wrote: | Its the outcome of gutting the educational system, poor | methods of teaching (instead of teaching critical thinking | they teach how to take the test), and just the fact that in | a country of ~332 Million the bottom 20% could be like 67 | million people(the bottom 20% is not a direct correlation | but still you get the point). | VancouverMan wrote: | Such things are still part of the overall purchasing | experience, though. If I'm about to order a product online | and for whatever reason there may be delivery-related | challenges involved that others have experienced, I'd | certainly like to know beforehand. | regular wrote: | egberts1 wrote: | I grilled a red lobster complete with scallop, pearl onions, and | capers and then simmered it in a butter dish for an hour. | | It was so delicious. | | (Hey, I am not a bot, these are my current experience of what I | am actually reading on Amazon reviews). | | More funny Amazon reviews that I found: | https://eliteseller.com/blog/funny-amazon-reviews/ | OJFord wrote: | I've had two fairly detailed, not low-effort, reviews _not_ | approved for publication on Amazon.co.uk recently. After the | first I swore I 'd never bother again (it was pretty _high_ | -effort to be honest, relatively) but something got the better of | me. | | Neither time has there been any indication of what the problem is | (I guessed the first one was my reference to a 'knob', as in for | turning, which the product had - but couldn't find any such | similar Scunthorpe in the second) and even if they did give you | some idea, they invite you to _start again from scratch_ - not | edit it, it 's not saved, not even your photos. I'd love to see | click-through metrics on that, does _anyone_ bother? | heavyset_go wrote: | Amazon banned me from leaving reviews entirely after I left a | couple of negative reviews for products I bought. | jersak wrote: | I had the same experience. Id say they just don't approve most | of the reviews. I would think most (real) people only leave a | good review when things go EXTREMELY WELL. Not the same for bad | reviews though, which means real people will more often than | not leave reviews pointing problems and shortcomings than | praising a product. That, at least in my head, would result in | less sales and so making the review workflow painful for the | user is by design. | sokoloff wrote: | I just checked on my account and I have 126 published reviews | on Amazon. I can recall around 10 that were denied, about | half of which seemed "OK, that's fair in retrospect" and a | modest edit and resubmit got them published. The other half | of the denies I couldn't really figure out and just ignored | (some of which were solid product, 4 or 5 star reviews). | | I have several 1-star reviews among the published. | Scoundreller wrote: | Only 30%???? | lapcat wrote: | As an App Store developer, it's painfully obvious that _at least | 30%_ of App Store reviews are fake. | [deleted] | throwawaysleep wrote: | Lots of reviews are paid. I get half my electronics refunded by | leaving 5 star reviews on Amazon that sellers have asked for in | the packages. | ravenstine wrote: | How does this kind of transaction take place? I've bought | plenty of things on Amazon that I've left 5 star reviews for, | including electronics, but haven't once been approached with | refunds or incentives. | laweijfmvo wrote: | I've often received little cards in my orders asking for a | screenshot of a 5-star review in exchange for a 90% off | coupon for my next purchase, or something like that. | ravenstine wrote: | Come to think of it, I believe I've had such material come | with some of my purchases but I've ignored them because I'm | so advertising-averse. I'll have to pay attention for these | next time. haha Though I still won't leave a 5 star review | if I don't genuinely think the product is worth that. | SoftTalker wrote: | I assume all online reviews are faked or at least biased. I don't | believe any of them, especially those that appear on the same | site or include affiliate links to the product being sold. | nomel wrote: | I tend to believe the review distribution. For a reasonable | product, they're usually normal distributions. For a bad | product, they're almost always bimodal. | another_devy wrote: | Lower ratings most of the times are honest reviews and if seller | replies to them you can see how much they care about the customer | and if they are being honest business | eatsyourtacos wrote: | How do fake reviews on something like Amazon work? Wouldn't they | only allow you to leave a review if you have purchased the item? | | I get that for a cheap product a seller could have a bunch of | dummies buy it and then leave reviews, but that... doesn't seem | very viable for most things. | | Or are normal people getting paid to leave high reviews for | something they bought and would not normally review? | baxtr wrote: | Easy. Check out some telegram channels. There, people get | offers for specific products. You order them, write a review, | send in a proof and then get reimbursed for the item. So you | can keep items for free. In some cases you even get some extra | money on top. ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2022-11-04 23:01 UTC)