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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.
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.
Or you can bribe a judge to award the case in your favor. I think Yelp is cheaper though.
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.
That's what Boris, our PR-man, is responsible for.
He's waiting outside for you to discuss it.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Nearly every business will get negative reviews. If people are abusing Yelp to try to bully businesses in large numbers, it just means the quality of Yelp as a resource diminishes, and people will stop using it.
I know some business owners have thin skins and cannot take criticism well, and oddly enough when a business owners feel the need to defend themselves too much from a bad review. The criticism is probably justified. Because their EGO is too much to see the problems in front of their face.
But nearly every place will get a bad review. Because everyone has different taste. The food is too spicy, or the food is too bland. could be from food that taste the same from two different reviewers. Also every employee will have an off day, so their service isn't up to what it normally is. And often the reviewer may have different expectations in service. I am not going to a restaurant called the "Pig Pit" and expect 5 star dining experience, but I will want some darn good BBQ Ribs, and access to paper towels to clean myself.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
> 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.
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.
People are far more likely to run to the computer and give a bad review than a good one. And this is independent of deliberate fraud.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.