indianotes

Last week, two completely unrelated news items cross-connected in my head.

One, in Mint, reported that a Hyderabad court had intervened to pause online ratings for a Chiranjeevi film, citing concerns about manipulation of pre-release ratings. This is even before the film released. Apparently, people decided whether they liked or disliked a movie — without the inconvenience of watching it.

Another clip doing the rounds on whatsapp, quoted Bollywood actress Tamannaah Bhatia declaring that numbers matter, because they show how many people have actually engaged with the work.

And between the two lies the strange truth of our times: we don’t trust numbers, but we cannot live without them.

And the problem is widespread.

Nithin Kamath of Zerodha recently posted that he suspected the authenticity of app reviews on Google Play Store and Apple App Store in India. A survey by Localcircles found that 60% of shoppers in India said that negative reviews were not published by e-commerce websites.

And this is not new. Over the years, there have been numerous complaints of fake reviews, bot amplification, and even ads from businesses that claim to improve your ratings. Before I retired, I regularly received mails from people saying they could improve my company’s employee ratings on glassdoor. I’m sure every one of you could cite numerous similar examples.

Originally, likes and ratings were meant to answer a simple question: Do people find this useful or enjoyable?

But powerful platforms turned these signals into the gospel truth, tying them to reach or monetisation or brand deals or credibility. This created huge incentives for gaming the system. Since money (and often big money) is involved, those who can manipulate the numbers are going to get much richer.

This has led to a huge industry that uses humans or bots (and now AI) to falsify and manipulate such ratings. And it’s reached a point where one no longer knows what to trust.

Way back in 2022, the Indian government (Bureau of Indian Standards) introduced guidelines for online reviews and ratings aimed at tackling fake and paid reviews — the IS 19000:2022 standard. These require platforms to moderate suspicious or fraudulent reviews, and restrict fake ratings. However, this has not helped, as these are just guidelines and not enforced.

The EU has more stringent regulations under their Digital Services Act, where platforms are made responsible and accountable. This has made platforms more careful, but hasn’t really eliminated the menace. Manipulation is very hard to prove, as algorithms are opaque, and aggregators (and scammers) lack incentives to be transparent.

The hard truth is that abuse isn’t a bug; it’s a rational response to how the system is designed!

(And since you guys are not bots, please like, repost and comment.)