From Yelp:
Today, we’re announcing a new consumer alert to stand against racism. In the last few months, we’ve seen that there is a clear need to warn consumers about businesses associated with egregious, racially-charged actions to help people make more informed spending decisions.
— Yelp (@Yelp) October 8, 2020
Communities have always turned to Yelp in reaction to current events, and our User Operations team already places alerts on business pages when we notice an unusual uptick in reviews that are based on what someone may have seen in the news, rather than on a first-hand experience.
— Yelp (@Yelp) October 8, 2020
Now, when a business gains attention for reports of racist conduct, Yelp will place a new Business Accused of Racist Behavior Alert on their Yelp page to inform users, along with a link to a news article where they can learn more. https://t.co/1K2bJ46uM8
— Yelp (@Yelp) October 8, 2020
I hate Yelp.
One reason is that there is no proof required that you patroned a business to review it.
Yelp reviews, especially bad Yelp reviews, have become political weapons.
In fact, what we’ve seen time and again in cancel culture is that people will dog pile on a business, giving it one star reviews with bad comments because they were accused of something online, by people who have never patroned the business and may live in different states or countries.
So now Yelp has a Scarlett Letter to mark businesses accused of racism.
By whom? Under what conditions? With what proof?
This seems to me like it has massive potential for abuse and false allegations.
Does the owner have a Trump 2020 sticker on his car in the parking lot? Now he has a racist business icon on his Yelp review.
This will only end horribly. We need to step away from cancel culture but it look like Yelp is steering right into that skid.
Going super woke? Yelp has been there since 2017, per my reckoning, as one of the many “social media” tools misused by the cancel culture douche-bags. SMH
Yikes, slapping a “Scarlet R” on the business with no proof.
I wonder if one could use it as a sort of reverse filter. If one assumes most “racist” tags are false positives as a result of someone just being conservative…?
Hmm. Maybe I won’t delete the app after all.
On the contrary, I see this as the end of Yelp. If I were a business owner who was slapped with this label, I would test the limits of their liability insurance.
…at which point, I presume, Yelp! would claim immunity under section 230 as a platform and not a publisher.
230 either needs to go entirely, or it needs to be applied fairly and impartially … which for the likes of Facebook, Twitter etc., would amount to the same thing.
I don’t think 230 would apply here. The whole idea of a platform is that the content is provided by others. The “racist” label would be placed there by Yelp, not by others.
Can you say “Tortious interference”?
I knew you could.
😀