Blackmail attempt left a Houston restaurant bombarded with 1-star reviews
houstonchronicle.com
houstonchronicle.com
It doesn't show on the Google reviews for me. He sees it, I don't. Another friend left a 1-star review as well, and that one does show (and he also doesn't see the "hidden" 1-star review).
I don't know what's going on here, but it was a genuine reasonably written review detailing the problems we had. He never received any notification it was removed: just got kind of "shadow banned" or something.
A couple months later I was notified that "x users found this review helpful". So someone must have seen it despite me never reviewing anything else.
The higher tiers are more public, like for the 'local guides' for instance: https://maps.google.com/localguides/
On a related note, I’ve been getting overwhelmed with “How’d we do?” after the fact online surveys lately - doctor visits, rental car, retail shopping - and I can’t help but wonder if along with actually trying to improve their services, these surveys act to manage the narrative. That if I can complain to them, I won’t complain to Google, yelp or TripAdvisor.
Absolutely, that's precisely what they are for.
One of the best is a person who wrote: "Shitty service, never been there" and it their only review.
I hear ads for them on the radio all the time.
Broadcast radio, so I know the ads aren't targeted at me.
The reason I suspect it's something automatic (at least in my case), and not something targeted by the business I was reviewing, is that I removed half of the review and it did start showing after around 10 minutes of waiting. I edited the removed half back in and it vanished again. I was eventually able to narrow it down to a couple of paragraphs. One of them contained swearing ("fucking" and "assholes", which the management of the business were), which I guess makes sense. The other was very innocuous so I have no idea why Google disliked it. Anyway, by that time I'd gotten bored of having to wait ~10 mins after every step of this bizarro dystopian binary search so I left it at that.
At this point it's received a handful of likes, and I received an email notification that a hundred people have seen it (and that I should register as a "local reviewer", yeah right). So I guess it's going to stay up for good now and don't need to check it daily out of paranoia any more.
And yes, this was the first and only review I've ever written on Google, in case that's part of the equation.
My biggest takeaways from this were that a) holy shit Google employees are a bunch of assholes and can go fuck themselves for writing code that shadow-filters a review instead of giving any indication that it violates their puritanical Christian policies, and b) Google is apparently not smart enough to fool me when I searched for the review from an incognito tab in a different browser but the same client IP, which almost seems like a mistake. Like, if you're going to make the effort to shadow-ban people, why not be thorough about it?
You think I can't write a review without profanity? Of course I can. I can be extremely polite while pointing out the issues I had with the business. That's exactly what I did when I realized this was happening. I just didn't know I was going to be held to that standard when I posted the review, and the system lied to me that what I wrote was acceptable so I had no reason to believe otherwise.
If you were relying on not reading reviews like mine because my use of profanity implied I was a jerk, well I'm sorry but your heuristic isn't going to work any more because I know now. It wasn't even hard for me to figure out, so I'm sure most of the jerks have figured it out too. So sorry if you were relying on that, but you probably can't any more.
The heuristic reasoning being: a review is of low value if it's written by someone who's default attitude is vulgar, regardless if that person is willing to correct self when requested.
The discriminator being: If a review has profanity initially, don't display it even if the review is improved. Also don't display other reviews by that person.
Not something I agree with, but it seems that's what user esperent meant.
> If you were relying on not reading reviews like mine because my use of profanity implied I was a jerk, well I'm sorry but your heuristic isn't going to work any more because I know now. It wasn't even hard for me to figure out, so I'm sure most of the jerks have figured it out too. So sorry if you were relying on that, but you probably can't any more.
And that's the idea behind shadow banning - the banned person is supposed to never become aware of the ban.
Of course, delaying the complaint and doing full shadow banning are still different things, and the former would suffice, but they chose the easy way out I guess, because their main objective is to keep the bad guys out.
There is. The difference is that in the first case, the ranter will tweak their language and continue ranting about the fvcking a55h0les, while in the second case, they will go away quietly. The second outcome is _clearly_ the best for all concerned.
Beware of Google employees' agenda on language [1]. Something like "the restaurant service was insanely fast" can trigger a shadow banning.
[1] https://developers.google.com/style/inclusive-documentation
>Their "Courtesy Patrol" service is useless. I tried this service every night for a week but it made no difference; the noise still continued on that night and the following nights. Also, the people at the service told me that it takes them an hour to send someone over after you call them. So if you ever have a reason to call this service, you better be prepared that your problem won't get solved for at least an hour after you call.
Google has a style guide for documentation that suggests that people do not include certain kinds of words. This does not imply that users posting content with these words will trigger policy violations.
Maybe the corporate culture embeds it, or the behavior is used as a performance indicator.
Honestly I can’t believe I’m defending Google, but it’s possible that they’ve determined certain language makes the review less useful. Evidence of that might be the other portion of the review which seemed to trigger the shadow ban without any profanity.
Keep your prejudices to yourself.
* obtain opt-in consent from the person or business being reviewed
* they must have a dispute resolution process
* they must have a call-center with real live people to field complaints
The silicon valley business model of "absolutely 0 support offered" needs to die.
On a side note, Google, Yelp or FB aren't small dogs going against the incumbent. They are the incumbent, and that's the sole reason they can get these things going with so little effort.
For a company like Yelp!, it may be simply easier to delete than to defend.
More importantly, you can provide a valuable service by helping people avoid bad/unethical realtors.
When I worked in at a hometown pizza place (how stereotypical, right?) we were told again, and again, and again by the again, stereotypically 'Old Italian Man Owner' how important 'word of mouth' was to keeping his business alive after he inherited it from his own father. That was around...2015(ish) and...well, communities are aware of the local good spots to go and visitors are left to seek out online reviews when that word of mouth doesn't reach them to make their decisions. Yeah, trolling can happen but you can also get a good opinion of the place if there are negative reviews. I'll follow with another anecdote.
Earlier that same year(2014-ish) I worked at another pizza place that was newer to the (small-ish but not really) city in a prime downtown location; throughout the 3 high schools a lot of the kids found that the owner was a piece of shit - I'll skim past the health code violations and focus on the prime thing he didn't pay his employees and as high school kids, we didn't really know how to be made whole so our option was to bombard the Facebook page, Google and whatever medium that was available to spread the word of the unfair practices of this owner to the town.
So its a double edged sword. I can't imagine the shithole would have chosen to opt-in when the reviews were used to highlight the problems.
Basically all the negative reviews were either that or your typical "I kept canceling at the last minute and they said they wouldn't make any more appointments with me"
Why would you shop at a place who doesn't have reviews? That'd be suspicious. Much like a credit report, retailers won't extend credit to you if you don't have a credit history.
Do you feel the same for public figures who don't want to be covered by the media? If not, why?
I do think there are a number of issues with online reviews, but in the absence of other data (which might sometimes be available but might also be hidden by the businesses/institutions themselves), online reviews frequently turn out to be much better than nothing. This can be particularly true for infrequent but meaningful transactions (e.g. large financial cost or affecting one's health).
Disclosure: I run a website that hosts reviews.
They already do that. They generally have a PR dept., or work with PR consultants. They pick and choose who they want to be their heralds. Apple is notorious for ghosting publications that don't kiss their butts.
Go to any Web site for a public figure, band, movie, game, corporation, what-have-you, and you'll inevitably see a top-level link, labeled "Press," or "Media."
This is their controlled and vetted material that is designed specifically to be distributed far and wide, and the PR people will use that as the fodder they send out.
Reviews (real ones) are wonderful. There was a brief window of time, when they were trustworthy. Amazon reviews actually gave you accurate information, and my wife used Angie's List to find some outstanding contractors, for work on our house.
Now, the whole industry is in the shitter. I'm so sorry that you have to deal with this.
I can't seem to find real reviews for anything, these days. Even trusted review sites have been corrupted.
The corruption ranges from badley-speld mass junk "fillers," to focused, vile, anti-competitive attacks, or petty, personal attacks, like trolling (I had one jerk from this site that got upset at me, leave a 1-star, insulting, weird review on one of my iOS apps. It was so bad, that I think it got nuked by Apple. I think I'm the only one that can see it), to brought-and-paid-for, completely legal, reviews on well-known publications.
I like to use an example of noise-canceling headphones. The names will be redacted to protect the guilty, and keep them off my ass.
There's one brand that has absolutely miraculous active noise cancelling. Switching on ANC makes me feel as if I've gone deaf. The sound quality is also excellent. I'm not an audiophile, but audiophiles won't use any ANC headphones.
There's nothing else out there, that I have found comes close. I own a bunch of ANC headphones, and can attest to this.
Yet, they seldom come up as a top choice, in many reviews. Instead, another corporation, that has good headphones, but a much less effective ANC, keeps topping certain review sites. If I switch on that brand's ANC, I still hear plenty of background noise, and I don't think the sound quality is as good. I actually fell for one of those "These are the best" reviews on a site that I [used to] trust.
Sadly, I think that we are forced to go back to what we had before there were reviews on product pages, or on sites.
Caveat Emptor.
Do you think Apple/Sony/Bose (or whoever it is) will send agents after you if you criticize them openly?
In the above post, I basically hint that a well-known brand, astroturfs reviews. I know that happens, because I've seen it in action, "behind the scenes." I'd rather leave things vague.
I try to keep my postings fairly positive and civil. Lots of others are much more able to do the criticism.
There's a big difference between denying access and prohibiting coverage. A news outlet can still publish an unflattering expose of a company, even if the outlet will no longer get invited to the company's press events. exabrial seems to suggest that no one can write anything negative about a business or person unless that entity opts in, which is closer to prohibiting coverage.
Can you please share the positive brand?
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
Can you tell us how something like suggested regulation would lead to corporate takeover or is the only basis of your opinion "regulation bad"?
If I give you less than optimal service, I'm not going to volunteer my consent or a review token or however this works. If I give you it at the start of our interaction, you can hold me hostage as so many try to.
I recognise the problem but a receipt or proof of payment should be enough. And that's already more than what's currently required.
Who's paying for all the other stuff? If you're funding this service conglomerate why not just have paid reviewers?
I imagine the trick is going to be getting it to tie in with the PoS (Point of Sale) systems I think, so that it is seemless for the business owner/manager.
Google Surveys do a "scan in your receipt" thing to solicit place reviews.
Verifying customers only verifies that one thing. It doesn't stop fake reviews of "real" customers (happens a ton on Amazon), or influenced reviews "Leave us 5 stars and we'll give you a gift voucher", or all the other crap that spoils real reviews.
I occasionally wonder if state-funded reviewing might be a useful additional data point. "This does what it claims, appears well built". Obviously applying that to every product sold might be a stretch, but expensive essentials (eg white goods) would be a good opening target.
> This does what it claims, appears well built
It's out-of-loop, some time after the incident, ideally anonymous (so no other kickbacks). They might be able to do the same for products.
Go read the post you responded to... nobody was talking about a patron getting a permission from an establishment to review it. It was about a review service getting a permission from an establishment to host reviews of them and some other requirements. Nothing about patron - establishment relationship.
I don't know about the US, but in the UK food safety ratings are displayed on or next to each establishment's front door (might be a legal requirement, I am not sure). They're also available online at https://ratings.food.gov.uk/
One Chinese takeaway near us hides their FSA score card on a little window high above the door; they had a 2 (out of 5, 1 being 'we're going to shut you down') last time I looked. They get loads of [I believe entirely genuine] recommendations on Facebook posts and they're always busy. I'd rate their food as mediocre.
Well, in practice even the proposal with the review tokens wouldn't work for years. How would a small business get them integrated into their cash register? More complicated than putting a sticker "Rate us on trip advisor" to the front door.
I thought all it would have taken was for someone to sue Yelp or whoever to prove that the 1 star review was accurate. Something that they wouldn't be able to prove.
I will pop by and rob you later, I assume you have no windows, doors or locks and wont call the police after I clean you out because it would be futile.
I agree that the scammers are scum. But you will solve nothing without changing the economic situation. I do not apologize them, in case you wonder. I am just being realistic that blaming individuals in a system with millions of people will solve nothing.
Some said in another reply it was common to say in the USSR if we paid the police more they'd stop being corrupt. To which the response was, if that's so then how come the politicians, being paid ever more, are still corrupt.
Doing bad has nothing to with being poor and everything to do with culture. A culture of entitlement, a culture of selfishness, a culture of lack of responsibility. To see what I mean, go to Japan, notice the poor don't steal. Why? Because it's not part of their culture. (PS: I'm not saying there is no crime in Japan nor am I saying there is no theft. I am saying that the poor general don't steal there, at least no compared to whatever places you're making excuses for).
Japan has a history with the untouchable. Again, access to jobs, access to economic opportunities, created the Yakuza.
Recommended to watch if you want to say that the system does not create criminals but it's a personal choice: https://youtu.be/SIsndKkasfI
I won't hold it against people to get back what the west stole. At least there's no beatings or killings in the retribution
On the flip side, not all Indians are bad. I've got multiple chances to work with some of them in the past and they are just a refreshing change to work with.
>Captives are subjected to violence and torture, which is sometimes filmed and sent to relatives to spur them to send ransoms. Some have been killed and their deaths reported as suicide, according to workers who have escaped.
https://maxread.substack.com/p/whats-the-deal-with-all-those...
...yeah, hard to believe this message was written organically. Use a few soundbites like these, get some articles published mentioning a counter-movement to leave 5-star reviews. Smart business.
Plus, $75 in some sense is more shocking than $2,000 – you can perhaps visualize paying $75 to get rid of some negative reviews, and that combined with the lurid "this is three weeks income for poor people" catches your imagination.
I am on board with the parent comment, this sounds like a publicity stunt.
"no other choice"
"the fact is"
"no other way to survive"
"we are begging you"
Here's the full text of the spammer's email:
> Hello. Unfortunately, negative feedback about your establishment has been left by us. And will appear in the future, one review a day. We sincerely apologize for our actions, and would not want to harm your business, but we have no other choice. The fact is that we live in India and see no other way to survive. We are begging you to send us google play gift card worth $75 You can buy the card directly from PayPal paypal.com/us/gifts/brands/google-play Or in any store selling gift cards We hope that this amount will not be critical for you. After selling this gift card we can earn approximately $50, which is three weeks of income for one family Please send the code to the email address vict2665@proton.me and we will immediately stop leaving negative feedback and remove the existing ones.
Once again, we apologize.
I only recently learned that the “information” does not necessarily have to be true, i.e., it’s still considered to be blackmail in cases like this where the perpetrator simply makes up bad reviews.
Obviously it doesn't make the scamming acceptable, but the "tragedy lottery" aspect fascinates me.
I would rather call it "there is no such thing bad publicity".
The question is; did it take the article for someone at Google to fix it, or did their algorithm finally kick in?
At some point, only the spoofers will pass all the anti-spam gates, or you'll end up letting many of their reviews past in order to avoid blocking real users. At that point, it's starting to look like the wikipedia "be sure to read the chat page for this article if you actually care about this topic" problem.
Might be more difficult for other platforms not maintaing full movement profiles of their users.
Part of our global community. Inevitably, reviews will end up being worthless
I do think the way we read reviews can be unproductive. Say there is a cockroach in your soup. An independent investigator wont necessarily discover how it got there. Would you still want to eat there? What if I hire 3 people to put a cockroach in their own soup 3? Wouldn't that produce a strong signal to avoid my competitor?
Does the internet have a 1 star review problem?
Why not stipulate that you need to have been in that, say county, to make a review?
Yes I'm aware of GPS spoofing. It raises the bar for doing extortion attacks like that. Amrit the Dalit scammer who lives in Delhi has NO business in anything in Effingham IL... Unless they've been there.
It would make this sort of stuff harder to do. Not impossible.
I've posted several reviews in my home town, Google knows it's my home town from their maps data, that's a strong trust signal that Google could find a way to use to provide improved reviews. Google can probably tell if reviewers logged on to the restaurants wi-fi, that's a strong trust signal too -- Google could expose a trust status and still hide that they're essentially tracking our every move.
Again, they could be faked, with things like GPS spoofing, and using Wigle to determine local wifi there to fake that. But again, each step there significantly raises the bar of fraudulent activity.
As noted in the article.
() Breitbart is just one example. An ugly one, though.
Yes, there's value in aggregation, which is why tech news sites mostly just use Reddit to harvest stories from a week or so after they appear. IMO that's very low value.
If the "news" sites wanted to encourage reward for sources they could start by attributing every story and indicating who they paid and the originator of the factual data. Truly though most of them would seemingly rather we paid them whilst they just regurgitate a social news site.
From the FAQ <https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html>:
> Are paywalls ok?
> It's ok to post stories from sites with paywalls that have workarounds.
> In comments, it's ok to ask how to read an article and to help other users do so. But please don't post complaints about paywalls.
Actually the end stage of communism they were supposed to abandon money. With capitalist greed abandoned, people would just take what they need and nothing more. Looks like lot of the internet works like that now. Except that we are not good socialist factory or farm workers but we have done our share by providing our privacy to the maintainers of "free" internet services.
Edit: Actually I feared the link would not open for me with an EU IP because of GDPR blocker. That's not uncommon for US newspapers. However, it just brought up a huge cookie dialogue and showed the article just fine on agreeing.