{
  "id": 5323900,
  "title": "Nextdoor CEO: After helping to pioneer online reviews, I’m trying to fix them",
  "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/09/03/nextdoor-ceo-after-helping-to-pioneer-online-reviews-im-trying-to-fix",
  "topic": "finance",
  "section": "Finance & Markets",
  "published": "2026-09-03T12:00:00.000Z",
  "source": {
    "name": "Fortune",
    "slug": "fortune",
    "url": "https://fortune.com/2026/09/03/nextdoor-ceo-nirav-tolia-online-reviews/"
  },
  "original_language": "en",
  "account": "Trust is becoming the most valuable resource in the age of infinite information. In the early 2000s, the founder of Nextdoor, a neighborhood network, helped pioneer user-generated review sites. These reviews were meant to provide useful collective judgment from the masses, yet they quickly became riddled with fabricated and manipulated content. Today, 85% of consumers suspect online reviews to be fake, and 88% cannot distinguish real from fake ones. Review platforms have tried to combat this issue, but the problem persists. Consumers now want to know who is providing the recommendations and why they should trust them. The review industry's trust signals are only as durable as the cost to fake them and the loss when caught. Star ratings, for example, fail both tests - it's impossible to know who gave a high rating and what their bar for excellence is. Accountable recommendations, on the other hand, make it clear who is vouching for a business and what they stand to lose if they fail to deliver. Early research shows that people are increasingly distrusting fake reviews, with nearly half having suspected them in the past year. An AI-generated fake review is now indistinguishable from a real one, making it even more challenging for consumers to trust the information they find online. The question remains: before acting on any online recommendation, ask who is providing it and what they have to gain or lose.",
  "summary": "The cheaper it becomes to fake a recommendation, the more valuable real-world reputation becomes.",
  "key_points": [],
  "editors_take": null,
  "illustration": null,
  "coverage": {
    "outlets": 1,
    "also_reported_by": []
  },
  "ai_generated": true,
  "disclaimer": "Summaries, key points and the editor’s take are written by software from other outlets’ reporting and may contain errors — always check the linked original."
}