（最近，罗永浩和西贝之间的纷争又起，表面上似乎是由预制菜问题引起的舆论后续发酵。但背后其实是网络经济时代人类消费困境的折射，即由网络夹持的非特定个体表达与大众实际感受之间的强烈反差。如果人们没有辨识真假的立场和能力，只会造成消费低迷和社会撕裂。下面这篇文章或许能给予我们一定的启发——笔者注）
人类向来钟爱评论：口碑长久以来被视为企业最宝贵的营销工具之一。消费者乐于阅读并发表评价，但问题在于，许多评论实属虚假。芝加哥洛约拉大学的沙布南·阿齐米与亚历山大·克拉斯尼科夫，以及东北大学的邝展，近期发表了一项关于虚假评论的研究。
该研究基于芝加哥酒店的1600条评论数据展开，其中部分真实、部分虚假。这些评论被呈现给400名受试者，每人随机阅读八条——包含两条积极虚假、两条积极真实、两条消极虚假及两条消极真实的平衡组合，所有评论均由获得酒店信息的真人撰写。
结果显示，消费者普遍更相信负面评论而非正面评价。此外，人们倾向于认为好评可能是虚假的。“总体而言，负面评论较为少见，因此我们会更关注它们。一旦负面评论是假的，我们就容易上当。”阿齐米解释道。
在虚假评论的伪造过程中，篇幅与细节对可信度至关重要。一篇信息详尽的长篇酒店差评往往能说服参与者；反之，冗长的好评则易引发怀疑，人们更倾向于信任简洁的赞美。情绪表达同样影响说服力——或者说，缺乏情绪反而奏效。阿齐米指出，受试者通常不信任情感泛滥的评论，负面评价越是冷静克制，越容易让读者信以为真。
尽管阿齐米研究中的虚假评论由人工编撰，但如今人工智能生成的虚假评论日益增多，使其更显逼真。尽管许多公司使用算法过滤虚假评论，阿齐米强调，这些机器的程序由人类设定，而人类识别虚假评论的能力本就有限——这并非好兆头。
附：英文原文
Human beings have always loved reviews:word of mouth has long been regarded as one of the most valuable marketing tools available to a company.Consumers enjoy reading and giving reviews. However,the problem is that a lot of the reviews are fake(假的).Shabnam Azimi and Alexander Krasnikov of Loyola University of Chicago and Kwong Chan of Northeastern University recently published a study on fake reviews.
The study used a dataset of 1,600 reviews of Chicago hotels.Some of them were real;others were fake.The reviews were presented to 400 subjects.Each subject got eight reviews to read:a balanced set of two positive fake,two positive real,two negative fake and two negative real,presented in a random order.The reviews were written by real people who were given information about the hotel.
The results show that consumers generally trust negative reviews more than positive ones.
Moreover,we humans tend to assume that positive reviews might be fake.“Overall,negative reviews are less common.So,we pay more attention to them.When a negative review is fake,we get tricked," Azimi says.
When it came to faking a review,length was important to believability,as was detail.A long, negative review of a hotel,complete with lots of information,tended to convince participants.A lengthy,positive review,on the other hand,was regarded as suspicious,and participants tended to trust writers that kept their glowing reviews short.Emotion was also important in convincing readers—or the lack of emotion,at least.Azimi says study participants tended not to trust reviews where the writers expressed their feelings in a big way.The more dispassionate that negative write-up,the more likely it was to take the reader in.
The fake reviews written for Azimi's study were put together by humans,but increasingly,fake reviews are being written by AI,which makes them look more real.Though many companies use algorithms to weed out fake reviews,Azimi points out that the machines are programmed by humans,and given our limited ability to spot fake reviews,this isn't a good sign.
