29% of these Amazon reviews are fake
Boooooooooooooooo
We know about greenwashing, right? When so-called “eco-friendly” goods and services are dressed up to appear better for the planet but lack any real significant impact.
Welp, according to a little digging by the folks at WaterFilterGuru, who used Fakespot.com (a tool that uses AI to detect fraudulent product reviews and sellers), many products labeled “eco-friendly” boast fake reviews online to boost sales. Some wild findings:
Of the 1.1 million Amazon reviews for “eco-friendly” products analyzed, 29% were found to be fake.
1 in 3 Americans have had a company offer them something in exchange for a positive review.
It’s hard enough to decipher whether a product is made with sustainability in mind. Now, adding to the confusion is whether that product actually works/is good/does what it promises.
This is doubly horrific, and you know I’ll tell you why.
Let’s say you’re buying a water filtering pitcher to reduce your plastic waste. You go through just a few of the 10,000+ options available (~literally~), and make your selection based on the solid reviews because otherwise it is impossible to choose. The pitcher arrives, and actually it sucks. Your water tastes like mud. The filter is a mold trap. The pitcher breaks within a couple of uses and you need to buy another one.
This is a bad user experience, first and foremost. But more insidious is that your intent was to cause less harm to planet earth, and now you’re probably causing more: You have to either return your shitty product (environmentally taxing) or surrender it to the trash (yeehaw, the landfill) and try again.
Amazon isn’t the first place that comes to mind when I think sustainability, but it’s completely fair to buy something from the source in hopes of practicing a more sustainable lifestyle.
I know that in terms of fish to fry, there are many bigger than fake Amazon reviews. But I think the findings hint at something greater, if not painfully obvious: Corporations will truly do anything to make money.
Don’t you forget it.
P.S. My two most recent posts have mentioned Amazon in a bad light. I wanted to clarify that I also hate other things.