Facebook Urged to Shut Down Groups Where Fake Reviews are Sold, But It's Failing to do so

Two months ago, Facebook was told by the Competition Markets Authority to shut down groups on its site selling fake Amazon reviews, but according to consumer group Which?, they are failing to do so.

Which? claimed that in the course of its investigation, it discovered several active groups that recruited people to give fake reviews.  

Which? said it had joined 10 separate Facebook groups looking for recruits. And within a 30 days, the recruiters added more than 55,000 posts to the groups that offered free products to people who wrote highly-rated reviews on Amazon.

A spokesman for Facebook said it had removed nine of the 10 groups Which? reported to it and was investigating the remaining one. 

But Natalie Hitchins, head of products at Which? said Facebook had to take tougher action against such groups and do more in finding other groups and shutting them down. It also called on the Competition Markets Authority to take "enforcement action" to make Facebook act.

A CMA senior director George Lusty said it was not happy to learn that groups promoting fake and misleading reviews were reappearing on Facebook. He urge Facebook to "take effective steps to deal with this problem by quickly removing the material and stop it from resurfacing." 

The social networking giant said that it was investigating the issue and that it was working to improve the tools and technologies it used to find the groups.

•