Facebook launched the Portal and Portal + smart displays two months ago, but the smart devices were not received too well by the customers. The reason why Facebook’s new gadgets didn’t become overnight bestselling products as you would expect since Facebook has billions of users is because the social media platform has went through a data leak fiasco last year 2018.
People don’t feel safe on Facebook and this is why the idea of buying a Facebook product that would listen and watch you all the time didn’t sit too well with customers. Despite all that, it seems like Portal and Portal + have great reviews on Amazon.
Facebook Employees Give Reviews for Portal and Portal +
The fact that Portal and Portal + seemed to receive lots of five star reviews on Amazon seemed fishy and New York Times tech columnist Kevin Roose decided to look into it. The journalist found out that Facebook’s own employees were the ones who were giving out five star reviews to Portal and Portal + on Amazon.
“Speaking of coordinated inauthentic behavior, what are the odds that all these 5-star Facebook Portal reviewers on Amazon just happen to have the same names as Facebook employees?” said Kevin Roose on Twitter.
Happy Customers
The interesting thing about these reviews is that all of them were marked as verified by Amazon, thus giving them more credibility. This also means that the Facebook employees who were giving out the reviews have actually bought one of the smart displays and there is a high chance that they are actually just happy customers.
“I would recommend this product to anyone who has a family or friends that they enjoy staying in contact with. So much better than just a plain phone call,” said an Amazon review from Tim Chappel who is a Facebook employee.
