Smaller Internet Companies Say They're Open To 230 Reform... To Keep Facebook From Being The Only Voice In The Room

from the no-good-options dept

Earlier this fall, Facebook was (not surprisingly) the first big internet company to cave and to tell Congress that it was open to Section 230 reform. I say not surprisingly, because it's done this before. Facebook was the company that caved in and supported FOSTA, which was the first major reform of 230. We heard from multiple people who said that Facebook recognized that it could weather the storm much better than its smaller competitors.

Indeed, Facebook's executive team seems to have recognized that reforming 230 is a strong anti-competitive weapon. It weakens smaller competitors, making them ripe for buying out, and scares off investors from funding new upstarts. It still strikes me as incredible that the same people who are demanding we dismantle 230 are also calling for antitrust actions -- because those two things work in directly opposite ways. Undermining 230 will do serious harm to competition. But that's why Facebook is so eager to jump on board. The company already admits that it spends more than all of Twitter's revenue on content moderation. So, it's not really relying that much on 230 anyway.

And, of course, it's advocacy for FOSTA has already paid off. After FOSTA passed, a number of dating sites shut down... just in time for Facebook to launch its own dating site.

Of course, when Facebook caved on FOSTA, what happened was Congress announced that "tech" was on board -- pretending that Facebook's move suddenly meant every other internet company approved too (when the reality was that every other internet company was basically furious with Facebook).

So, this puts many other internet companies in an impossible position: if they continue to completely fight changing Section 230 (as they should), then Facebook becomes the only voice in any reform "negotiations." And, seeing how Congress handled this last time, it likely means that Facebook gets to shape the "reform" in a way that helps Facebook and harms everyone else. But, Congress, of course, will pretend that Facebook's blessing means the rest of the internet agrees as well.

The end result, then, is that smaller companies, which absolutely rely on Section 230, feel pressure to get into the negotiations as well. And that's why the NY Times now has a story saying that Snap, Reddit and TripAdvisor have told Congress they're willing to talk about reform options:

On Tuesday, a group of smaller companies — including Snap, Reddit and Tripadvisor — plan to say that they are open to discussing reforms, too.

This is disappointing, but understandable. All three companies have relied heavily on 230 in a variety of lawsuits over the years. Snap just recently needed 230's help to get out of a really silly lawsuit. And TripAdvisor, which is a site that is made up almost entirely of 3rd party reviews, gets threatened with litigation over and over again, based on business owners angry about negative reviews. 230 is what enables Trip to remain in business, and the company has long been a strong advocate for 230's existence. The fact that it now says it will come to the negotiating table is truly a sad statement on the position that the 230 debate is in today.

Too many intellectually dishonest people have convinced Congress that Section 230 is a problem. And Facebook leapt in with wild abandon to help shape any reform in a manner that will most harm competitors. So now the smaller companies are put in the impossible position: continue to fight and be left out of the negotiations (where Congress will point to Facebook's participation as "support from internet companies") or agree to be a part of the process to push back on whatever awful ideas Facebook proposes for reform.

It's ridiculous that these companies had to do this, and now the anti-230 crowd will cheer on this dismantling of their own protections.

Filed Under: competition, intermediary liability, negotiations, reform, section 230
Companies: facebook, reddit, snap, tripadvisor

Did A Non-Existent Eatery In A Shed Become TripAdvisor's Top-Rated Restaurant In London?

from the can-you-trust-anything-you-read-online-these-days? dept

A key feature of e-commerce sites is the reviews from people who have used them previously. Such recommendations or warnings are even more important online than in the physical world, because it is much easier to set up a virtual shop than a real one, which makes scams a far greater risk online. However, the enhanced importance of site reviews also increases the incentive to create false ones. A cautionary tale about just how misleading reviews can be is provided by an entertaining post on Vice. In it, the journalist Oobah Butler describes how he turned a non-existent eatery into TripAdvisor's top-rated London restaurant. Or at least that's what he claimed. We should admit, up front, that since this story is about faking stuff on the internet, we should at least be open to the idea that the story of this faked restaurant review might also be... fake.

Butler had the idea after earning money writing fake positive TripAdvisor reviews for restaurants he'd never been to. He started to wonder how many of the other positive reviews on TripAdvisor were similarly bogus. He idly considered whether it was possible for an entire restaurant to be fake -- that is, non-existent despite all the positive reviews. And then:

one day, sitting in the shed I live in, I had a revelation: within the current climate of misinformation, and society's willingness to believe absolute bullshit, maybe a fake restaurant is possible? Maybe it's exactly the kind of place that could be a hit?

In that moment, it became my mission. With the help of fake reviews, mystique and nonsense, I was going to do it: turn my shed into London's top-rated restaurant on TripAdvisor.

There was nothing particularly sophisticated about Butler's methodology: he simply used lots of fake positive reviews, posted by real people on different computers so as to fool TripAdvisor's anti-scammer tools, to drive up the venue's ranking. He bolstered the plausibility of "The Shed at Dulwich" by creating a Web site -- theshedatdulwich.com -- and a suitably pretentious menu:

Instead of meals, our menu is comprised of moods. You choose which fits your day, and our Chef interprets that. We can also tailor dishes for special occasions and at extra cost.

For example:

Contemplation

A deconstructed Aberdeen stew; all elements of the dish are served to the table as they would be in the process of cooking. Served with warm beef tea.

Butler included a few photos of dishes, still visible on the home page of the Web site. They look appetizing enough, but in his Vice post describing the project, he reveals that they are made out of things like bleach tablets, and plastic sponges covered in paint. One image shows a poached egg resting on a slice of bacon -- except that the bacon is actually Butler's naked foot.

The Shed started out in April this year with a TripAdvisor ranking of 18,149, the worst restaurant in London, according to the site. So Butler piled on the reviews, and watched his ranking rise. The phone began to ring: people wanted to reserve tables at this non-existent restaurant. Butler told them it was booked up for weeks. Emails begging for bookings arrived, as did job applications to work at the business, and free samples from companies in the food industry. After just a few months, The Shed at Dulwich becomes London's top-rated restaurant on TripAdvisor, with 89,000 search result views in a single day. As Butler writes in his Vice post:

A restaurant that doesn't exist is currently the highest ranked in one of the world’s biggest cities, on perhaps the internet's most trusted reviews site.

He then did two things. First, he told TripAdvisor that he had managed to game its ranking system completely. Here's TripAdvisor's reply:

"Generally, the only people who create fake restaurant listings are journalists in misguided attempts to test us," replies a representative via email. "As there is no incentive for anyone in the real world to create a fake restaurant it is not a problem we experience with our regular community -- therefore this 'test' is not a real world example."

Well, maybe it isn't a "real world example", but it still shows how unreliable an online review system can be. In the case of The Shed, it wasn't that a few of the opinions for the restaurant were bogus, but that every single one was, and that nonetheless the venue ended up as the top-rated eatery in London according to TripAdvisor. Not surprisingly, the restaurant's page has been removed from the service, but there's an archived version to give you an idea of what it looked like at the height of its fake glory.

The other action taken by Butler was that he opened The Shed for real. You can find out on Butler's Vice post what happened when customers were served microwaved ready meals, surrounded by actors at other tables loudly praising the food, and a DJ playing restaurant sounds in the background to create the right ambience. It's a great story, and a warning that we shouldn't take at face value what we find online -- or what we eat in the physical world. Assuming it's all true, of course....

Follow me @glynmoody on Twitter or identi.ca, and +glynmoody on Google+

Filed Under: fake reviews, oobah butler, restaurants, reviews
Companies: the shed at dulwich, tripadvisor

Italian Court Realizes Ridiculousness Of Fining TripAdvisor Over User Reviews

from the well,-at-least-there's-that dept

Back in December, we wrote about a ridiculous situation in Italy, where the site TripAdvisor was fined €500,000 by local regulators because it wasn't magically stopping people from posting "false reviews" on the site. As we noted at the time, it's stories like this that show why, here in the US, Section 230 of the CDA is so important. It makes it clear that you don't blame a third-party website for actions of its users. What the regulators were demanding was an impossibility. There is no realistic way for a user review site to make sure all the reviews are legit, at least not if it wants to allow user reviews, rather than hiring staff to do every review.

Thankfully, an Italian court has now overturned the fine and acknowledged that it was ridiculous in the first place. Rather than focusing on the problems of intermediary liability, the court just notes that TripAdvisor never made any promises that the reviews were accurate:

“TripAdvisor never asserted that all its reviews were true, pointing out instead that it is impossible to exercise a blanket control and inviting users to consider ‘trends’ in the reviews rather than single contributions,” the court said. “We do not understand the harm to the consumer identified by the Authority in its concluding arguments.”

That's good, though apparently a ridiculous counterproductive group called the National Consumers Union who brought the complaint in the first place wants to keep pressing the issue:

The National Consumers Union remained unconvinced, saying it intended to appeal the court’s “crude thesis.”

“We recognize that controlling on the Web may be more complicated than in a physical market, but the law and supervisory activity cannot remain permanently two steps behind current progress,” Massimiliano Dona, the union’s secretary, said in a statement.

This, of course, makes no sense. It's an argument for not the internet, in which anyone can express an opinion, but rather a top-down broadcast system, in which any statement must first be vetted. That would, effectively, destroy much of the power of the internet. It's hard to see how that helps "consumers" in Italy at all.

Filed Under: intermediary liability, italy, reviews, user generated content
Companies: tripadvisor

Italian Regulators Fine TripAdvisor For Not Sniffing Out Every Single Fake Review On The Site

from the thank-goodness-for-section-230 dept

We've talked quite a bit about the importance of Section 230 of the CDA in the US, and how it protects internet sites from the actions of their users. Some have tried to downplay the importance of Section 230, arguing that it goes too far in protecting bad behavior, or even arguing that it has little impact on innovation. Yet, take a look at the situation in Italy, where regulators are now fining TripAdvisor because some people put up fake reviews on the site:

The American company, which allows travelers to rate hotels and restaurants around the world, has been fined 500,000 euros, or about $610,000, by an Italian regulator for not doing enough to prevent false reviews on its site.

The fine represents one of the first times that a review site has faced financial penalties in Europe or the United States for failing to clamp down on potentially false reviews.

The regulator, the Italian Competition Authority, called on TripAdvisor to stop “publishing misleading information about the sources of its reviews,” and gave the company 90 days to comply with the ruling.

Except, of course, it's not TripAdvisor "publishing" the "misleading information." It's TripAdvisor's users. This is the key point that we've made about Section 230: that it forces people to recognize the difference between a site and its users. In the past, we've even noted that we shouldn't even need a Section 230 because it should be common sense that you don't blame a site for the actions of its users -- but seeing how frequently people do that, the importance of Section 230 is quickly obvious.

TripAdvisor says it's going to appeal the decision -- as it should. Otherwise, it makes you wonder if TripAdvisor should bother doing business in Italy at all. And that would be a real shame. Just last year I visited Italy, and TripAdvisor was tremendously helpful in picking the hotel where I stayed (which turned out to be wonderful). Blaming and fining the site because some people misuse it seems like setting a really dangerous precedent.

Filed Under: competition, fake reviews, italy, regulators, reviews, section 230
Companies: tripadvisor

Even If Google Could Improve Its Recommendations, Is It The Government's Job To Tell It To Do So?

from the seems-troubling dept

There were reports a few weeks ago that the European Commission has reopened its antitrust investigation into Google. The main issue is how Google promotes certain (usually internal) results in so-called "answer boxes" in a way that may hurt other sites. We've been skeptical of the idea of European bureaucrats deciding what Google's search results should look like, but earlier this year, it appeared that a settlement had been reached in which Google would point to competitors' results in some cases.

Against this backdrop, a few organizations, led by Yelp and TripAdvisor have created a somewhat fascinating site and tool called Focus On The User -- a play on Google's own core philosophy of "focus on the user and all else will follow." The site makes a very compelling argument that when Google is returning opinions (i.e., ratings) rather than factual answers, that it could do a much better job than just pointing to results from Google+. That is, if you do a search on "best restaurants in San Francisco" Google will show you results as rated by Google+ user reviews.

The Focus on the User site shows that rather than just relying on Google's own data, users would benefit greatly if Google used its own search algorithm to pull in results from reviews elsewhere. In short, where you might see a box up top with seven to ten reviews (all linking to Google pages), Yelp and TripAdvisor are arguing that if you just used Google's "organic" search algorithm to find the most relevant review pages, consumers get a much better experience. And they have a fair amount of data to back that up, showing a greater number of clicks in such a box (which you can test yourself via the site).

As noted above, the results are compelling. Using Google's own algorithm to rank all possible reviews seems like a pretty smart way of doing things, and likely to give better results than just using Google's (much more limited) database of reviews. But here's the thing: while I completely agree that this is how Google should offer up reviews in response to "opinion" type questions, I still am troubled by the idea that this should be dictated by government bureaucrats. Frankly, I'm kind of surprised this isn't the way Google operates, and it's a bit disappointing that the company doesn't just jump on this as a solution voluntarily, rather than dragging it out and having the bureaucrats force it upon them.

So while the site is fascinating, and the case is compelling, it still has this problem of getting into a very touchy territory where we're expecting government's to design the results of search engines. It seems like Yelp, TripAdvisor and others can make the case to Google and the public directly that this is a better way to do things, rather than having the government try to order Google to use it.

Filed Under: antitrust, eu, government, recommendations, regulators, search
Companies: google, tripadvisor, yelp

TripAdvisor's Rankings Of 'Dirtiest Hotels' Is Not Defamation

from the but-now-we-know-who's-upset-about-it... dept

Eric Goldman has an article at Forbes about the failure of the Grand Resort Hotel & Convention Center in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee, to win its lawsuit against TripAdvisor for listing it as the "dirtiest hotel in America" on its 2011 list of such hotels. TripAdvisor, of course, is a very popular site, in which people rate various hotels. The company then took those rankings to come up with the list, meaning that it's pretty clearly a statement of opinion (the aggregated opinion of all the users who entered review info on TripAdvisor). However, to try to turn that into a defamation claim, the hotel's lawyers appeared to argue that because TripAdvisor came up with a numerical rank from all that user generated input, that made it a "factual statement" rather than an opinion. As you know, opinions aren't defamatory, but incorrect facts can be.

The court isn't buying it, at all.

It is true that the Defendant published an article with a numerical ranking, and that the Defendant suggests reasons to support its opinions, including that “87 percent of those who reviewed [Grand Resort] recommended against staying there,” but neither the fact that Defendant numbers its opinions one through ten, nor that it supports its opinions with data, converts its opinions to objective statements of fact. Any reasonable person can distinguish opinions based on reasons from facts based on reasons—just because TripAdvisor states its reasons for including Grand Resort on its list does not make the assertion one of objective fact. A person who is unable to distinguish the phrase “it is hot,” a subjective opinion, from “it is one-hundred degrees,” an objective fact, is hardly “reasonable.” Similarly, TripAdvisor’s “Dirtiest Hotels” list is clearly unverifiable rhetorical hyperbole.

TripAdvisor’s list is of the genre of hyperbole that is omnipresent. From law schools to restaurants, from judges to hospitals, everything is ranked, graded, ordered and critiqued. Undoubtedly, some will accept the array of “Best” and “Worst” rankings as impenetrable maxims. Certainly, some attempt to obfuscate the distinction between fact and opinion as part of their course of business. For those that read “eat here,” “sleep there” or “go to this law school” and are unable to distinguish measured analysis of objective facts from sensational “carnival barking,” compliance will be both steadfast and assured. Nevertheless, the standard, fortunately, is what a “reasonable person” would believe. A reasonable person would not confuse a ranking system, which uses consumer reviews as its litmus, for an objective assertion of fact; the reasonable person, in other words, knows the difference between a statement that is “inherently subjective” and one that is “objectively verifiable.”

I find the implicit suggestion in there that the plaintiff is not a reasonable person somewhat amusing as well. Either way, as Goldman notes, this should be a somewhat useful case whenever others are threatened for opinion-based lists they put together. That said, as a district court ruling it doesn't have much widespread impact, but with clear and concise reasoning, that doesn't mean it can't be helpful in convincing other courts to rule similarly.

Filed Under: defamation, dirty hotels, rankings
Companies: tripadvisor

'Online Reputation' Firm Continues Saber Rattling At TripAdvisor

from the file-a-damn-lawsuit-or-pipe-down dept

We recently wrote about a so-called "online reputation management" company that was getting a lot of press attention for promising to sue TripAdvisor for reviews that certain venues didn't like and believed to be defamatory. As we mentioned at the time, this felt a lot more like a publicity stunt for the company (which we won't name for that reason), while noting that, in the US at least, TripAdvisor was rightfully protected against claims of defamation on content from users, thanks to Section 230. In the UK, where the reputation management firm is based, it's not quite as clear cut.

LawandLit points us to the news that the company is ramping up the foot stomping and insisting that it really really really really will sue TripAdvisor, just you wait and see! Or, at least, that's what it comes across as from what's being said.

Perhaps more interesting, however, is that the company is now saying that it's also prepared to go after the writers of the actual reviews. While that's at least moving the liability in the right direction, it does make you wonder if such an effort will seriously backfire. I mean, a hotel that sues a customer for a bad review might not get many more bad reviews... but it might not get many more customers, either.

Filed Under: defamation, uk
Companies: tripadvisor

Threatened Lawsuit Against TripAdvisor Sounds More Like PR Campaign For 'Reputation Manager'

from the reading-between-the-lines dept

A bunch of folks have sent in variations on this story of the guy who runs an online "reputation management" company and is very publicly threatening to sue travel review site TripAdvisor under the legal theory of "group defamation." No lawsuit has actually been filed, and any such lawsuit would be a total dead end and waste of time and money for the "reputation management" firm. That's because TripAdvisor is a US company, and thus it is clearly protected from defamation lawsuits on the content written by its users by Section 230. And while this reputation management firm is in the UK, thanks to the US's new libel tourism law, any judgment in the UK would be unenforceable.

In other words, the legal threats are completely bogus. Having read through the various articles covering it, you could be forgiven for thinking that this is really just a PR campaign for the "reputation management" company, who I won't even bother to name, as it doesn't deserve any additional press coverage for threatening such a useless lawsuit.

Filed Under: defamation, reviews, section 230
Companies: tripadvisor