Slashdot Mirror
Google Maps No Longer Lets You Post Negative Reviews About Your Crappy Job (gizmodo.com.au)
From a report: Google has updated its Maps policies to ban certain business reviews left by former employees. In a new section of the Google Maps "User Contributed Content Policy," Google now labels reviews "about a current or former employment experience" as a "conflict of interest." Originally, only current employees were barred under the policy. The new rules, quoted below, went into effect on December 14.
Why would you publicly defame current or former employers? Not only is it rude, it's not graceful nor professional in any way to burn bridges on exit.
Hyperbole: I use it liberally!
So, just to check here...
Are you saying you think the unwashed masses are graceful and/or professional?
That they have any consideration for future repercussions to their actions?
That they are capable of even remembering that they did this a week later?
You think that acting sensibly would be more important than the 5 minutes of 'fame' they felt they would get from posting some stupid troll-rant the moment they left a job?
Interesting...
Want to buy a bridge?
So which would be a better solution, come up with a fake on-line ID and use that to comment on an abusive former employer, or just have a friend do it for you?
Decisions, decisions...
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
Then there are the absurd reviews, like a hotel where somebody reports that EVERYBODY was rude to her during the entire 2 week stay and there were human feces piled on the bed all the way up to the ceiling and cockroaches crawling everywhere and the food was all spoiled causing diners to vomit over every table at every meal and on and on. I guess they think they will scare away business with this claptrap. Same thing happens on the positive side.
I was at that hotel once! One odd thing is that that all the staff had red skin and horns. A lot of them had some pretty styling goatees and what looked like hooves. I'm guessing it was run by hipsters or furries?
Another way that google exerts control over the sheep every day and every way.
Perhaps. But a map app really isn't an appropriate forum for bitching from disgruntled ex-employees. Nobody using a map is looking for crap like that.
I honestly don't know whether parent or GP (or both) were being serious or sarcastic.
Slashdot social media options: AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber and Mobile Text. Why no MySpace?
Your post is still there, at the top, for all to see, so shut the fuck up moaning.
Wanna buy a shirt?
https://www.redbubble.com/people/stealthfinger/shop?asc=u
They work best when they enable the outcome that is best for the business in the circumstances. Thus achieving pay rises for employees who would otherwise migrate to other companies is good, ensuring information gets from the shop floor to senior management without being spun by middle managers is good, stopping bullying and harrassment is good, and helping members through short term crises so they don't leave the company for no good reason is good.
Yes, as with any institution they can become captured by people with a far more unhelpful agenda. I write as a former union rep recognised by my employer as such. I helped achieve some of the above, and saw how the wider union achieved most of them. Yet I came from a background that was heavily anti-union as having been victims of the union abuse of power in the UK during the 1970s.
Abusive employers need to be outed in all possible venues, maps are an excellent place to warn interviewees.
So we should believe everything some random pissed off person of unknown mental stability writes on the internet with no context or rebuttal? Good plan. [/sarcasm]
Top tip: Just because some person you do not know anything about claims an employer was mean to them on the internet does not automatically make it true.
Abusive employers are the unprofessional ones. It is a public service to expose them.
No it really isn't. Here's how this plays out. Even if an employer is genuinely terrible your rant about them is NOT going to "expose" them or make any difference at all. What will happen is people who read it are mostly going to think you are an irrational jerk who got fired for cause and is salty about it. (which is probably true) Future prospective employers who read it will conclude "this is a person who may be willing to bash us publicly - we should hire someone else". The company will not be impacted in any meaningful way and you might be hurting yourself in the process. Even if you have a genuine gripe and they are actually the worst company ever it's still an objectively stupid thing to do and will almost certainly accomplish nothing useful. Quite possibly it will even be counterproductive.
If you want to bring attention to a shitty employer there are FAR more effective tactics to use then an emotional and probably irrational rant on google maps.
Power and money grubbing scum are not deserving of your imagined "professionalism", you have Stockholm syndrome.
Pretending that you are saving the world by posting a negative review on google maps about a company that fired you is delusional.
Then why are positive reviews still allowed?
It seems there's a trend in general to get rid of negative reviews: Yelp allowing you remove them, Google banning them, Amazon purging them, etc. Negative reviews hinder profits so they've got to go.
I like the reviews for railroad bridges and other infrastructure. 5/5 would interlock again!
And for government offices - apparently the state tax department makes the best tacos.
Because it's a conflict of interest to allow negative reviews. Business owners represent a greater concentration of capital than employees and therefore are the most likely to be customers, from the perspective of a business offering online services?
Requiem for the American Dream
The fact that you can't tell that this is satire shows how much of a filter-bubble you live in.
No, Poe's law actually works both ways.
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
OK, first: Censorship is action by the government or other ruling body (e.g. church) that limits or prevents your ability to express yourself. It's not you being butthurt because people disagree with you. You can't just re-define a word to mean whatever supports your argument and then claim that you won the argument. ...Actually, you can. It's a form of free expression. But people like me are going to roll their eyes, point and laugh when you do it.
Second, your comment is there for all to see. It has merely been modded down. It was modded down by people who used their mod points to express their opinions of your post. So you want to freely express yourself but don't want the same for others, apparently. It has nothing to do with the government (or church or other ruling body), it doesn't even have to do with the platform (slashdot, in case you've forgotten), because it was done by other people like you. (Not exactly like you, because they're not suffering rectal/cranial inversion, but other people with the freedom to express their opinions. By modding you down.) So you can't even validly claim that your form of expression has been removed or constrained. (You CAN claim it, ofc., and probably will. See above about forms of free expression regardless of validity. I roll my eyes. I point. I laugh. Hah hah hah!) Your message is still there, and everybody can read it.
Third, the post was off-topic. It's pretty much a convention that off-topic posts get deleted, modded down, disparaged, or whatever a particular platform's mechanism allows. One of a moderator's jobs is to keep a conversation on-topic. So they're not only freely expressing themselves, they're actually properly doing their jobs. The fact that it was merely downrated and not removed is a testament to slashdot's dedication to freedom of expression.
As for using censorship to punish: well, that's not what moderation is. I won't say that there aren't people who will punish others for having opinions they disagree with by modding them down, but moderation is a valid process and regardless of their reasons, modding you down was the correct application of the process in this case.
As for my opinion: I may get modded down for this. If so, I'll accept it with grudging grace, but I won't start shouting about censorship. IHMO you're either a troll or just so self-centered you can't see past the end of your own nose. Hanlon's Razor insists that I pretend you're not a troll, but I think that's more likely.
'Bye troll!
Cleverly disguised as a responsible adult.