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FTC's rule banning fake online reviews goes into effect

(abcnews.go.com)
613 points indus | 1 comments | 22 Oct 24 15:21 UTC | HN request time: 0.214s | 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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dataflow ◴[22 Oct 24 16:08 UTC] No.41915747[source]▶
> 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'.

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8note ◴[22 Oct 24 16:49 UTC] No.41916170[source]▶
Effectively, I think it still bans joke reviews. You can submit a joke review, but the company cannot publish it
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1. acdha ◴[23 Oct 24 12:52 UTC] No.41924560[source]▶
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.