Yelp has announced it will start labeling businesses that engage in overtly racist behavior.
At a time when racial equality and social justice are front-and-center, many businesses are looking for ways to be a positive force for change. This has included donating to charities, improving company diversity and putting a moratorium on the sale of technologies that can be abused.
Yelp is implementing a solution that it hopes will help customers make informed choices about where they choose to dine and what businesses they choose to support. The company says it will rely on news articles to determine if a company warrants its new Business Accused of Racist Behavior Alert.
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 businesses accused of overtly racist actions, where we can link to a news article, we will escalate our warning with the Business Accused of Racist Behavior Alert.
Only time will tell if Yelp’s latest initiative meets with success.