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Comment by Saline9515

5 days ago

Multiple people report that comments such as "Service was slow", or three star rating without comment were removed.

If Google started to show how many reviews were removed, it was because the lawfare started to seriously affect the ratings.

28 comments

Saline9515

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luke5441  5 days ago

Yes, Google just removes them as a first step because this is the least amount of work for them. Theoretically there is an Google appeals process. After that it needs to go to court.

My guess is that often reviews are generalizing (easy mistake to make). E.g. they say "service is slow", when they should say: "When I was there on Thursday at noon service was slow for my table".

  • abustamam  5 days ago

    When reading a review, it should always be assumed that it is based off of one "visit". A negative review will probably never have more than a few visits and if they do they'd normally say "I used to come here a lot but after new ownership service sucks!"

DonHopkins  5 days ago

"Lawfare" is a propogandistic term coined and used hypocritically by people who get away with doing illegal things themselves, and have a long track record of getting revenge for being legally indicted and prosecuted, by gleefully going after innocent people on their enemies list with the very legal system they control themselves. And you know exactly who I mean, who uses that term all the time.

  • Saline9515  5 days ago

    The term is older than Trump. Suing everyone who criticizes you is a classic example of lawfare. The goal is not justice but the chilling effect created by your legal actions.

    • nobody9999  4 days ago

      >The term is older than Trump. Suing everyone who criticizes you is a classic example of lawfare. The goal is not justice but the chilling effect created by your legal actions.

      According to[0] the (aptly named) Lawfare Institute:

         Since the term “lawfare” is controversial in some circles, and subject to a 
   variety of interpretations and uses, a bit more explanation about our 
   understanding of the concept is in order. Going back to the 1950s, the term 
   has frequently been used in contexts wholly unrelated to national security, 
   ranging from divorce law to courtroom advocacy to colonialism to airfare for 
   lawyers.

      While the term is often used to do as you assert, it can also have a different remit. cf. some of the topics addressed[1] by the aforementioned Lawfare Institute.

      [0] https://www.lawfaremedia.org/about/our-story

      [1] https://www.lawfaremedia.org/

CarlitosHighway  5 days ago

Anecdotal

  • Saline9515  5 days ago

    Of course, Google spends engineering/legal hours to make country-specific changes relative to problems that do not exist.

    • joe_mamba  5 days ago

      Save your breath. CarlitosHighway's posts on this thread shows he's just blindly running defense for Germany's status quo on defamation laws low threshold for abuse on every argument someone brings, not being open to arguing in good faith, weightings in on the pros and cons of this, so it doesn't matter what counterexamples you keep bringing to him, it won't change his mind, his replies will be more "anecdotal" snarks.

      When you see the pattern, best to stopped arguing with such users as their goal is not an honest debate, their goal is just to 'DDoS' you with their opinion.

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