Yelp disables comments on the McDonald's that hosted Trump after influx of one-star reviews

• Yelp temporarily disabled the ability to post reviews on the McDonald’s in Feasterville, Pennsylvania, that former President Donald Trump visited Sunday, following an influx of unusual reviews.
• Yelp typically pauses comments when a business receives heightened media attention that can result in people posting their personal views, without having a legitimate customer interaction with the business.

Yelp temporarily disabled new reviews on the McDonald’s in Feasterville, Pennsylvania, that former President Donald Trump visited Sunday, following an influx of unusual comments describing Trump’s criminal convictions, demeanor and customer service skills with mostly one-star reviews.

“The fries were too salty as if someone who lost a major election had been crying over them for an hour,” read a one-star review posted Oct. 21.

The comments varied in content, jest and vulgarity, with some criticizing the franchise owner for hosting the Trump campaign.

One five-star review from Monday said, “The best McDonalds I’ve ever been to in 47 years. The older employee was extremely nice. Make McDonalds Great Again! Bring back the Dollar Menu!”

More than 145 reviews had already been posted before Yelp paused commenting using its “unusual activity alert” yesterday.

“For Yelp to remain a useful resource to the community, reviews must be based on a genuine, firsthand experience with the business,” said Noorie Malik, vice president of user operations at Yelp. “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.”

Yelp said it typically pauses comments when a business receives heightened media attention that can result in people posting their personal views, without having a legitimate customer interaction with the business. According to the 2023 Yelp Trust & Safety Report, 112 business pages in the U.S. received an unusual activity alert for incidents related to politics or political figures, leading to more than 5,000 reviews being removed.

“As a small, independent business owner, it is a fundamental value of my organization that we proudly open our doors to everyone who visits the Feasterville community,” franchisee Derek Giacomantonio told CNBC in a statement Monday. “That’s why I accepted former President Trump’s request to observe the transformative working experience that 1 in 8 Americans have had: a job at McDonald’s.”

A spokesperson for the Trump campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

— CNBC’s Amelia Lucas contributed to this report.