Yelp unveiled in a blog post this week a new consumer alert to warn users about restaurants, bars, and other businesses that may be associated with racist behaviors. The Business Accused of Racist Behavior Alert can be applied when a business gets attention for reports of racist language symbols, and other conduct.
From Yelp’s blog post:
“The new Business Accused of Racist Behavior Alert is an extension of our Public Attention Alert that we introduced in response to a rise in social activism surrounding the Black Lives Matter movement. If someone associated with a business is accused of, or the target of, racist behavior, we will place a Public Attention Alert on the business page to warn consumers that the business may be receiving an influx of reviews as a result of increased attention.”
For business accused of “overtly racist actions,” where the incident can be linked to a news article, Yelp said it would escalate its warning to the Business Accused of Racist Behavior Alert.
The company noted that reviews mentioning Black-owned businesses were up 617 percent this summer compared to last. However, “while searches for Black-owned businesses surged on Yelp, so did the volume of reviews warning users of racist behavior at businesses.”
The new alert comes in the wake of the killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and many other Black people, and at a time when protests against racism have ramped up and advocates are calling for change around racism and police brutality. Yelp said the Business Accused of Racist Behavior Alert is in response to “a rise in social activism” around the Black Lives Matter movement.
