Facebook has a well-publicized problem with fake news on its platform, but the issue of fraudulent product reviews gets far less attention. However, the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) called out the social media giant last summer for hosting these fake reviews. This week, Facebook finally responded, removing 188 groups, disabling 24 user accounts, and agreeing to build a system that will automatically detect and remove this kind of content.

According to the CMA, 75 percent of people are influenced by online reviews. That makes scam reviews a potentially lucrative business for cybercriminals.

“Fake reviews are really damaging to shoppers and businesses alike. Millions of people base their shopping decisions on reviews, and if these are misleading or untrue, then shoppers could end up being misled into buying something that isn’t right for them — leaving businesses who play by the rules missing out,” said head of the CMA Andrea Coscelli. “We’re pleased that Facebook… [is] doing the right thing by committing to tackle this problem and helping to keep their sites free from posts selling fake reviews.”

To users, this problem seems relatively minor compared to Facebook’s typical privacy and data mishaps. However, to a company almost solely dependent on ad revenue, this could be a potentially huge fix.

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