Review platform Yelp has announced it will be flagging businesses where customers or employees have reported incidents of racism.
Vice-president of user operations, Noorie Malik, announced the new consumer alert in a blog post on Thursday.
She said the idea comes as the United States "reckons with issues of systemic racism" which was highlighted in the Black Lives Matter movement earlier this year.
"At Yelp, we value diversity, inclusion and belonging, both internally and on our platform, which means we have a zero-tolerance policy to racism," Malik said.
"We know these values are important to our users and now more than ever, consumers are increasingly conscious of the types of businesses they patronise and support...
"Yelp's top priority is to ensure the trust and safety of our users and provide them with reliable content to inform their spending decisions, including decisions about whether they'll be welcome and safe at a particular business."
Malik said between May 26 and September 30, Yelp had already placed more than 450 alerts on business pages that were accused of or the target of racist behavior related to the Black Lives matter movement.
Now Yelp will now place a large 'Business Accused of Racist Behavior Alert' on the pages of businesses accused of "overtly racist actions".
If a business gains public attention, it will also provide a link to a news article where customers can learn more about the incident.
This follow's Yelp's decision to flag an unusual uptick in reviews which are based on what someone may have seen in news reports rather than first-hand experience with the business.
"This policy is critical to mitigating fake reviews and maintaining the integrity of content on our platform," Malik said.
"We don't allow people to leave reviews based on media reports because it can artificially inflate or deflate a business's star rating."
