Facebook is cracking down on fake reviews on its platform

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

People will no longer be able to leave fake reviews on businesses pages. This widespread issue has been addressed by the company's community feedback policy.

The new policy puts the rules into writing so that they can be enforced. People who leave fake bad reviews as a way to get refunds or other freebies out of businesses that want to please their customers are protected by the new guidelines. Businesses often pay random users to leave positive reviews on their pages. I think this applies to any bad reviews that businesses pay users to change.

Some reviews are subject to being taken down because they have nothing to do with the business it is supposed to address, contain graphic or inappropriate content, or are simply plain spammy. If a customer or business violates any of these rules, Facebook will remove the review in question, bar businesses access to product tags and listings, and ban access to any or all Meta products or features. It's possible to have your Facebook accounts banned or suspended.

Even though Facebook made up rules for its own platform, this doesn't mean it hasn't bent the rules on other sites. Facebook has become a hub for fake review rings, in which sellers onAmazon recruit and pay users to leave good reviews on their products. An investigation by Which? indicates that a lot of these groups are still around.