Over the weekend it was reported that a hole in a wall outside an ATM in Derbyshire is - according to TripAdvisor - now the fourth most popular tourist attraction in the county. Whilst British humour - 'can get very busy, and you can queue for hours' - it highlights a more serious problem.
I stayed at a wonderful BnB in Sonoma County, run by a husband and wife with huge pride in the service they delivered... they'd been forced to spend an inordinate amount of time challenging a one-star review on TripAdvisor by somebody who had never stayed there. Their case was even covered by the press - they suceeded, and had the cuttings on the wall to prove it!
Leaving reviews is a past time for some people. I was astonished to see 100+ reviews for a pillow case on the John Lewis web-site... a pillow case!? On sites such as Amazon, Glassdoor, Google, TripAdvisor etc. anybody can leave a review, without it being vetted... these can have a profound impact on a product/business - for good or bad.
Whilst for many people the term 'fake news' is synomous with Donald Trump, it has been propogated by social media and the internet. As Tim Cook (CEO of Apple) said, in a thinly veiled swipe at Facebook: 'if you build a chaos factory, you cannot dodge responsibility for the chaos'...
... a great soundbite, but how do you regulate it?...
Ilkeston NatWest hole in wall rises up TripAdvisor rankings