Facebook employees were caught writing 5-star Amazon reviews for its Portal device, and now they must take them down

Isobel Asher Hamilton

January 18, 2019 12:48 PM

Facebook Portal

Facebook has seemingly confirmed that employees left five-star reviews for its new Portal video-chat device on Amazon.
The reviews were first spotted by New York Times tech journalist Kevin Roose.
Facebook executive Andrew "Boz" Bosworth tweeted saying that Facebook had not asked employees to leave good reviews, and that it will ask the employees to remove them.

Facebook employees have been caught leaving glowing reviews on Amazon for Facebook's new video-chat device.

Facebook released the Portal , a video-chat and smart-speaker device, in October. It was the first hardware product to be built and sold under the Facebook brand.

The new gadget has already faced some hardship after Facebook admitted that the camera-equipped screen could collect data about its owners to help Facebook target ads at people.

Now it seems Facebook employees have been trying to artificially inflate the device's ratings on Amazon.

New York Times tech columnist Kevin Roose was the first to spot that stellar reviews were being left by people with the same names as Facebook employees.

As Roose also pointed out, this would be in contravention of Amazon's terms and conditions for sellers.

Roose's suspicions were later confirmed by a Facebook executive. Andrew "Boz" Bosworth heads up Facebook's AR and VR divisions, and said that the employees had not been instructed to leave good reviews. "We will ask them to take them down," he added.

Business Insider contacted Facebook and Amazon for comment.

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