Google is struggling to tell a legitimate review from an attack review. A perfect case is for Cedars-Sinai Medical Hospital. Anti-maskers staged a demonstration outside the Cedars-Sinai Breast Health Services Building on July 22, 2021. During the demonstration, Kate Burns, a patient and not an employee of Cedars-Sinai, got into a verbal altercation with the demonstrators. She yelled, “I get treated here, get the fuck away.” The confrontation became physical, and a demonstrator took swings at Kate and ripped off her mask. Both the hospital and Breast Health Services listings receive 1-star Google reviews over this incident and what happened to Kate.
Cedars-Sinai is no stranger to negative reviews over high-profile cases. Cedars-Sinai has treated several celebrities. Not everyone that is a patient at Cedars lives. On February 19, 2020, rapper Pop Smoke died while at Cedars. Pop Smoke was admitted after being shot during a home invasion robbery. The hospital has received 20 reviews related to Pop Smoke’s death. Comic legend Stan Lee also died at Cedars. Stan Lee was 95 at the time of his death. Cedars received 81 Google reviews over Lee’s death. Not all of the reviews left for Pop Smoke or Stan Lee were negative. Rappers Easy-E and Biggie Smalls were also referenced in some Google reviews. Ice Cube even tweeted his displeasure in Cedars-Sinai after Heavy D died, which was referenced in one review.
It is challenging to determine which of the Google reviews are authentic and which were posted over a high-profile death. Cedars made national headlines when Kira Johnson died after giving birth in April 2016. Several Google reviews reference this case and the coverage over her death. The Google reviews for Cedars-Sinai are a mess. Google has failed to combat review attacks or non-customer reviews. Google’s TOS defines these reviews as being off-topic since they don’t describe a personal experience. If this is the case, why isn’t Google smart enough to monitor Business Profiles to protect businesses from these attacks? Yelp has filters to automatically monitor a business when reviews come in after a company makes the news. We have no way of knowing how many of the 1013 Google reviews are legitimate and don’t violate Google’s TOS. Hopefully, Google performs an audit on the Cedars-Sinai Business Profile and cleans up the reviews.
