Google has taken down scathing reviews of the McDonald’s where the alleged killer of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson was nabbed by cops on Monday.
Luigi Mangione, 26, was taken into custody at one of the fast food chain’s restaurants in Altoona, Pennsylvania after an employee spotted him and alerted law enforcement, police said. Soon after, the suspect’s online supporters unleashed a flood of fake reviews.
“This location has rats in the kitchen that will make you sick and your insurance isn’t going to cover it,” one review said.
Most reviews went along these lines, until Google pulled them for violating its policies.
The tech giant says review contributions “should reflect a genuine experience at a place or business” and that “content that has been posted from multiple accounts to manipulate a place’s rating” will be removed.
And it wasn’t just Google reviews that were manipulated. “Very large rat behind the counter,” another reviewer said, this time on Yelp. “Not very nutritional food. I’ve heard the employees get free food for working a shift–hope they have health insurance to cover the future heart attacks. .! oh wait.”
“This fast food restaurant houses a traitor among its employees,” another review said. “The working class has betrayed humanity.”
PennLive.com reported that fake negative reviews were heaped on at least five different McDonald’s locations listed in Altoona on the Yelp website.
One site that barely received two reviews a month was bombed with over 100 on Monday alone. In response, Yelp employed an “Unusual Activity Alert” and blocked people from posting reviews.