20% of Yelp reviews are fake • Hacker News Board

Re: 20% of Yelp reviews are fake

#101

Post by baddox » Fri, Sep 27, 2013, 4:27 AM UTC

smtddr wrote: post #84

baddox wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you articulate exactly why you wouldn't value that review? I would only consider a review "fake" and discount it if I thought the reviewer hadn't actually experienced the item being reviewed, or was externally incentivized (e.g. paid) to compose the review. Merely discounting a review for being "biased" doesn't seem wise to me. Presumably, the childhood friend of Obama actually did enjoy the book, and the friend…

> Merely discounting a review for being "biased" doesn't seem wise to me. To me, fake and biased are not too far apart considering the context that I expect reviews on books, restaurants, etc. to come from random people who don't have any particular reason to like or dislike the product outside of the quality of the product itself. I believe friends & family are too close to the product to give a review without exter…

> I expect reviews on books, restaurants, etc. to come from random people who don't have any particular reason to like or dislike the product outside of the quality of the product itself.

The problem with that expectation is that voluntary reviews already self-select for people willing to write reviews, which will almost certainly introduce strong biases.

Re: 20% of Yelp reviews are fake

#102

Post by smtddr » Fri, Sep 27, 2013, 4:37 AM UTC

baddox wrote: post #101

smtddr wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Merely discounting a review for being "biased" doesn't seem wise to me. To me, fake and biased are not too far apart considering the context that I expect reviews on books, restaurants, etc. to come from random people who don't have any particular reason to like or dislike the product outside of the quality of the product itself. I believe friends & family are too close to the product to give a review without exter…

> I expect reviews on books, restaurants, etc. to come from random people who don't have any particular reason to like or dislike the product outside of the quality of the product itself. The problem with that expectation is that voluntary reviews already self-select for people willing to write reviews, which will almost certainly introduce strong biases.

Hmm, I consider the people who are passionate enough about their experience to write a review to be the exact people I want to hear from. Of course, I'm aware of the tendency of people to complain more often than complement. If everything goes well with a product, it's like "ah, nice." But when it fails, it causes feelings of being ripped-off and to resolve those feelings means complain-on-the-interwebz.

But, I guess that's the best we've got, right? Otherwise how do we go about getting reviews for anything? I definitely think forcing people to do reviews that they didn't want to write would produce mostly garbage.

Re: 20% of Yelp reviews are fake

#103

Post by woebtz » Fri, Sep 27, 2013, 5:56 AM UTC

AJ007 wrote: post #79

ledge wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's no reason that a rival company couldn't fake negative reviews though. I'm sure it's common already.

Visually looking at the ratings curve can be a good indicator. Its the reviewers who need to be reviewed. Or, in a true social sense trusted reviewers should be followed and the rest ignored.

When my friend's mother opened her restaurant in Koreatown, they received, amongst other welcome-to-the-neighborhoods: phantom Yelp reviews (describing tickets and events that never occurred) and a string of big table reservations (no shows). One such "review" complaining about a rat infestation was written by a then Yelp Elite member rather than an obvious sockpuppet.

Who can you trust when even trust is gamed?

Re: 20% of Yelp reviews are fake

#104

Post by dredmorbius » Fri, Sep 27, 2013, 6:13 AM UTC

wtvanhest wrote: post #19

Uhhrrr wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, from the linked paper it looks like 20% is only the percentage of fakes that are statistically obvious.

I know that most people just look at the stars and make a decision. Other people read the good reviews and determine to make their decision from that. I read the bad reviews. 1 to 3 star reviews. I'd rather go to a place with a bifrication of bad and good reviews where the bad reviews are stuff I don't care about... My theory is that if a place sucks it will definitely have bad reviews. A place that is great will sti…

I read the bad reviews and the reasons for the negatives.

If they add up, I'll take note. If they don't, I'll presume a fake.

The failure of review services (Amazon, Yelp, and others) to police their reviews adequately really hurts these services. Otherwise they're little more than a yellow pages or directory.

Re: 20% of Yelp reviews are fake

#105

Post by Ma8ee » Fri, Sep 27, 2013, 6:43 AM UTC

gzervas wrote: post #22

Hi everyone, co-author of the paper here. I wanted to clarify the 20% figure. We actually have no way of telling how many, or which reviews are fake. We do not directly observe review fraud, and we clearly spell this out in the paper. The 20% figure represents the percentage of filtered reviews on Yelp. These are reviews that Yelp finds suspicious enough to not publish. Some filtered reviews may be fake, and some mig…

I never got through all the pop ups to actually read the paper.

Re: 20% of Yelp reviews are fake

#106

Post by mistercow » Fri, Sep 27, 2013, 6:55 AM UTC

gtremper wrote: post #46

redblacktree wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Classic prisoners' dilemma.

I think its more of a case of the tragedy of the commons.

Tragedy of the commons can be viewed as a specific form of the prisoner's dilemma.

Re: 20% of Yelp reviews are fake

#107

Post by chmars » Fri, Sep 27, 2013, 7:48 AM UTC

Unfortunately, not to use Yelp as a business is not an option according to https://biz.yelp.com/support/common_questions:

I'm a business owner and don't want my business to be listed on Yelp — can I have it removed from Yelp?

Consumers have the right to talk about what they like (and don't like) about a meal they ate, a plumber they hired, or a car wash they visited. We don't remove business listings, so your best bet is to engage with your fans and critics alike, and hear what they have to say.

Re: 20% of Yelp reviews are fake

#108

Post by dsuth » Fri, Sep 27, 2013, 8:53 AM UTC

AJ007 wrote: post #79

ledge wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's no reason that a rival company couldn't fake negative reviews though. I'm sure it's common already.

Visually looking at the ratings curve can be a good indicator. Its the reviewers who need to be reviewed. Or, in a true social sense trusted reviewers should be followed and the rest ignored.

What happens when a trusted reviewer gets recognised as such, and starts getting offers to do faked reviews for cash? This is a classic example in other mediums, eg. radio. Trust is a double-edged sword.

Re: 20% of Yelp reviews are fake

#109

Post by andrewaylett » Fri, Sep 27, 2013, 9:25 AM UTC

genwin wrote: post #83

mathattack wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To me what this means is you can't trust a positive signal, but you still can trust a negative one. If it's really that bad, then they're clearly not on the ball.

When using Trip Advisor I skip over reviews where the reviewer has only 1 review. I assume they are written by competitors. A hotel could have many pages of favorable reviews, yet the reviewer with only 1 review under his/her belt will likely report something disgusting like bed bugs or blood stains.

Conversely, a hotel probably has more than one competitor so if they're posting negative reviews they may well review all of them. Someone who has a particularly bad (or good) experience with a hotel may well not have signed up before but could feel compelled to do so for that experience.

Note that I'm not speaking from experience here, just playing devil's advocate a bit :).

Re: 20% of Yelp reviews are fake

#110

Post by mathattack » Fri, Sep 27, 2013, 12:59 PM UTC

drakaal wrote: post #77

mathattack wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To me what this means is you can't trust a positive signal, but you still can trust a negative one. If it's really that bad, then they're clearly not on the ball.

There was as much if not more negative gaming as positive. The best way to hurt a competing self storage services is to post a review that mentions their rat problem. Just an example.

Interesting. I hadn't thought of it that way - thanks!