Some years ago, I was Principal of a new private school and of course we had no history or reputation to go on. This time was also the zenith of online reviews, both in terms of the number of forums and in terms of the number of reviews posted. Our school was doing a good job, enrolment continued to grow despite the GFC, our reputation was golden. Except. We did have a few negative reviews and herein lies the tale.
One (I`m pretty sure it was by a competitor who was losing students to us) claiming our school was surrounded by drugs, drug-dealers, prostitution and gangs. This was of course untrue. The site did not answer any of our attempts at contact so our only recourse was a counter-review which was hardly convincing. I checked today. The site still exists but carries no reviews older than five years so it is no more.
Another was from a parent whose son we had asked to leave a summer program for violence issues, and I suspect psychologicsl problems, and whose other refused to even discuss what her son had done and had threatened to do. The program contract stated in several places that the fee was non-refundable, we refused to refund it, and the local small claims court sided with us. She posted half a dozen reviews we found full of half-truths and mistruths, several of which were defamatory. (We knew it was here because of details misrepresented in the reviews.) We contacted every site contesting the review and offering documentary evidence if requested. Not a single site responded. Our attorney scripted an anodyne response but around half the review sites would not approve our repsonse so hers remained uncontested. When I checked today, several of those sites appear either no longer to exist or they no longer carry reviews however I did find her comments on one.
A third was an attack on me for what I had said and how I had reacted in a parent encounter. However, my gender was wrong and my two deputy principals of the corresponding gender had not had such an encounter, the underlying incident had not occurred and I had not had such a meeting with any parent at any time in my career. I was pretty sure that the parent meant another school in the state with a similar name (see below) but again, no response from the site and our attorney advised that any counter review could expose us to litigation, unless it too was anonymous which would have defeated the purpose.
We also had two scathing, albeit very poorly-written, reviews destroying our program, methodology, teacher selection and oversight and of course me. However, none of the details cited in either review applied to us. We did not use those writing and math programs, we did not have teachers with the stated backgrounds, and our methodology was an explicit rejection of that referenced. Coincidentally, the school with the similar name had all three. Again, we contacted the site, refuting the "factual" points in the original review and offering documentary evidence if requested. And again, crickets. See the paragraph above for our attorney`s advice. That site appears to have a "no older than five years" policy so those reviews have gone, but they were there for some time.
What prompted this reflection was seeing this story in The Guardian today. I don't know the facts of the case, however we have libel, slander and defamation rules for a reason. If you don`t know about something, you may well go to a review site and as my mom used to say, "where there`s smoke there`s fire" and "throw enough mud and some will stick".
As British Prime Minister Baldwin said, "Power without responsibility is the prerogative of the harlot." I do think there should be rules for online reviews, perhaps via legislation. Anonymity should not be the norm, purely ad hominem attacks should be banned and "factual" claims should be supported with evidence.
Secondly, those reviewed should have a "right to reply" of equal prominence, particularly in respect to "factual" claims which are incorrect. Competitors, disgruntled ex-employees or customers, and those whose advances were spurned are too free to cause harm.
Fact-based, objective, reasoned reviews have a place. Spiteful, untrue whining does not.
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