Yelp pauses comments after Donald Trump’s McDonald’s stint results in surge of one-star reviews

FEASTERVILLE-TREVOSE, PENNSYLVANIA: GOP nominee Donald Trump's performance at a McDonald's outlet in Pennsylvania on Sunday, October 20 was quickly called out by netizens, with many opting to troll the business on Yelp.

According to CNN, the influx of a large number of false reviews led the platform to temporarily freeze the action on the franchise's Yelp page on Monday.

Donald Trump's stunt at McDonald's

Trump visited the fast food outlet this week in the battleground state to drum up support ahead of the election, as well as to attack his Democratic rival Kamala Harris, who claimed to have worked in the franchise during her time in college, in the summer of 1983.

The former president put in a short shift, manning the fries station as well as the drive-thru window. However, those he served were not regular customers but people who were carefully vetted by his team.

A memo shared extensively over social media claimed that the outlet was closed through the day for the political event, though McDonald's shared that they were not endorsing the candidate in any way.

An internal memo shared among employees stated, "As we’ve seen, our brand has been a fixture of conversation this election cycle. While we’ve not sought this, it’s a testament to how much McDonald’s resonates with so many Americans. McDonald’s does not endorse candidates for elected office and that remains true in this race for the next president. We are not red or blue – we are golden.”

Yelp reviews trolling Donald Trump

Following Trump's weekend performance in the McDonald's apron, the joint was bombarded with negative comments on the reviewing platform Yelp.

"Customer service was a joke. Senile old man got bronzer on my fries, didn't wear gloves," wrote a reviewer, Karen S, after giving the outlet one star, reported Newsweek.

"The fries were too salty as if someone who lost a major election had been crying over them for an hour,” read another.

“Usually I hold high praise for a company that employs the mentally impaired but this one seemed more off than usual," expressed a third, according to Whiskeyriff.

"Person working there today not wearing proper hair covering, in violation of PA code 95.230,” slammed yet another.

Some even brutally called out Trump over his criminal record, stating, "Convicted felon s**t-talking customers, especially women, did not wear gloves while preparing french fries, and only worked five minutes at a time before having to sit down or take a nap."

Others held the franchise responsible, expressing, "If you make managerial decisions this bad I certainly am never going to eat anything you make."

Yelp's statement on pausing page reviews

Owing to the increased traffic and overflowing troll reviews, Yelp temporarily stopped the feature on their platform for the McDonald's outlet page.

"While we don’t take a stand one way or the other when it comes to this incident, we’ve temporarily disabled the posting of content to this page as we work to investigate whether the content you see here reflects actual consumer experiences rather than the recent events,” read a notice on the page.

According to CNN, this is Yelp's go-to move for businesses that suddenly receive increased public attention. In 2023, 986 similar alerts were placed on business pages, leading to the removal of almost 50,000 reviews.

Noorie Malik, Yelp’s VP of User Operations, stated on Tuesday, "When we see the activity dramatically decrease or stop, our moderators will clean up the page so reviews describing only firsthand consumer experiences are reflected."

This article contains remarks made on the Internet by individual people and organizations. MEAWW cannot confirm them independently and does not support claims or opinions being made online.