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Supreme Court Won't Hear a Lawsuit Over Defamatory Yelp Reviews (theverge.com)
The U.S. Supreme Court has declined to hear a case regarding whether Yelp is culpable for removing defamatory reviews from its site, resolving a case that could have affected web platforms' legal protections. Today's list of Supreme Court orders denies a complaint brought by Dawn Hassell, an attorney who requested that Yelp take down false, negative reviews about her practice. This means that a California Supreme Court decision will stand, and Yelp isn't liable for the reviews. The Verge reports: Hassell v. Bird was filed in 2016 as a complaint against one of Hassell's former clients, not Yelp. However, Yelp protested a court order to remove the reviews, arguing that it was protected by Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. (Yelp has said it independently removes reviews it finds to be defamatory since they violate its terms of service.) Lower courts disagreed, but in mid-2018, the California Supreme Court ruled in Yelp's favor. Then, the firm of Charles Harder -- a member of President Donald Trump's legal team who's known for high-profile defamation lawsuits -- petitioned the Supreme Court to hear a complaint against Yelp.
Yelp praised the California Supreme Court's decision last year, calling it a win for "those of us who value sharing one another's opinions and experiences" on the internet. It commended today's decision as well. "We are happy to see the Supreme Court has ended Hassell's efforts to sidestep the law to compel Yelp to remove online reviews. This takes away a tool that could have been easily abused by litigants to obtain easy removal of entirely truthful consumer opinions," a spokesperson told The Verge.
Yelp praised the California Supreme Court's decision last year, calling it a win for "those of us who value sharing one another's opinions and experiences" on the internet. It commended today's decision as well. "We are happy to see the Supreme Court has ended Hassell's efforts to sidestep the law to compel Yelp to remove online reviews. This takes away a tool that could have been easily abused by litigants to obtain easy removal of entirely truthful consumer opinions," a spokesperson told The Verge.
...that even the Supreme Court hates lawyers.
"I want this meal for free or I'll give a bad Yelp review"
Aka marketing, PR, the vast majority of all reviews online, and other forms of legalized fraud.
When will the first marketing company go to prison? In its entirety.
After sleeping with your girlfriend, I must give her too mixed reviews.
Or you can bribe a judge to award the case in your favor. I think Yelp is cheaper though.
Thought the issue was Yelp trying to extort money from companies in exchange for them removing negative reviews? Or is that something else entirely because on the surface this makes sense to be thrown out. Until a site pulls something like extortion, they should not be held liable for the opinions of users. Companies have legal remedies available to remove the content... through legal process.
^Alternate headline. Somebody was paid off.
If a regular poor person tried this, they would be guilty af in the blink of an eye.
Because Yelp, Tripadvisor,Expedia (all those extortion rackets) ARE suddenly responsible for those negative reviews if you pay them money they can make them disappear.
Extortion is extortion. Some people are allowed to do it, others are not. What the law is depends on who you are.
Ha! The jokes on YOU! He doesn't have a girlfriend!
I, Anonymous Coward, hereby nominate Donald J. Trump for tightest asshole in Cell Block C!!
So long as Yelp must remove reviews that were ruled to be defamatory. If they don't, then S230 needs to be reformed because no platform should have a right to keep defamatory reviews up after they've been ruled as such in court.
> the quality of Yelp as a resource diminishes, and people will stop using it.
Which reviews Yelp chooses to show is based on whether or not the business pays Yelp, so it's already complete bull. Yet people still use it. Presumably they are unaware that it is strictly an advertising platform.
If you want to see for yourself, post a review of business that doesn't exist, one you completely made up. Include the phone number of the "business" (your phone number). Enjoy talking to the Yelp thugs^H^H^H^H salespeople when they call you.
You've got it backward. The plaintiff won the defamation case; it's been proven that the review was false. That part of the case was done and over with, they went to court and proved it is false and defamatory, libel.
Yelp's position is "yeah it's it's libel, so what? We don't have to remove it unless she pays us for advertising."
The law they are relying on is designed to protect Yelp (and Slashdot) for being sued for damages over the content of what people post - you can't sue Slashdot if I give bad security or legal advice here. The legal term is "liability", Slashdot isn't liable for any damages you have from my bad advice. Yelp argues that because they can't be sued for money damages, a court can't order them to remove the libelous post. Or more accurately, the court can order them to, but they can ignore the court and the court can't do anything about it.
I would say they *can* be penalized for contempt of court, they say such a penalty would be holding them liable for the content of the review. They can't judge the truth of each review, they say Not so, I say - they don't have to even read the review. They can just follow the court order and remove any review that the court orders them to remove. From their position, it doesn't matter what the review says. The court already ruled that the review is false and defamatory, nobody is asking Yelp to make that determination. Plaintiff is asking Yelp to do what the court has ordered them to do and remove it.
This is probably a key question the court really should
1) take up
2) issue an expansive ruling on
We really need to nail down just exactly when you are a publish responsible for the content editorial or otherwise in your publication and when you are a platform
The present body of the law is IMHO a bit ambiguous. We have a number of giant concerns that grew up by being platforms but increasingly adopt behaviors that are more and more publication like while still claiming their protection as platforms. They then hide behind algorithms that at one point might have been neutral but now are clearly tinkered with actively to obtain outcomes more palatable to their leadership; for good or ill.
YELP here is a good example their model is basically pay us and we make sure more favorable reviews about you business get more eyeballs. Oh sure you can use the legal system to get out right defamatory content removed but in lots of cases just policing the various platforms for that is a chore; and the safe harbors these sites enjoy are simply to expansive in that even if you can get courts to make them stop defaming you, there is little ability to recoup any damages.
The near total lack of accountability of these entities is largely responsible for the absolutely corrosive political and social atmosphere that is rapidly taking over. There needs to be limits put in place on what these guys can do in terms of choosing what content to promote, how often they can disseminate it, and to what degree they pass on the civil responsibility for it thru to authors. I understand the Courts reluctance to rule on these cases using existing laws. Judgements shoehorning YELP, facebook, Twitter, Google, et al onto law body developed for news papers, television/radio broadcasters, telephone operators and the like is far from ideal. The trouble is the legislative organs of our government wont do a damn thing about this because they think the mobs mentality these guys create is useful to them getting reelected; and that goes for both sides of the isle.
The big fish get to issue some token apology and are offered a do-over when they are on the wrong end of things, or they can parlay the situation into one of - there is no such thing as bad publicity. That works if you are Donald Trump, Kevin Hart, or Elizabeth Warren, it does not work so well if you are Joe/Jane Sixpack
Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
Just give it a 5 star review with a comment like, "I LOVE this place! The owners are HUGE supporters of our president. MAGA!"
I can see what Yelp is against this, but I would think that they may want to be open to working with people in cases like these, because I as a potential consumer can't have as much confidence in the services that Yelp provides if I know that they may have reviews that even a court found to be outright libelous.
I think Yelp is kind of worthless as a service for this reason in a more general sense. It's always going to be subject to spam and fake reviews from people wanting to game the system or with an axe to grind. I've found that the best way to find a good place to eat if you're in an unfamiliar place is to just ask a local.
It's too easy to game the system using positive reviews. It's possible to game it using negative reviews (of your competitors' products), but it's harder to do. And if the reasons listed in the paid negative review are legitimate (e.g. restaurant's seating area is limited and crowded), then it's still useful information.
In Yelp's case, the negative reviews also make it relatively easy to tell when a company has paid Yelp to scrub its reviews. Yelp doesn't seem to be very discriminating and seems to just remove all the negative reviews. Everything picks up negative reviews no matter how good it is. So if a company's Yelp reviews seem strangely devoid of negative reviews, I know they've paid to have their Yelp profile scrubbed. And I can just disregard their Yelp rating and rely on other review sites.
Amazon seems to have picked up on this practice though. They've made it increasingly difficult to see only the negative reviews. You used to be able to do it by clicking on the "see all critical reviews" link on the product's main page at the top of the reviews. It was in the middle of the page, but easy to get to by clicking "customer reviews" at the very top. So page load, two clicks, and you got just the negative reviews.
Then they changed it so you first had to click "see all reviews" before you could filter to see only the negative reviews, but it was still located in the same spot you got to by clicking "customer reviews" at the top of the page. So it just added an extra click and page load.
About a month ago they changed it and moved the "see all reviews" link to the bottom of the reviews instead of at the top. So now you have to click "customer reviews", scroll to the bottom (or hit ctrl-end to go to the bottom of the page and scroll up), click "see all reviews", then click on "see all critical reviews" in order to get just the negative reviews. I'm starting to think it may actually be easier to just write an extension which does all this hoop-jumping for me.
Any review system that involves money changing hands between the platform and the place being reviewed can't be trusted.
> I as a potential consumer can't have as much confidence in the services that Yelp provides if I know that they may have reviews that even a court found to be outright libelous.
The reviews that Yelp chooses to show are strongly influenced by whether the business pays Yelp for "advertising" (extortion). You should have no more confidence in Yelp than you have in any other advertisement.
The Supreme Court of The United States has four and a half stars on 134 reviews. Maybe they just don't understand how damaging false negative Yelp reviews can be to your business. Personally I'd have to give them three Stars until they reverse Citizens United. If they take up any Right-to-Life cases that goes to two stars.