Facebook Tsks-Tsks Over Unfair Reviews, Fake Accounts

By Doug Caverly - Wed, 04/09/2008 - 9:52am.

"Don't you guys remember the rules?"

Given the number of Facebook apps in existence, allowing for reviews of them seemed like a good way of tracking which ones worked. Fake reviews have become an issue, though, and Facebook's attempts to address the problem haven't been too effective.

In a post published yesterday on both the Facebook Developers Blog and the Facebook Developers Forum, Paul C. Jeffries reiterated a formal policy, writing, "[a]pplication developers cannot trade positive reviews or collude with others to post, incentivize, or otherwise 'game' the posting of negative or positive reviews. Applications should stand on their own merits based on user feedback, not insider quid pro quos."

Facebook Reviews

Jeffries asked developers to report problems as they occur, and promised to delete fake accounts. Yet at least a few developers seem unimpressed, and are pushing for the company to go further.

On the Facebook Developers Forum, Chris Claydon brought up a number of issues. "We get dozens of factually inaccurate NEGATIVE reviews which may be from other competing developers or from mistaken users who confuse our app with another similar one," he began. "How can we get these deleted? I have reported them many times without any action being taken."

Also, "You are even letting people who have never used our apps write reviews for them, which is crazy!"

It seems that both honest developers and average users would benefit from stricter standards; false statements and crappy apps reflect poorly on Facebook as a whole. Still, at least Facebook is looking at the issue again; this may be a first step to additional action.

News Tags: applications, developers, facebook

About the author:
Doug is a staff writer for WebProNews. Visit WebProNews for the latest eBusiness news.

Comments

Submitted by Sandra Harwood (WPN reader) on Wed, 04/09/2008 - 11:05am.

The Credibility of the Internet

Doug touches on a topic of growing importance -- what content on the Internet is reliable?

The Internet has done many wonderful things to allow people to express themselves and to share their experiences with other like-minded people. But it has also set off a derby of manipulators who look at the Internet as one large stage on which to perform without respect to facts, integrity or qualification.

Here is my forecast. In the months and years to come the Internet will continue to bleed credibility, so much so that few consumers will trust anything posted by unknown individuals and sites.

That means, of course, that known entities -- such as WebProNews -- will only grow in credibility.

WebProNews