What is the fight with "fake review" that manipulates people from the shadows?

byEd Ivanushkin

A fake review is a process in which the provider of a product or service himself / herself conducts an evaluation on goods or services and improves the evaluation of goods or services, or on the contrary, a negative review is deliberately posted on an unfavorable product or service and evaluated The act of trying to lower. Even in the 21st century fake review at mail-order sites is a problem, but the history of fake review is very old, and it seems that it dates back to the 19th century.

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In 1855, he is a poet of the United States of AmericaWalt WhitmanMr. Poems "Grass leavesAs a result, I was criticized as "obscene" or "intensely vulgar". Mr. Whitman had great memories in "grass leaves" to publish revised editions in 1881 and 1889, but never opposed people's criticisms with their names. Instead, Mr. Whitman anonymously to "grass leaves"Positive evaluationIt announced and sent a big compliment to "grass leaf". The act of Mr. Whitman who appealed as a different person favorably to his own work can be said to be a fake review hindsight.

Fake review has been done for over a hundred years, but in recent years due to the development of the review site on the Internet, it has become possible to post a fake review more easily than before. He is a British novelist in 2012R. J. ErollyMr. Mr. made an alias account, gave a high rating to his own review of Amazon, and turned out to have conducted a negative review against his rival novel. Mr. Erolie admitted his crime and released a sentence of apology, "I have done wrong and regretted."

byDrunk Photographer

In other industries than publishing, posting a fake review is also called "review brushing", and it has become as a kind of business. In 2014 he was a researcher at Northwestern UniversityHaitao XuHe monitored the "review agency" on the Internet's black market and confirmed that more than 11,000 agents got over 250,000 fake reviews in just two months. A client who has asked himself for a positive review or a substitute for a negative review against a rival paid a fee of tens of cents to five dollars (several tens of yen to approximately 550 yen) for each review.

Operate the online marketAlibabaAccording to Mr. Shu who has worked at the fraud monitoring center of the company, consumers tend to emphasize reviews posted by other users rather than advertisements launched by companies, and favorable reviews are strategically important roles It seems to be playing. Web stores with high ratings from users are displayed at the top of the search, but users will not be able to see them unless they are evaluated. Therefore, Mr. Shu says that whether review brushing is done or not may cause a big difference in profit.

byRichard Patterson

In 2017, Mr. Ober Butler of the writer conducted an experiment to investigate "How much can it affect the restaurant review by fake review?" Once Mr. Butler received a request from a company and posted a fake review for 20 dollars per case, he seems to have come up with this experiment from the experience at that time.

First of all, Mr. Butler created a fictional restaurant named "Shed at Dulwich" that does not actually exist. Although Shedo at Darlich did not have a real store, it was a restaurant with only a name but Butler took pictures of dishes and dishes carefully and Shedo at Darrichtrip advisorI registered to.

In addition, Mr. Butler sometimes opened Shedo at Darrich for only one day as a joke, and the movies taken at that time are released.

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After that, Mr. Butler posted a large number of positive fake reviews about Shedo at Darlich, where Shedo at Darrich reigned at the top of 2000 restaurants in London in only four weeks That's right. Mr. Butler prepared carefully up to the telephone number of the restaurant and had made a response saying "I want to make a reservation for dinner" to the customer saying "I can not take a seat because the reservation is full." In addition, despite being impossible to eat at Shedo at Darwich, Butler said that he received up to "a single review of the stars" thought to be from a rival restaurant. Eventually the review on Shedo at Darwich was removed as a "disguise" by the tourist.


In recent years, there are also indications that fake reviews are used not only for fake reviews that seek monetary rewards but also for political assertions. A memoir of 2017 published by Mr. Hillary · Clinton, an American politician "What Happened"Because too much stars 1 review was attached, Amazon responded that Amazon will delete thousands of reviews.

For many sites that can no longer be reviewed, it is not something you can not avoid fighting with fake reviews. For an account that reviewed a large amount of reviews in a short period of time at Amazon, it is said that it is making it impossible to post a large number of fake reviews by taking "correspondence" so that only products checked for purchase can be reviewed. about. Also, download sales of gamesSteamWe evaluate the reliability of the users themselves to review themselves as "user evaluation" and reflect them in the order of review.

Although the publisher is taking various measures, butler who posted an imaginary restaurant review said that the danger of fake review is not completely wiped away. "Because I have not deleted my account yet," Butler said.