Amazon can’t fix fake reviews

It’s astonishing to me that Amazon STILL can’t figure out how to fix fake reviews, so instead of doing the obvious and preventing people who have not bought a product from reviewing it on their site, they are trying to weight the star rating instead:

Fake reviews still exist on Amazon, but the dominant online shopping platform recently made a big change that might help drown them out instead.

The online retailer quietly introduced one-tap ratings for product reviews late last year, making it possible for shoppers to provide a star rating without needing to write a review to accompany it.

The change has already led to an increase in overall customer feedback, a competitive advantage that Amazon has over many of its biggest brick-and-mortar competitors. And new products are generating feedback on Amazon sooner, the company says, which could be a boon for new brands and sellers. But some industry observers believe another indirect impact of the change will be a significant increase in authentic ratings that will make it harder for fake reviews to break through the noise.

“As the number of ratings increase, customers can see a larger set and thus a more accurate rating,” said Patrick Miller, co-founder of Flywheel Digital, an agency that helps large consumer brands sell on Amazon. “For brands, this means the black-hat review clubs and sellers will have less impact, as fake reviews as a percentage of legit reviews should decrease.”

The new rating feature arrives at a time in which fake product reviews have been attracting more attention from the media, regulators, and Amazon itself as more consumers conduct more of their shopping online. Last year, the Federal Trade Commission brought its first case involving paid fake reviews, settling a complaint against an Amazon seller who purchased fake five-star reviews for a weight-loss supplement. Amazon has also filed at least five lawsuits related to fake-review schemes over the last five years. On one end, fake positive reviews can simply lead to the purchase of poor-quality merchandise and distrust among shoppers. But in certain categories, a flattering review of a bad or faulty product can be flat-out dangerous.

The new one-tap feature asks customers to select from one to five stars for a product. It’s only available to customers who have actually purchased the item from Amazon — “verified” buyers. That barrier alone creates one hurdle that will make the new rating system harder to game, since Amazon does allow written reviews from non-verified buyers. And as the new rating feature attracts more and more feedback from verified buyers, it’ll get more expensive for schemers to buy enough phony reviews to try to break through the noise.

“The more customers who purchased the product [who] provide feedback, the more accurately the star rating reflects the experience of all purchasers,” is how Amazon spokesperson Angie Newman put it, without directly referencing fake reviews.

Amazon does not provide many specifics about how a product’s overall star rating is calculated, other than stating that it is not a simple average but instead uses “machine-learned models” that take into account factors such as how recent the rating or review is and whether it was a verified purchase or not. It’s not clear whether one-tap ratings will carry as much weight in these models as written reviews.

It’s better than nothing, but it’s downright embarrassing that a company as heavily invested in AI and machine learning, and as dependent upon an algorithm, as Amazon is can’t figure out how to write an algorithm that can easily distinguish an obvious fake review from a legitimate one.

Juror 1261

The Roger Stone trial demonstrates how the Prometheans pervert the U.S. justice system:

Juror 1261, we now know, was Tomeka Hart. Her identity would have remained publicly unknown except for a public statement she made after the Department of Justice (DOJ) rescinded its initial sentencing recommendation for Trump confidant Roger Stone. In the midst of the firestorm of allegations of political interference, Hart disclosed that she was the foreperson on the Stone jury and gave a full-throated defense of the trial prosecutors: “It pains me to see the DOJ now interfere with the hard work of the prosecutors.”

That statement led many people to Google her name, and what they found was a litany of postings not only hostile to President Trump and his administration but also specifically commenting on Stone and his arrest — before she ever appeared for jury duty…. Hart is a Democratic activist and critic of the Trump administration. She was the Memphis City Schools board president. Not surprisingly, given her political background (including a run for Congress), Hart has been vocal in public on her views of Trump and his associates.

She referred to the President with a hashtag of “klanpresident” and spoke out against “Trump and the white supremacist racists.” She posted about how she and others protested outside a Trump hotel and shouted, “Shame, shame, shame!” When profanities were projected on the Trump hotel, she exclaimed on Jan. 13, 2018, “Gotta love it.” On March 24, 2019, she shared a Facebook post — no longer public — while calling attention to “the numerous indictments, guilty pleas, and convictions of people in 45’s inner-circle.”

More worrisome are her direct references to Stone, including a retweeted post, in January 2019, from Bakari Sellers, again raising racist associations and stating that “Roger Stone has y’all talking about reviewing use of force guidelines.” She also described Trump supporters such as Stone as racists and Putin cronies.

In addition to her prior statements about Trump, his associates and this case, Hart is a lawyer. That only magnifies concerns that any bias on her part may have had a more pronounced influence on her fellow jurors.

In fact, except for a jury pool composed entirely of House impeachment managers, Hart would appear to be a standout for a peremptory challenge by the defense team over bias. That is why the most surprising aspect of this story is not the review of her public statements but the review of her examination before trial. The brief examination in the voir dire hearing shows that Hart did disclose her ties to the Democratic Party. U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson asked if Hart’s political history would prevent her from being fair, and Hart assured her it would not.

While Hart’s answers on the jury questionnaire remain sealed, Judge Jackson noted, “You’ve also indicated a fair amount of paying attention to news and social media, including about political things?” Hart does not volunteer that she did far more than “pay attention to news and social media” and was, in fact, an anti-Trump protester and social media critic.

The exposure of a jury plant demonstrates the same technique used in the media narrative, in town meetings, in political caucuses, in science propaganda, and every other type of collective activity in which the illusion of a majority consensus is required or deemed desirable.

Plagiarizing the narrative

It’s not a mystery. Fiction authors don’t predict events, the crisis manufacturers simply rip off their narratives from them from time to time:

The Eyes of Darkness, a 1981 thriller by bestselling suspense author Dean Koontz, tells of a Chinese military lab that creates a virus as part of its biological weapons programme. The lab is located in Wuhan, which lends the virus its name, Wuhan-400. A chilling literary coincidence or a case of writer as unwitting prophet?

In The Eyes of Darkness, a grieving mother, Christina Evans, sets out to discover whether her son Danny died on a camping trip or if – as suspicious messages suggest – he is still alive. She eventually tracks him down to a military facility where he is being held after being accidentally contaminated with man-made microorganisms created at the research centre in Wuhan.

If that made the hair on the back of your neck stand up, read this passage from the book: “It was around that time that a Chinese scientist named Li Chen moved to the United States while carrying a floppy disk of data from China’s most important and dangerous new biological weapon of the past decade. They call it Wuhan-400 because it was developed in their RDNA laboratory just outside the city of Wuhan.”

In another strange coincidence, the Wuhan Institute of Virology, which houses China’s only level four biosafety laboratory, the highest-level classification of labs that study the deadliest viruses, is just 32km from the epicentre of the current coronavirus outbreak. The opening of the maximum-security lab was covered in a 2017 story in the journal Nature, which warned of safety risks in a culture where hierarchy trumps an open culture.

Sometimes they get away with it, sometimes they don’t. For example, the keyboardist/DJ in Psykosonik “borrowed” a techno riff for the post-chorus for one of our songs from dance groove he liked to spin by a little-known European techno group. Not a big deal, that’s something that techno and house groups do all the time and is generally considered homage, not plagiarism. We did find it a little embarrassing, however, when that initially-unknown song somehow blew up into a stadium anthem that is regularly heard to this day.

Ironically, both songs made the Billboard Top 40 club chart, at numbers 14 and 37, respectively.

Nick Fuentes banned from YouTube

As expected, YouTube followed up its demonetization of Nick Fuentes with a banning of his channel:

My Youtube channel has been wrongly terminated today for an alleged violation of “hate speech” policy. This is the end result of a concerted effort by leftists, conservative inc gatekeepers, and silicon valley censors to silence my show and the movement it has inspired.

This is why we build our own platforms. But never forget that it’s not our job to provide a home for everyone outside the mainstream. We will always help our friends and allies, but the enemies of our enemies are not necessarily either.

It will be interesting to see if Mr. Fuentes actually has the mettle his followers believe he does or if he will simply accept his banishment as meekly as the average conservative. I would tend to assume the latter, but perhaps he will exceed our expectations.

A dangerous choice

Mini-Mike is reportedly considering Hillary Clinton as his potential running mate and successor:

Mike Bloomberg is considering making Hillary Clinton his running mate, a source close to his campaign has told Drudge Report. Polling found the Bloomberg-Clinton combination would be a formidable force to take on Trump in the race for the White House, the source said.

Former New York City Mayor and Democratic candidate Bloomberg is said to be considering even changing his official residence from New York to Colorado or Florida – where he also has homes – because the electoral college makes it difficult for US president and vice-president to reside in the same state.

Under the Twelfth Amendment to the US Constitution, which provides the procedure for electing the president and vice-president, it states that the two people could not both inhabit the same state as the elector.

That’s remarkable. I mean, I know Mini-Mike is amoral, evil, and short, but he never struck me as being particularly suicidal. This would appear to indicate that either Bloomberg has terminal cancer or he knows he can’t possibly win.

Tracking the outbreak

Corona-chan at Johns Hopkins

02/15—67091—1527
02/14—64447—1384
02/13—60347—1369
02/12—45214—1116
02/11—43129—1018
02/10—40573—-910
02/09—37590—-814
02/08—34944—-725
02/07—31523—-638
02/06—28276—-565
02/05—24554—-492
02/04—20679—-427
02/03—17046—-362
02/02—14628—-305
01/02—11374—-259
31/01—-9821—-213
30/01—-8235—-171
29/01—-7783—-170
28/01—-6057—-132
27/01—-4231—-103
26/01—-2808—–80
25/01—-2117—–56
24/01—-1126—–41
23/01—–901—–26
22/01—–651—–25
21/01—–317——6
20/01—–219——4
19/01—–204——3

Spreadsheet image courtesy of Anonymous Conservative. There may actually be some good news here, as the current numbers out of Johns Hopkins, as of end of day 28/01/20, are 6,057 and 132, which, while still ahead of the predicted model, may indicate that the transmission rate is slowing down a little, from 22 percent over to 18 percent over, while the death rate has declined from 45 percent over to 25 percent over. However, it’s still too soon to reach any meaningful conclusion.

It’s important not to overreact to these statistical models, as you may recall that the Ebola outbreak of 2014 doubled every 4.4 weeks, but the infection rate finally declined and broke the curve in the 9th doubling cycle. So, to know when the coronavirus outbreak is beginning to burn itself out, look for the doubling rate to slow down from its current rate of just over two days.

Alternatively, if it picks up, you may do well to start paying attention to the possibility Corona-chan will be making an appearance closer to you than you might like.

He’s not 5’7″

As is his wont, the god-emperor has focused like a laser on an opponent’s psychological weak point:

A Michael Bloomberg adviser was cut down to size by a New York Times reporter Thursday after trying to claim the Democratic presidential candidate was not self-conscious about his height.

Times White House correspondent Maggie Haberman disputed one reporter’s claim that the Bloomberg campaign was secretly happy about President Donald Trump calling the former New York City mayor a “5’4″ mass of dead energy.”

As the Washington Free Beacon has reported, there is ample evidence the billionaire misrepresented his height, listing himself as a full three inches too tall on his driver’s license.

A doctor’s note released by the Bloomberg campaign in December indicates the candidate is 5-foot-7. Bloomberg has given wildly contradictory answers about his height, telling reporters at various times he was 5-foot-10, “in the ballpark” of 6-foot-1, and in one unguarded moment in 2006, “a 5-foot-7 billionaire Jew.”

Bloomberg was even spotted using a box to boost his height during his first mayoral inauguration. The Daily News reported at the time that the billionaire was “somewhat sensitive about his height.”

There is absolutely no way that Bloomberg is 5’7″. It’s absolutely impossible. Look at him standing next to Eva Longoria, who claims to be 5’1.5″ and is more like five flat. Even if she had four-inch heels on, Bloomberg is at most 5’5″ tall. And there is no way that Americans are going to vote for a midget for President, no matter how rich he is.

Email alert

If you are a Replatformer with an account created BEFORE December 19, 2019 and you wish to put a certain company on 30-day notice concerning their recent deceptive practices and contractual breaches, as required by the law, please be on the lookout for an email with DECEPTIVE PRACTICES NOTICE in the subject.

The email contains a link to a file with instructions. All that is required is providing some basic information, then sending an email to the address contained in the file. If you have an SG2 account and you follow me, you can directly access the file from there. Please respond quickly to the email, as the more who object, the more likely it is that the deceptive practices will come to an end.

Eligible VFM should take part in The Noticing.

UPDATE: About half the emails went out today. The other half will go out tomorrow.

A Q disproof?

Remember this?

the first to be arrested will be McCabe & Strzok. maybe as early as Monday or Tuesday next week.
— Greg Rubini (@GregRubini)

Apparently Mr. Rubini’s source is unreliable.

Federal prosecutors have declined to charge former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, closing an investigation into whether he lied to federal officials about his involvement in a news media disclosure, McCabe’s legal team said Friday.

The decision resolves a criminal investigation that spanned more than a year and began with a referral from the Justice Department’s inspector general, which said McCabe repeatedly lied about having authorized a subordinate to share information with a newspaper reporter for a 2016 article about an FBI investigation into the Clinton Foundation.

McCabe’s lawyers said in a statement they were told in a phone call and letter that the case is closed and “no charges will be brought against him based on the facts.”

McCabe, a frequent target of attacks from President Donald Trump, has denied that he intentionally misled anyone. He has said his 2018 firing — for what the Justice Department called “lack of candor” — was politically motivated. He sued the Justice Department in August, saying officials had used the inspector general’s conclusions as a pretext to rid the FBI of leaders Trump perceived as biased against him.

In a letter on Friday, prosecutors told McCabe’s lawyers that they decided “not to pursue criminal charges against your client” after careful consideration.

“Based on the totality of the circumstances and all of the information known to the government at this time, we consider the matter closed,” said the letter, signed by the chief of the U.S. attorney’s office’s public corruption unit.

Score one for The Swamp.

Goodbye, Creepy Joe

The media has turned on him. Now, even his Wall Street backers are pulling out in favor of Bloomberg:

Is it over for Uncle Joe?

Former Vice President Joe Biden is in New York City Thursday night mingling with Wall Street Democratic fundraisers who he hopes will give him enough cash to fuel his sputtering campaign and help him clinch the party’s 2020 presidential nomination. The back-to-back fundraisers are expected to gin up a solid $1 million in campaign cash

But behind the scenes, the word from the party’s fat-cat set is that the Biden campaign may already be lost despite the Wall Street C-suite names attending the events because former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg is poised to take sole control of the party’s moderate wing.

“I feel sorry for Biden,” said Leon Cooperman, a billionaire hedge fund investor who has supported Democrats in the past despite being critical of President Obama. “He should withdraw; he has no chance.”

Like Cooperman, these executives — who work at hedge funds, on Wall Street and in real estate — cite as evidence several factors including Biden’s poor showing in the Iowa caucus and New Hampshire primary. They say that much of the money delivered to the Biden campaign as part of Thursday fundraisers at New York City restaurants Sarabeth’s and The Wayfarer was earmarked before his big losses in Iowa and New Hampshire and that big donors have more recently pulled back.

Even more importantly, they point to the emergence of Bloomberg — well-known among the Wall Street money set since many of them are his friends.

And by “the party’s moderate wing” they mean the Democratic Party’s Money wing.