FTC's rule banning fake online reviews goes into effect

> the rule bans reviews and testimonials attributed to people who don’t exist or are generated by artificial intelligence, people who don’t have experience with the business or product/services, or misrepresent their experience.

Does the rule apply to private citizens? I wonder if the First Amendment agrees with penalizing private citizens "who don’t have experience with the business or product/services, or misrepresent their experience". They may mean that businesses can't engage people to write such reviews.

Also, how will they handle the scale of enforcement? The large companies seem easy - one enforcement action covers all of Yelp, another all of Amazon, etc. But what about the infinite reviews at smaller vendoers?

Overall though, I think this is great and long past due. The lawlessness of the Internet - fraud, spying, etc. - is absurd.

> Does the rule apply to private citizens? I wonder if the First Amendment agrees with penalizing private citizens "who don’t have experience with the business or product/services, or misrepresent their experience"

Maybe I'm wrong but doesn't the first ammended apply to public speech ? Is there some nuances there when a private company is involved and responsible for the content on their platform, in this case reviews? Genuinely never sure of these things for the US.

> Does the rule apply to private citizens? I wonder if the First Amendment agrees with penalizing private citizens "who don’t have experience with the business or product/services, or misrepresent their experience".

I'm sure someone will try to argue that, but the way I interpreted it is that this is not banning people from sharing fake reviews, it's banning businesses from publishing and misrepresenting those reviews as genuine. i.e. It's regulating the business's practices, not the (purported) consumers'.

Effectively, I think it still bans joke reviews. You can submit a joke review, but the company cannot publish it

Does the first amendment protect financial fraud? Is this strictly a speech issue? Doesn't the first amendment only apply to people in the US? I ask because the shenanigans are world wide.

Almost all of the rules include the clause "for a business". The only rules that don't to my eye are basically "no one can make libelous or threatening statements to have a review suppressed or removed" and "no one can sell, distribute, purchase, or procure fake indicators of social media influence [...] for commercial purposes"

> Does the rule apply to private citizens? I wonder if the First Amendment agrees

> with penalizing private citizens "who don’t have experience with the business or

> product/services, or misrepresent their experience". They may mean that

> businesses can't engage people to write such reviews.

The First Amendment doesn't typically protect your right to commit fraud, no.

There's zero first amendment problem.

Because you're free to post as many false reviews on your own personal blog. Nobody is silencing your views.

But a product page is not allowed to publish those views. And businesses have never had first amendment rights to publish falsehoods.

It's no different from ingredient listings on food. There's no first amendment right for a business to lie about the ingredients.

- "Does the rule apply to private citizens? "

The rules do not apply to "reviews that appear on a website or platform as a result of the business merely engaging in consumer review hosting." 16 CFR § 465.2(d)(2) (2024) They apply (paraphrased) to things someone is paying someone else to say. Things people write about products without being paid to write them are uncontroversially First Amendment-protected opinion.

https://www.ftc.gov/legal-library/browse/federal-register-no... (starts on page 153)

- "penalizing private citizens "who don’t have experience with the business or product/services, or misrepresent their experience". They may mean that businesses can't engage people to write such reviews."

I'm not a lawyer, but I think the AP article actually misstated the law. The multiple paragraphs related to this only seem to cover the case where a review "materially misrepresented... that the reviewer used or otherwise had experience with the product". The way the AP paraphrased this is different. They separated out "or misrepresent" with an "or", but it's not separate.

I used Downy Super-Gentle Laundry Soap and my clothes fell apart, like it was an acid! Hacker News is secretly controlled by Mark Zuckerberg and Laurene Powell Jobs! ...

Where is the FTC? dang might delete my comment or ban me, but the government has no right to do a thing.

You aren't attempting to defraud anyone.

The intent is clearly to prevent entities from publishing clearly fake/ill-gotten reviews. The first amendment does not protect your speech when that speech is used to assist in committing another crime. The second amendment exists, but that does not give you carte blanche to shoot people (extreme example).

For a speech related example, see the Freeman v Giuliani case[^1], where the defense stated that they "have a first amendment right to lie," which was ruled to not be the case in defamation.

Also remember that there needs to be some measurable level of harm inflicted. A silly comment in this thread is unlikely to have any measurable level of harm, but cheating reviews may result in tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars in sales.

[^1]: APNews https://apnews.com/article/giuliani-2020-election-georgia-de...)

I think that would depend on whether your joke is clear enough that a reasonable person would not think it “materially misrepresented” your experience – if my review of a Python book says I learned how to import antigravity and was now flying around the neighborhood, it’s probably safe because readers would know that’s impossible. If my joke is too subtle or obscure, it’s probably better not to have it because it will likely confuse people who don’t recognize it.

It does, but this isn’t personal speech but corporate. I can say that buying an iPhone makes me smarter and irresistibly attractive and it’s covered by the first amendment, but it becomes corporate speech once Apple pays me to say that and is thus subject regulation about honesty and disclosure. This is noticeable in ads for things like athletic products – even if it’s a pro athlete they very publicly sponsor, the claims tend to be things like saying they only run in those shoes or some sports drink is part of their training because they don’t want a legal situation because it sounded too much like “Nike said I could run a 4 minute mile if I bought their shoe!”

Review curation is an especially good target for this because the question isn’t the speech but rather whose speech is promoted. Nobody gets in trouble if they accept testimonials and only use positive ones in ads because consumers know those aren’t unbiased but a review page which looks like anyone can post there is making a different promise.

That seems... fine? I'm not sure I understand your point.