Anti-vaxxers are weaponizing Yelp to punish bars that require vaccine proof | Hacker News Reader

Anti-vaxxers are weaponizing Yelp to punish bars that require vaccine proof

technologyreview.com

19 pointsthreatofrain21 comments

They're not weaponizing Yelp, they're using Yelp as it was intended to be used.

Why should a bar be upset about this?

Anti-vaxxers as a group tend to be stupid, entitled shitheads.

Dumping a bunch of entitled shitheads onto my competitor seems like an awesome plan.

We had a waitress crying today because she was so happy to see us again instead of the idiots she's been seeing the last two months.

Most of the people that will now be going to the competitor aren't the anti-vaxxers themselves, but just people who use Yelp and pick ones from the first page, or by just scanning over the ratings. Call them lazy, sure, but there is nothing about them that would make them bad customers.

Google marks business on race and sex so I feel like reviews have officially become political.

I guess Google isn't lying (Not sure how they measure your blackness) and these reviewers perhaps are, so that's a difference. I guess if you are honest and say it's one star for their policy then it's a fair review under the new rules.

WHO is still against discrimination based on Covid vaccine passports I believe.

I’m vaccinated and I would not like a bar that “requires” vaccine proof. I’m not sharing my medical file with a bar and the little card that I got with my vaccination is not meaningful proof.

There’s no public Heath guidance to check for vaccination, so this is just bars trying to be overzealous.

"the little card that I got with my vaccination is not meaningful proof."

It's more meaningful than using the honor system.

And it's not your "medical file" a lot more than your driver's license is. It tells one significant detail about your medical history, and that is it.

I prefer bars where I know I am safe, and one where there are people like yourself who claim to be vaccinated but resist showing proof, don't make me feel safe.

I think vaccination status barely rises to the status of 'medical file'.

If you have hemorrhoids that's no ones business. If you're going around spreading covid that is other peoples business. And they have a total right to protect themselves from you.

> It's more meaningful than using the honor system.

It is the honor system. Anyone who wants a blank CDC vaccination card doesn't have to look far to find one. Requiring them as proof for anything is just a bureaucratic checkbox.

And so is a drivers license, since you can get fake id's.

That doesn't make it the honor system, except to people who are unable to see shades of gray.

It's ironic you would accuse someone of being unable to see "shades of gray" and then compare the security features of a piece of slightly rigid paper with the CDC logo on it to a state driver's license with holograms, an identity verification process, and multiple fraud detection features.

You are safe if you are vaccinated. It doesn’t depend on what other people do.

Not everyone can be vaccinated, for instance my 7 year old.

If your 7 year old gets anywhere near seriously ill you’ll be in the news, but I suggest you don’t take your 7 year old to a bar anyway.

Non-US perspective:

In my country, by law, you need to show a certificate to sit inside restaurants and bars. The government built a system that generates a QR code for patrons which can be scanned by merchants - with a government app - to verify it. The QR code has the data encrypted so no personal data is shared with the restaurant. I'm not sure if it sends anything back to the government (I guess not because of GDPR).

It's worth mentioning the certificate isn't just for vaccination. You can also get it after recovering from Covid (valid for 6 months after positive test) or had a recent negative test (valid for 3 days). Going the vaccination route is the simplest option though, so in a way it is forcing people to get vaccinated if they want to resume normal life.

Then call your public officials and demand they support a legitimate vaccine passport system.

previously: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27483718

I think you mean to say, Yelp users are sharing information, and patrons are choosing to go to different establishments that cater better to their desires. That was the idea of Yelp, was it not? Not seeing the problem.

The article mentions the bad reviews come from people that aren't even from the city where the bar is located, a lot of them are even from Europe, so not even from the same country.

The idea of Yelp is that people who actually have actually been customers rate the business. Hopefully you can understand how this sort of thing is not in the spirit of sincere, useful and fair reviews.

Yeah, I too fail to see the problem. I'm fully vaxxed and am not at all opposed to vaccines. In fact, I believe in vaccines so much, I don't care if anyone else is vaxxed or not - because my vaccine works.

On the other hand, I am opposed to nosy ass businesses and would definitely appreciate knowing which establishments are gonna waste my time with that crap so I can avoid them.

Your vaccine works now. Why do you believe it will work for the rest of your life?

While it works against the main COVID-19 variants, it might not work against some evolutionary accessible variant.

New variants require a non-immune host population for natural evolution to occur.

The more people with COVID-19, the more likely there will be some mutation that affects vaccinated people.

This is why the flu shot doesn't carry life-time immunity against influenza.

Therefore, even if I'm only using egotistical reasoning, my understanding of how vaccines work make me care that others also get vaccinated - it reduces my future chance of health problems.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com