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FTC's rule banning fake online reviews goes into effect

(abcnews.go.com)
374 points indus | 1 comments | 22 Oct 24 15:21 UTC | HN request time: 0.206s | source
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mmooss ◴[22 Oct 24 15:59 UTC] No.41915635[source]▶
> 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.

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1. enragedcacti ◴[22 Oct 24 19:15 UTC] No.41917654[source]▶
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"