4 ms·

But how would Facebook prevent the same fraud?

by icefox 10y ago

shard972 10y ago
Probably in a similar way they tackled fake news, with all the finesse of a bull in a china shop.
- zeahfj 10y ago
  The fake news was done badly on purpose so people would beg them for manual curation ;)
  - zeahfj 10y ago
    Interestingly this comment was voted up a bunch and then voted down a bunch. 'fake news' can be easily detected, not by the content but by those who share it. I've built similar stuff before but obviously can't talk about specifics without outing myself.
- amenghra 10y ago
  http://www.discovery.com/tv-shows/mythbusters/videos/bull-in-a-china-shop/ http://www.discovery.com/tv-shows/mythbusters/videos/bull-in...
zeahfj 10y ago
By emphasising local and by using the other details that they know about people to filter out fraudsters. Plus the long tail is filled with interest groups. Facebook already manages many of these groups and getting kicked out of such communities can be very costly.
Spooky23 10y ago
Right now much Facebook commerce is local. Sit in front of a target or supermarket on a Saturday afternoon and you'll see a half dozen Facebook mom transactions.
stirlo 10y ago
My little sister tried to buy an iPhone on Facebook a year ago only to have the seller (a 15yo kid living in a village 6 hours drive away) try to scam her. Unluckily for this scammer she had used a real name and had a reasonable amount of public information on her profile. 6 hours drive away probably seems a world away to a 15yo but unfortunately for her my parents had relatives living only 20 mins away and they knew many people in her village. They simply went down to the local supermarket where they determined her mother worked and told her what happened (they also knew the kids address/school and social clubs but decided the mother was better to approach). Suffice to say the money was returned in full with an apology and a 15yo scammer hopefully learnt a valuable lesson. Nothing like this could ever happen on eBay and it was able to happen without access to the private information that Facebook would have if they implemented a reputation system.
manacit 10y ago
Anecdata: I am the administrator of a ~12k person "Free & For Sale" FB group for the college that I graduated from. It's very high traffic, people are able to buy and sell a whole host of things very easily. I think Facebook has the potential to combine eBay and Craigslist as a platform to sell more "common" items. They won't be able to get your broken laser pointer to a broken laser pointer collector, but if you want to get rid of a bed/desk/cell phone/microwave, it's much easier to sell it to someone that lives 10 minutes away than to ship it across the country, and the risk of fraud is much lower. I know they have plans to scale this out and improve the experience of buying and selling things (I've been messaged by a few FB staff asking for feedback as they've added new features), but it definitely does not have the critical mass that CL has, and discovery (getting into the right group) is much harder.

But how would Facebook prevent the same fraud?

by icefox 10y ago

But how would Facebook prevent the same fraud?

shard972 10y ago

Probably in a similar way they tackled fake news, with all the finesse of a bull in a china shop.

zeahfj 10y ago
The fake news was done badly on purpose so people would beg them for manual curation ;)
- zeahfj 10y ago
  Interestingly this comment was voted up a bunch and then voted down a bunch. 'fake news' can be easily detected, not by the content but by those who share it. I've built similar stuff before but obviously can't talk about specifics without outing myself.
amenghra 10y ago
http://www.discovery.com/tv-shows/mythbusters/videos/bull-in-a-china-shop/ http://www.discovery.com/tv-shows/mythbusters/videos/bull-in...

zeahfj 10y ago

By emphasising local and by using the other details that they know about people to filter out fraudsters. Plus the long tail is filled with interest groups. Facebook already manages many of these groups and getting kicked out of such communities can be very costly.

Spooky23 10y ago

Right now much Facebook commerce is local. Sit in front of a target or supermarket on a Saturday afternoon and you'll see a half dozen Facebook mom transactions.

stirlo 10y ago

My little sister tried to buy an iPhone on Facebook a year ago only to have the seller (a 15yo kid living in a village 6 hours drive away) try to scam her. Unluckily for this scammer she had used a real name and had a reasonable amount of public information on her profile. 6 hours drive away probably seems a world away to a 15yo but unfortunately for her my parents had relatives living only 20 mins away and they knew many people in her village. They simply went down to the local supermarket where they determined her mother worked and told her what happened (they also knew the kids address/school and social clubs but decided the mother was better to approach). Suffice to say the money was returned in full with an apology and a 15yo scammer hopefully learnt a valuable lesson. Nothing like this could ever happen on eBay and it was able to happen without access to the private information that Facebook would have if they implemented a reputation system.

manacit 10y ago

Anecdata: I am the administrator of a ~12k person "Free & For Sale" FB group for the college that I graduated from. It's very high traffic, people are able to buy and sell a whole host of things very easily. I think Facebook has the potential to combine eBay and Craigslist as a platform to sell more "common" items. They won't be able to get your broken laser pointer to a broken laser pointer collector, but if you want to get rid of a bed/desk/cell phone/microwave, it's much easier to sell it to someone that lives 10 minutes away than to ship it across the country, and the risk of fraud is much lower. I know they have plans to scale this out and improve the experience of buying and selling things (I've been messaged by a few FB staff asking for feedback as they've added new features), but it definitely does not have the critical mass that CL has, and discovery (getting into the right group) is much harder.