[gautamdivgi]

Isn’t this cause for defamation? Or is it protected under article 230?

Even if it’s not yelp doing it the fact that they are publicly advertising the reviews should make them culpable.

[MarkMarine]

There have been cases on exactly this, and the basic summary of the result is Yelp can do what it wants on it's own platform:

https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=336153126478324...

which ended with: The case was dismissed on appeal on the grounds that the complainants had not adequately proven (1) Yelp had wrongfully threatened economic loss by manipulating user reviews, (2) it was unlawful for Yelp to post and sequence both positive and negative reviews, (3) Yelp authored negative reviews, and (4) Yelp’s conduct amounted to a violation of antitrust laws by threatening or harming competition.

Yelp was also sued for false advertising (essentially saying they were a trusted, unbiased review source) which they somehow also won:

https://blog.ericgoldman.org/archives/2020/03/yelp-finally-d...

anyway, I actively avoid Yelp reviews because of this chicanery.

[TimPC]

It's section 230 not article 230 but yes it's somewhat protected. You could go after the end user for defamation and you could probably use the legal system to force yelp to turn over identifying information from their logs if a judge agreed a comment was defamatory. But you'd have to go after the poster not after Yelp.