Whoops. Facebook employees have been caught leaving five-star reviews for their company’s own product on Amazon. No one would have probably noticed, but these products went from not getting great reviews to boasting 5 stars. Something wasn’t right.
Listen to GHOGH with Jamarlin Martin | Episode 40: Jade Martin & Victoria Jordan Jamarlin talks to Jade Martin and Victoria Jordan, branded entertainment producers for Urban One (NASDAQ: UONEK). They discuss their work for Toyota, P&G and Coke, and the cultural impact of reality TV on Black America.
For example, Facebook’s Portal and Portal+ smart displays weren’t well received when they launched a couple of months back, Digital Trends reported.
A tech review site, Digital Trends could only muster a 2.5 out of a possible five in its less-than-lukewarm review of the larger of the two devices. “Any 5-star reviews of the Portal tend to stand out,” according to Digital Trends.
Tech columnist Kevin Roose was the first to notice a discrepancy. At least three of the about 100 five-star reviews for the Facebook Portal all match the names of Facebook employees, according to Roose.
Those names were: Tim Chappell, which matched the name of the head of Facebook’s supply-chain & strategic sourcing AR / VR products; Javier
Reviewing your own products is banned by Amazon. According to Amazon’s policy, it bans “Creating, modifying, or posting content regarding your (or your relative’s, close friend’s, business associate’s, or employer’s) products or services.”
After the reviews were made public, Facebook executive Andrew “Boz” Bosworth seems to have confirmed on Twitter that the reviews were written by Facebook employees.
“According to Facebook’s Bosworth, the reviews were ‘neither coordinated nor directed from the company,’ noting additionally that when Portal first launched, Facebook actively encouraged employees internally to not review products it sells on Amazon, and that it would ask those employees to remove their reviews,” the Verge reported.
