That's not what knowingly means in this context. Knowingly refers to the level of intent required to pursue charges, not whether they knew there was a law against it.

In this case it requires the government to show that the person intended to leave a review and/or testimonials that misrepresent that they are by someone who does not exist.

Anyways my brother works for the FTC. With the current funding, they take thousands of complaints before they even look into something. It’s effectively useless as only the most publicised cases get any enforcement and the fines are tiny. And he says it was twice as bad before Biden.

The wording is a bit ambiguous but I'd read that as "intentionally" rather than "with knowledge they're violating the law"... it definitely could have used a good copy editor though.

That's not true, ignorance of the law is also a valid defense for police officers violating people's rights 🙄

It’s also pretty much impossible to prove, which of course is the point. The government exists to protect corporations

IMO, corporate punishments should work like that: steal a little from someone? Lose 90 days of profit. Steal a lot? Lose a couple years of profits. Kill someone? Lose 20 years of profits

"I will believe that corporations are people, once Texas executes one."

Give me 10 Lina Khans and I'll give you the world.

I wish she was the one running for president. Maybe in eight years if we're lucky and have Harris. And/or legal elections in four.

Lina Khan is the most useful bureaucrat in at least a generation.

Why would Harris give her the boot? Khan was placed in position by Biden.

The constitution is pretty clear about the power of government to regulate commerce, and is also pretty clear that the government can’t regulate most speech.

Oh dude they literally had an activity at my old cult where they had everyone make a dozen fake reviews at each of their local buildings. That's gonna be fun.

And then he won't pay it because he's in India and doesn't pay a lot of attention to the US FTC.

She can't run

It prevented reviews and testimonials that misrepresent that they are by someone who does not exist. Fairly easy to prove. If they catch an individual posting a review while posing as anyone but themselves, It's a done deal.

Well if you take a company like Amazon they know everything about you already, including if you actually purchased the item you are reviewing. And that should be a simple first "hurdle" for a reviewer to be legit. They already have a way of sorting them out and labeling them in place. So I would assume this means if you don't have that label your review doesn't go live. They can then add more qualifiers to prove they know the reviewers are real, since this seems to put the onus of proof on the company not that FTC.

Edit - some words

IMHO, if they'd give you the Coke for any review, regardless of rating, that's fine. If they demand a 5-star rating for the Coke, then that's no good.

Your review might have been honest, but not everybody else's who just wanted the Coke will be.

that is fake

You received an item for the review. That’s a bribe. Fake.

I'd say that's legit given you actually like the eatery. Would you have written the review if they had just nicely asked you to, without a payment of Diet Coke?