Yelp has announced it will flag restaurants and other businesses on its platform if there is evidence of “overtly racist actions” involving the companies.
The customer review platform said the move is in response to heightened awareness this summer regarding racial tensions in America.
“At Yelp, we value diversity, inclusion and belonging, both internally and on our platform, which means we have a zero tolerance policy to racism. We know these values are important to our users and now more than ever, consumers are increasingly conscious of the types of businesses they patronize and support,” Noorie Malik, Yelp’s vice president of user operations, wrote in a blog post. “As the nation reckons with issues of systemic racism, we’ve seen in the last few months that there is a clear need to warn consumers about businesses associated with egregious, racially charged actions to help people make more informed spending decisions.”
An icon will appear on Yelp pages of businesses accused of racism plus a news article for customers to learn more about alleged incidents of discrimination.
A Yelp spokesperson told NPR, “Incidents that warrant this escalated alert are extremely rare."
The company said it will investigate to determine if negative reviews about a company are based on personal experiences with a business versus what reviewers may have seen in the news or on social media. Yelp, which only allows firsthand reviews, said the company has seen a 133% increase in the number of “media-fueled incidences” on the platform so far this year, compared to the same time last year.
Many people called for companies to take a stand this year in the wake of the publicized killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and Rayshard Brooks by police.
Target and Home Depot are among the many companies that have donated millions of dollars to civil rights and social justice organizations. Nike, Twitter, Quicken Loans and J.C. Penney were among those that announced they would make Juneteenth a paid company holiday. And parent companies of brands like Uncle Ben’s rice, Aunt Jemima’s and Eskimo Pies said they would change product names and logos.