In US, Yelp sees sharp increase in racist anti-Asian business reviews
- In 2021, Yelp proactively removed only nine posts that included anti-Asian hate. In 2022, it removed 475
- Yelp began tracking racial hate speech on its platform after Covid-19 was first identified in China
As if running a restaurant during a pandemic wasn’t tough enough, Christopher Wong also had to contend with a racist troll.
“I will not have my dog eat in this place because they might cook him,” read the Yelp review of Wong’s eatery, the Curry Up Cafe in suburban Los Angeles. “The owner works for the Chinese government.”
Yelp removed the review after Wong and several regular customers complained, but not before it had already been seen by an unknown number of potential customers.
“If one person read that and decided not to come in, that’s someone who could have been a satisfied customer for years,” Wong said.
Last year, Yelp, which is based in San Francisco, removed more than 2,000 racist business reviews before they went online – a nearly tenfold jump over the year before.
It’s a sharp increase that reflects improved efforts by Yelp to combat racist content and shows how even a site known for reviews of restaurants and repair services can become ensnared in America’s ongoing battle over online civility.
