Amazon sues administrators of more than 10,000 Facebook groups for posting fake reviews.

Amazon accuses administrators of more than 10,000 Facebook groups of organising fraudulent reviews in exchange for cash or free goods and has filed a lawsuit against them.The Seattle-based online retailer claimed in a statement that was published on its website on Tuesday that Facebook groups had been created to enlist people who would submit paid and false evaluations of its stores in the UK, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, and Japan.

The issue of fake reviews is nothing new for Amazon or for e-commerce in general. Although politicians and authorities have questioned whether the corporation is doing enough to tackle the issue, Amazon itself has previously sued individuals it claimed were providing false testimonials.

UK competition regulators looked at whether Google and the online store were doing enough to safeguard customers last year.Amazon said in the statement that the Amazon Product Review Facebook group has more than 43,000 members. The business said that despite Facebook taking down the group this year, it was able to avoid being discovered by the platform by rearranging letters in words that Facebook would flag as suspicious.

Since 2020, Amazon has informed Meta, the parent company of Facebook, of more than 10,000 fraudulent review organisations. According to Amazon, Meta has taken down half of these groups and is looking into the other ones.The announcement from the retailer comes as another aspect of the business' operations is being looked at more closely. After receiving referrals alleging safety and health violations from the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York, federal labour officials on Tuesday confirmed to the Associated Press that the Occupational Safety and Health Administration had opened inspections at Amazon facilities in New York, Illinois, and Florida.

Federal labour officials raided the Amazon facilities on Monday morning, according to Nicholas Biase, a spokesman for the U.S. Attorney's Office in New York, after their office made recommendations regarding potential workplace risks, such as Amazon's mandated pace of work for its warehouse staff.

Advocates for workers' rights and workplace safety have long decried Amazon's injury rates and its "time off task tool," which penalises employees for taking excessive breaks. According to Biase, the civil section of the U.S. attorney's office is looking into safety risks at the company's warehouses nationwide as well as dishonest behaviour intended to conceal injuries from OSHA and other authorities.

In an April shareholder letter, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy stated that the company's warehouse injury rates were slightly higher than the norm compared to comparable warehouses. Jassy said that the company's courier and delivery divisions, however, experienced lower injury rates, placing it in the middle of its peer group. We'll of course comply with OSHA in their investigation, and we believe it will ultimately reveal that these concerns are unjustified," Amazon spokesperson Kelly Nantel said in a statement.Current and former Amazon warehouse employees are urged to report workplace safety concerns to the U.S. Attorney's Office.