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Facebook employees caught leaving 5-star Amazon reviews for Portal

43 points by Osiris 8y ago

colejohnson66 8y ago
Web Archive link to bypass anti-ad blocker: http://web.archive.org/web/20190118191620/https://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-employees-caught-leaving-5-star-amazon-reviews-for-portal-2019-1 http://web.archive.org/web/20190118191620/https://www.busine...
crb002 8y ago
Grey area. I could see someone who actually used it leaving a rave review, but still sketchy by not saying that in full disclosure they got to beta test.
- ken 8y ago
  The "Facebook -- Head Of Supply-Chain & Strategic Sourcing AR/VR Products" prefixed his review with "I have historically not been a big Facebook or other social media user". Does anyone believe that? I would describe this situation as more than merely an omission. It's also against Amazon's rules for customer reviews, disclosure or not. It's no gray area. It's the first example of a prohibited activity, under "Promotions and Commercial Solicitations".
  - jstarfish 8y ago
    > Does anyone believe that? I would describe this situation as more than merely an omission. Do tobacco executives smoke? Astroturfing is such an amateur move, I fully believe he's unfamiliar with social media-- else he'd understand the implications of getting outed.
    - perl4ever 8y ago
      You hear this sort of thing a lot. If someone wants to deny an accusation they say "of course it wasn't me, because I would never do something so amateurish". And if they do not choose to deny it, they say "of course it was not intentional, because I would never have been so obvious if it was". The thing about these comments is that one or the other can virtually always be used regardless of the malfeasance conditional on whether denial is possible. So they do not usually provide a reason to doubt the accusation.
restingrobot 8y ago
This happens at any company with any product. Really being blown out of proportion because its facebook.
- bob_theslob646 8y ago
  >"This happens at any company with any product. Really being blown out of proportion because its facebook." How does that make it okay? Why should size of the company matter?
  - newfriend 8y ago
    > Why should size of the company matter? It's not about the size of the company. It's because there is a glut of bad press about facebook currently. This is an example of a mild story being blown out of proportion to garner clicks, because it's fashionable to hate facebook at the moment.
    - Terretta 8y ago
      When the proportion is half the planet, it’s very hard to blow out of it. // figure of speech, looks like 2 1/4 billion: https://www.statista.com/statistics/264810/number-of-monthly-active-facebook-users-worldwide/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/264810/number-of-monthly...
- drugme 8y ago
  This happens at any company with any product. Can you name a few examples?
  - Justin_K 8y ago
    Remember the whole Ray's Pizza fiasco?
    - drugme 8y ago
      Sorry, I'm not a Ray's person. Can you recap?
swampthinker 8y ago
3 employees were, after being explicitly told by Facebook not to do so.
- pascalxus 8y ago
  3 is still understandable, as long as it's a genuine appraisal. I know Amazaon doesn't want couples giving reviews on the same item either, I guess you could apply the same ruleset to companies too. i wouldn't be surprised if there was a rule about that.
- drugme 8y ago
  after being explicitly told by Facebook not to do so. That's not what the article said.
  - traek 8y ago
    It literally is quoted in the article from Facebook's head of VR/AR: > neither coordinated nor directed from the company. From an internal post at the launch: “We, unequivocally, DO NOT want Facebook employees to engage in leaving reviews for the products that we sell to Amazon.” We will ask them to take down. https://twitter.com/boztank/status/1085966442820886528 https://twitter.com/boztank/status/1085966442820886528
    - drugme 8y ago
      You're right, it does. What happened was I skimmed the article looking for support of what you said, and didn't find it initially. But then again, my eyes tend to blur when reading BI articles.
pram 8y ago
The portal is a very nice piece of hardware. I would have bought it with little hesitation if it wasn’t tied to Facebook. Oh well!

43 points by Osiris 8y ago

Web Archive link to bypass anti-ad blocker: http://web.archive.org/web/20190118191620/https://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-employees-caught-leaving-5-star-amazon-reviews-for-portal-2019-1 http://web.archive.org/web/20190118191620/https://www.busine...

crb002 8y ago

Grey area. I could see someone who actually used it leaving a rave review, but still sketchy by not saying that in full disclosure they got to beta test.

ken 8y ago
The "Facebook -- Head Of Supply-Chain & Strategic Sourcing AR/VR Products" prefixed his review with "I have historically not been a big Facebook or other social media user". Does anyone believe that? I would describe this situation as more than merely an omission. It's also against Amazon's rules for customer reviews, disclosure or not. It's no gray area. It's the first example of a prohibited activity, under "Promotions and Commercial Solicitations".
- jstarfish 8y ago
  > Does anyone believe that? I would describe this situation as more than merely an omission. Do tobacco executives smoke? Astroturfing is such an amateur move, I fully believe he's unfamiliar with social media-- else he'd understand the implications of getting outed.
  - perl4ever 8y ago
    You hear this sort of thing a lot. If someone wants to deny an accusation they say "of course it wasn't me, because I would never do something so amateurish". And if they do not choose to deny it, they say "of course it was not intentional, because I would never have been so obvious if it was". The thing about these comments is that one or the other can virtually always be used regardless of the malfeasance conditional on whether denial is possible. So they do not usually provide a reason to doubt the accusation.

restingrobot 8y ago

This happens at any company with any product. Really being blown out of proportion because its facebook.

bob_theslob646 8y ago
>"This happens at any company with any product. Really being blown out of proportion because its facebook." How does that make it okay? Why should size of the company matter?
- newfriend 8y ago
  > Why should size of the company matter? It's not about the size of the company. It's because there is a glut of bad press about facebook currently. This is an example of a mild story being blown out of proportion to garner clicks, because it's fashionable to hate facebook at the moment.
  - Terretta 8y ago
    When the proportion is half the planet, it’s very hard to blow out of it. // figure of speech, looks like 2 1/4 billion: https://www.statista.com/statistics/264810/number-of-monthly-active-facebook-users-worldwide/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/264810/number-of-monthly...
drugme 8y ago
This happens at any company with any product. Can you name a few examples?
- Justin_K 8y ago
  Remember the whole Ray's Pizza fiasco?
  - drugme 8y ago
    Sorry, I'm not a Ray's person. Can you recap?

swampthinker 8y ago

3 employees were, after being explicitly told by Facebook not to do so.

pascalxus 8y ago
3 is still understandable, as long as it's a genuine appraisal. I know Amazaon doesn't want couples giving reviews on the same item either, I guess you could apply the same ruleset to companies too. i wouldn't be surprised if there was a rule about that.
drugme 8y ago
after being explicitly told by Facebook not to do so. That's not what the article said.
- traek 8y ago
  It literally is quoted in the article from Facebook's head of VR/AR: > neither coordinated nor directed from the company. From an internal post at the launch: “We, unequivocally, DO NOT want Facebook employees to engage in leaving reviews for the products that we sell to Amazon.” We will ask them to take down. https://twitter.com/boztank/status/1085966442820886528 https://twitter.com/boztank/status/1085966442820886528
  - drugme 8y ago
    You're right, it does. What happened was I skimmed the article looking for support of what you said, and didn't find it initially. But then again, my eyes tend to blur when reading BI articles.

pram 8y ago

The portal is a very nice piece of hardware. I would have bought it with little hesitation if it wasn’t tied to Facebook. Oh well!