[mttyng]

Maybe I overlooked it, but what’s to prevent a person (or group of people) from filing false claims of racist behavior? They noted it had to be a “first hand experience”, but what sort of proof does that entail?

In a perfect world this is a noble endeavor, but we don’t live in a perfect world and this could just as easily be leveraged by trolls and/or competing businesses.

[onedognight]

What’s to stop someone from filing false claims of bad service? Add racism to the list. Rooting out false claims is pretty much Yelp’s main service. Or maybe getting kickbacks to hide real claims of bad service is their main service? It’s an imperfect system, but a person looking to avoid aggressive or even passive racist treatment might like to error on the side of caution. An extra partially noisy bit of data seems worth it.

[Pet_Ant]

Being accused of racism is much more deleterious than of bad service.

[awakeasleep]

I still wonder if there could be any negative externalities or consequences that would counterbalance the benefit of helping those cautious folk.

[marcinzm]

That’s a bonus for Yelp, they then get to charge the business to have it removed.

[strbean]

Hey now, you mean they get to charge the company for "advertising", and then "lose" the complaint.

[SCAQTony]

Perhaps YELP is taking advantage of the fact that it is not a perfect world and subsequently using that flaw as a business model by possibly extorting fees to have such claims removed.

[raxxorrax]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yelp

This company is what I would call "unhelpful" to stay diplomatic. I think this decision is to increase extortion to buy their ad services.

edit: perhaps they just want to forward accusations:

https://www.businessinsider.com/inside-yelp-phoneix-insiders...

[curiousllama]

There has to be a news article about it. If you can get the Chicago Tribune to vet and cover your accusation, Yelp will note it. If not, they won’t.

[AmericanChopper]

> Maybe I overlooked it, but what’s to prevent a person (or group of people) from filing false claims of racist behavior?

What’s to stop a person from making a false claim of racist behavior against any person/public figure/politician/businessperson/colleague... they don’t like? The answer is “nothing at all”, and it happens everyday. If you’re particularly unlucky it will be scandalized publicly and appear as a permanent mark on your social credit score.

Yelp is just incorporating our own social norms into their product. If you don’t like it, it’s not their fault.

[MeinBlutIstBlau]

It's different though when they are the ones putting a "racist" flag because of some random customer defaming you. They have absolutely no way to verify hearsay. They have to stay out of it.