It turns out more than 1m TripAdvisor reviews were fake in 2020

TripAdvisor released its annual ‘transparency’ report (for 2020) and, surprise surprise, it turns out that nearly 1 million reviews - yes, 1 million with 7 figures, 3.6% of the total - were fake.

TripAdvisor further states that two third (67.1%) of the fake reviews were detected and blocked by the platform’s automated algorithm before they were actually posted, which means that the remaining 32.9% required human intervention.

The company said it removed paid reviews from 131 countries, with India being named as the country where the most paid reviews came from in 2020.

TripAdvisor also removed/blocked over 1 million genuine reviews for various reasons - hateful language, profanity, and so on.

The thing is, reviews are moderated, filtered and monitored constantly but even so, it is nigh on impossible to keep track of who’s reviewing what and a couple of fake reviews are bound to slip through the safekeeping hand of moderators.

We’ve been relying on reviews for our trips to the local pub and our trips to the best resort in the Bahamas for years, but they’re a double-edged sword and it’s hard to get rid of fake reviews, paid reviews and biased reviews.

What do you think? Do you usually leave reviews and do you rely on them to make a decision? Let me know in the comments below.