What Does It Mean When Yelp Calls a Business Racist?
When I’m looking for a new place to protect a service, I turn to Yelp . In addition to learning about the overall quality of a business, I can also find out if the business is terrible – for example, run by terrible people with no bad service. (Though theytend to go hand in hand .) Yelp is planning a new policy to make it even easier: The company will start warning users if the company is accused of racist behavior.
I don’t always agree when Yelp goes on the list of companies to try to prevent or explain the “astroturfing” that happens when a social network picks up a story about a company doing something nasty. For example, if a business owner talks a lot about Twitter. It could motivate people who have never been his customers to go to Yelp and leave reviews that tell the world – in all sorts of creative ways – how terrible the business is.
However, I am completely satisfied with the fact that the Internet piles up when businesses behave in an unfortunate way well beyond “somebody made me a crappy hamburger.” This includes cases where a business or its employees are acting sexist, racist, fanatical, or in any way that goes up to this level. While it’s more effective when people who have actually had a terrible experience share it on Yelp rather than random internet people, sometimes you need to show a little more fun in order to get results.
Everyone has to do their part to get into a fight when there is proven evidence that the company or its employees acted in a racist manner. That’s because if enough of these reviews grab Yelp’s attention, the company can now tag the company and provide an explanation of what’s going on:
“The Yelp User Management team is already posting alerts on business pages when we notice an unusual surge in reviews based on what someone may have seen on the news or on social media, rather than personal experience with the business. Now that a company draws public attention to reports of racist behavior, such as the use of racist language or symbols, Yelp will post a new notice on its Yelp page about companies accused of racist behavior, along with a link to a news article they can learn from. more about the incident. “
Yelp will visibly alert users when it notices a flood of racist allegations against a business or anyone associated with it, or for that matter if the business becomes the target of racism. These warnings might look something like this:
This all sounds like an excuse for Yelp, as it is also in the company’s best interest to prevent businesses from feeling “unfairly” driven. Again, I have no moral problem with people who visit Yelp to talk about shitty, racist actions by the company or its employees. And perhaps this is the kind of activity that we need more attention about because it grabs the attention of Yelp. The company can then investigate the matter and provide additional official links to inform users of the situation.
In other words, dog reviews – even if they come from people who have never experienced shitty business action – can help shed some light on the truth. This is a crude technique, but certainly effective in getting an official response. And this is something that your average user Yelp is more inclined to believe, I bet, than to see a bunch of reviews that say «Fuck racists” on the business page. Unfortunately the latter is not enough right now, but this is 2020 folks.
Of course, there is also a downside to the coin. I also see a future where Yelp’s “anti-racist” tools will be used by angry people to harass companies that support movements they don’t like, such as Black Lives Matter.
And this is where we get into a bit of confusion: Yelp remains the only arbiter in how to solve these problems on its service, and I – and many others – are not always convinced that it is doing its job in the best way.
However, don’t be discouraged. Yelp moderators are hardly perfect, but that shouldn’t stop you from critical behavior when you encounter it, or see it in another Yelp review. And when there is clear evidence that businesses have done their best to humiliate others because of their ethnicity, jump in there. Get Yelp to figure it out, otherwise it will never notice.