The weight of words, the shock of opinions.
While the opening of his establishment by the Nice restaurateur owner of Poppies was the subject of considerable media coverage, on the internet, a more discreet battle was raging.
On several online windows, including Google, Facebook and Tripadvisor, Internet users have indeed left comments, sometimes encouraging the manager, sometimes criticizing his decision to open his restaurant in defiance of health restrictions.
Opinions far from trivial, as the famous online note can now have an important role in the activity of traders.
Reopening your restaurant therefore represents a financial, legal and reputational risk.
Read also: Illegal restaurants: the risky taste of the forbidden
On Google, the opening of the Poppies has aroused contrasting reactions, violently negative or, on the contrary, ecstatic, having nothing to do with the quality of the service and the dishes offered by the establishment.
The objective: to improve the overall rating of the restaurant and its reputation, up or down, depending on the political appreciation of the author of the review.
Read also: Paris: magistrates fined in an illegal restaurant on the Ile de la Cité this Friday
“
Congratulations on your courage, and above all, do not give up in the face of the garbage that dirties you, and that future generations will judge as the cowards they are!
», Encouraged an Internet user, promising that he would come« to
dine
»in the restaurant.
His comment was accompanied by a five-star rating, the highest possible rating.
"
The rebel from the bottom of the frying pan."
Open in the midst of a pandemic.
Well done,
”another quipped, scoring the worst possible score.
Screenshot of notices published on Wednesday on the Poppies Google page, in Nice Google Reviews
On the Poppies Facebook page, many political notices remain online: “
conspiracy, facho and idiot.
Here is the starter and dessert dish of this restaurant
”(sic), thus indicates one Internet user.
Another “
recommends
” the restaurant, saying they “
wholeheartedly
” support it.
An arsenal of tools against false or irrelevant reviews
The hosts are taking measures to deal with this kind of case, because the reliability of their rating system is at stake.
They want to avoid seeing political or irrelevant considerations distort opinions based, in normal times, on the outright service offered by the establishment, such as food, for a restaurant.
Google quickly removed the offending opinions on the Poppies.
Maps, which received "
20 million contributions per day
" in 2019, explains that it is "
constantly
fighting
against malicious actors, publishers of fake reviews on local shops who, unfortunately, use all kinds of tricks to try to abuse our system and circumvent its rules
”.
“
Maps is not intended to become a forum for propagating personal attacks, or political or social comments.
Content that does not comply with this rule will be deleted,
”warns the company in its terms of use.
The group keeps an eye on the contributions, thanks to a “
manual
”
verification
, but also thanks to automated detection systems capable of spotting suspicious reviews.
These tools remain secret, "
so as not to reveal them to malicious actors
," says one at Google, while acknowledging that "there is
still work to be done
".
Read also: Can we really trust the reviews on Tripadvisor?
At Tripadvisor, following the events of the Poppies, comments on the restaurant page have been blocked and a banner now appears.
"
Due to a recent event [...] which prompted many notices sent that did not describe a direct experience with this establishment, we have suspended the publication of new reviews
", announces the site.
Tripadvisor explains to
Le Figaro that it
has applied a “
foreclosure notice
”, a standard procedure in similar cases.
The site, which validates reviews before publishing them, uses two types of controls: one, technological, relies on tools to identify abnormal influxes of reviews over a short period.
The other, human, checks the alerts raised by the detection system.
“
When unusual behavior is detected, it is passed on to the auditors, who look to see if there is a problem,
” one explains.
And, when a restaurant is targeted and the reviews relate to something other than a direct, verified experience of a consumer visiting the establishment, the lockdown is pronounced.
It will remain active from "a
few days to a few weeks
" until the attention falls.
Online reputation, an issue that has become crucial for companies
These platforms are not the only ones to monitor these behaviors.
Each has its own method.
The Steam platform strengthened its policy against “
off topic hype
” in March 2019. A computer tool detects “
abnormal review activity on all Steam games
” and reports them to a dedicated team, which is investigating the matter.
Behind that, even if it turns out that these behaviors were aimed at lowering a game's rating, Steam will keep the reviews online, but none of those written in the period of the bludgeon will count toward the overall rating.
Last February, Steam indicated that it had brought its teams together to see bludgeoning "
44 times so far
".
This question is not taken lightly by the establishments and services concerned either, as online reviews have become essential for their good visibility and attractiveness.
Getting a bad rating on Google can put off people from doing a quick search for a restaurant before ordering.
On the contrary, a good mark can reinforce the act of purchase.
At the end of 2019, an OpinionWay survey for Opinion System thus highlighted that 74% of business leaders consider Google reviews to be an essential activity lever ... but risky.
And, on the internet, everything remains: an opinion can therefore have an impact in the long term.
