[Saline9515]

Multiple people report that comments such as "Service was slow", or three star rating without comment were removed.

If Google started to show how many reviews were removed, it was because the lawfare started to seriously affect the ratings.

[luke5441]

Yes, Google just removes them as a first step because this is the least amount of work for them. Theoretically there is an Google appeals process. After that it needs to go to court.

My guess is that often reviews are generalizing (easy mistake to make). E.g. they say "service is slow", when they should say: "When I was there on Thursday at noon service was slow for my table".

[abustamam]

When reading a review, it should always be assumed that it is based off of one "visit". A negative review will probably never have more than a few visits and if they do they'd normally say "I used to come here a lot but after new ownership service sucks!"

[RobotToaster]

We're talking about a country where someone had their house raided and their devices stolen by the police for tweeting "Du bist so 1 Pimmel" (you are such a dick) to a politician.

[luke5441]

This was later deemed inappropriate by courts. Shit happens -- as long as the corrective mechanisms work it is just exceptions.

[abustamam]

I'm not super convinced that we can call something like that as "shit happens." in the US "shit" like this happens where cops wrongly raid someone's house and someone often dies because of of this. Though, I think it may be an example of corrective mechanisms not working, but this shouldn't have even happened once.

[luke5441]

It's not like the raids in the US because there are less guns around. So risk of someone dying because of a house search are pretty low (supported by police death numbers). This would be more about privacy violations and unnecessary chicanery.

[Saline9515]

Why is it even allowed to raid someone for victimless crimes? It's a fundamental issue, not just a mistake.

[luke5441]

Insulting someone is a crime in Germany. We can debate and then change this of course. I wouldn't call this a fundamental issue. It is just what we as a society decided on. (Maybe I'm too "Ze rules are ze rules" here)

Idk what exactly happend. But somehow they got approval from court to collect evidence of the crime (electronic devices) via house search. As said, the harm caused by the house search was later deemed unproportional to the crime.

[alterom]

> it should always be assumed

Who dictates the "should”?

The German law simply removes the need to assume anything.

[DonHopkins]

"Lawfare" is a propogandistic term coined and used hypocritically by people who get away with doing illegal things themselves, and have a long track record of getting revenge for being legally indicted and prosecuted, by gleefully going after innocent people on their enemies list with the very legal system they control themselves. And you know exactly who I mean, who uses that term all the time.

[Saline9515]

The term is older than Trump. Suing everyone who criticizes you is a classic example of lawfare. The goal is not justice but the chilling effect created by your legal actions.

[nobody9999]

>The term is older than Trump. Suing everyone who criticizes you is a classic example of lawfare. The goal is not justice but the chilling effect created by your legal actions.

According to[0] the (aptly named) Lawfare Institute:

   Since the term “lawfare” is controversial in some circles, and subject to a 
   variety of interpretations and uses, a bit more explanation about our 
   understanding of the concept is in order. Going back to the 1950s, the term 
   has frequently been used in contexts wholly unrelated to national security, 
   ranging from divorce law to courtroom advocacy to colonialism to airfare for 
   lawyers.

While the term is often used to do as you assert, it can also have a different remit. cf. some of the topics addressed[1] by the aforementioned Lawfare Institute.

[0] https://www.lawfaremedia.org/about/our-story

[1] https://www.lawfaremedia.org/

[CarlitosHighway]

Anecdotal

[Saline9515]

Of course, Google spends engineering/legal hours to make country-specific changes relative to problems that do not exist.

[joe_mamba]

Save your breath. CarlitosHighway's posts on this thread shows he's just blindly running defense for Germany's status quo on defamation laws low threshold for abuse on every argument someone brings, not being open to arguing in good faith, weightings in on the pros and cons of this, so it doesn't matter what counterexamples you keep bringing to him, it won't change his mind, his replies will be more "anecdotal" snarks.

When you see the pattern, best to stopped arguing with such users as their goal is not an honest debate, their goal is just to 'DDoS' you with their opinion.

[HPsquared]

Maybe there is a German law against spamming.

[dgellow]

Depending on the spam, there is yes

§ 7 UWG Gesetz gegen den unlauteren Wettbewerb