Yelp Releases Trust & Safety Report Detailing Content Moderation and User Protection Initiatives in 2022
February 01 2023 - 6:00AM
Business Wire
The company closed more than 77,400 user
accounts for violating policies, including suspected deceptive or
abusive behaviors
More than 1,100 reports were made by Yelp to
other online platforms to warn them of content found on their sites
related to online review exchanges
Yelp Inc. (NYSE: YELP), the company that connects people with
great local businesses, today released its annual Trust &
Safety Report, providing insight into how the company mitigated
misinformation and protected content integrity on its platform in
2022, while leveling the playing field for business owners. The
report outlines Yelp’s extensive trust and safety measures,
including its automated recommendation software, content moderation
efforts, Consumer Alerts program and more.
“The trust and safety of the Yelp community is a top priority,
which is why we continue to heavily invest in both technology and
human moderation to fight deceptive review behaviors,” said Noorie
Malik, vice president of User Operations at Yelp. “We are
constantly evolving our efforts to stay ahead of malicious attempts
to threaten the quality and reliability of content on Yelp, as well
as to reduce and address policy violations. For over a decade,
academics, industry experts, the media and regulators have shown
that Yelp is one of the most aggressive and successful at
identifying and weeding out unreliable reviews.”
Key findings from the 2022 Yelp Trust & Safety
Report:
- Approximately 21 million reviews were contributed to Yelp in
2022, up 3% from 2021.1 About 75% of these reviews were recommended
by Yelp’s automated recommendation software, which helps surface
the most helpful and reliable content to consumers.
- About 19% of reviews were not recommended, 4% were removed by
Yelp’s moderators and 2% were removed by reviewers
themselves.2
- The company removed more than 206,700 reviews that were
reported by users and business owners for violating content
guidelines.3
- More than 77,400 user accounts were also closed by Yelp’s User
Operations team for violating the company’s Terms of Service,
including suspected deceptive or abusive behaviors.1
- Yelp strictly prohibits offering incentives or other
compensations in exchange for writing, changing or removing a
review. To help combat this deceptive activity both on and off the
Yelp platform, the company’s User Operations team took many actions
in 2022, including the following:
- Issued more than 415 warnings to businesses for engaging in
compensated or incentivized review behaviors.1
- Placed 88 Compensated Activity Alerts on business pages after
receiving evidence someone offered cash or other incentives in
exchange for posting, updating or removing a review.1
- Placed 405 Suspicious Review Activity Alerts on business pages
after detecting a large number of positive reviews coming from the
same IP address, or reviews from users who may be connected to a
group that coordinates incentivized reviews.1
- Made more than 1,100 reports to third-party sites to warn them
of content from more than 900 suspicious groups, posts or
individuals found participating in online review exchanges on their
site.1
- In an effort to keep potentially deceptive businesses and
harmful content off of Yelp, the company’s User Operations team:
- Rejected more than 32,800 potential new business pages for
being associated with spammy behaviors, violating Yelp’s
policies.4
- Removed nearly 2,000 business pages for being associated with
lead generators, violating Yelp’s policies.4
- Removed more than 26,500 reviews for threats, lewdness, hate
speech or other potentially harmful content.4
- Yelp continued to improve transparency around Crisis Pregnancy
Centers by clearly identifying them on its platform, helping
consumers avoid potential misleading information. In 2022, the
company recategorized more than 1,300 reproductive health services
pages as Crisis Pregnancy Centers after manually evaluating more
than 55,600 business pages.5
- Yelp often objects to legal demands that seek personal user
account information. In 2022, about 80% of resolved legal demands
resulted in no production of user account information by Yelp,
which protected information associated with 92% of user accounts at
issue from law enforcement, government agencies and private
parties.3
Read the full 2022 Trust & Safety Report, as well as a
high-level overview here. Assets and images from the report can be
found here. To learn more about the ways Yelp maintains the
integrity and quality of our content, visit: trust.yelp.com.
1 Data is sourced globally. 2 Reviews removed by Yelp’s
moderators may also include reviews associated with account
closures as a result of content policy violations. Yelp users can
remove their own individual reviews on the platform or remove all
their reviews by closing or deleting their accounts. 3 Data is
sourced from the U.S. only. 4 Data is sourced from the U.S. and
Canada. 5 Data is sourced from the U.S., Canada and Puerto
Rico.
About Yelp
Yelp Inc. (www.yelp.com) connects people with great local
businesses. With unmatched local business information, photos, and
review content, Yelp provides a one-stop local platform for
consumers to discover, connect, and transact with local businesses
of all sizes by making it easy to request a quote, join a waitlist,
and make a reservation, appointment, or purchase. Yelp was founded
in San Francisco in July 2004.
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version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20230201005332/en/
Julianne Rowe press@yelp.com
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