Is it morally incorrect to create a system which makes consumer input ineffective and costly to organizations who employ it as a system of decision making?
Specifically in the context of an increasing number of bad actors using defamatory content in consumer feedback as a means to control an organization's decision making. Decisions which ultimately effect many other people negativity.
It is up to the company to validate its feedback. If it is unable to (or refuses to) differentiate between useful/legitimate feedback and feedback that is destructive or misleading, it will eventually lose sales and marketshare until it has no choice but to review how it handles feedback. If the company is in a monopoly position or is receiving investment or other financial support it can ignore the legitimate feedback for a while - but eventually that money source will run out and the company will have no option but to implode.
Google and Yelp purposefully make it difficult to remove retaliatory feedback so I'd argue they are immoral companies, and I'm not sure anyone would post a flag for them on here and defend them. Some companies I know have no choice but to opt out of reviews altogether due to the abuse by consumers - but this bad behavior is tolerated and I'd argue supported by the companies managing the reviews.
Companies take actions based on feedback from the public. These actions can effect many people.
If lying is acceptable and goes unpunished in a society, is it reasonable to force companies to stop taking feedback.
Companies take actions based on feedback from the public. These actions can effect many people.
If lying is acceptable and goes unpunished in a society, is it reasonable to force companies to stop taking feedback.
Now that I understand what this topic is even about...
Yeah, if they can't trust the feedback then they shouldn't take it, is my take.
I remember this story told at the high school I used to go to. It used to be okay to leave school grounds at lunchtime, but once some students decided to steal food that a nearby person had been grilling. Ever since then, students aren't allowed to leave at lunchtime. The moral as they presented it was "you abuse it, you lose it," with a tinge of "everyone gets punished for the crimes of a few bad apples."
Which is harsh, but I think its fair. It incentivizes people to turn on the bad actors because they ruin it for everybody, and people really SHOULD have an "I don't want to get punished for your mistakes" ideology.
Bad faith actors are specifically the ones who seek to implement moderation systems, because their ethically onerous philosophies cannot thrive or even survive in an open marketplace of ideas.
