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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: 0.644s | 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. crazygringo ◴[22 Oct 24 21:50 UTC] No.41919091[source]▶
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.