Jotly: Rating everything

The shed

Thoughts?

• What problem do ratings solve in online commerce?
• Does rating everything give you the creeps?
• Was this a fad, or a long-lasting change?
• Have you been affected by quantification or reviews?

Concepts

1. What is information asymmetry?

   • the seller knows more than the buyer

2. What might explain the pressure to join an Instagram pod or to fake reviews?

   • prisoner’s dilemma

3. What is Goodhart/Strathern’s Law?

   • “When a measure becomes a target it ceases to be a good measure.” (Strathern 1997, p. 308)

CAPTCHA

Began as a way of reading books, but bots soon excelled.

Of course

More realistically

Amazon Turk

Turker or Robot?

Facebook fraud

Factoids

• A one-star increase leads to 5% to 9% more revenue. (Berke 2015)
• Between 10% to 30% of online reviews are fake. (Streitfeld 2012; Luca & Zervas 2013; Fakespot 2021)
• The probability of seeing a positive review after a negative one was 72%—clever method! (Hu et al. 2012, p. 681)

Vine

What techniques do you use?

Reading the stars

Reviewing distributions

Going meta

• Fake Spot
• Review Meta

Regulation

As of 2024-10-22, the FTC can take action against those:

1. creating, selling, purchasing, or spreading fake reviews/testimonials
2. hijacking reviews
3. buying positive or negative reviews
4. not disclosing insider consumer reviews and testimonials
5. misleading consumers regarding review websites
6. suppressing reviews
7. selling, spreading, or purchasing fake social media clout

Third-party review websites (e.g., Google and Yelp) are not addressed. (Fowler 2023; Knight 2024)

Go Around 🎲

• interesting factoids or concepts?
• recent examples of fake reviews or manipulation?
• is online commerce doomed?

Concept MCQ

Write a simple multiple choice question for one of the following:

• makers, fakers, takers
• CAPTCHA; Vine
• sockpuppets; information asymmetry
• Amazon Turk

Questions?

1. What is asymmetric information?
2. What do CAPTCHAs and Amazon Turk have in common? ▶