Facebook Is Adding Critics' Reviews for Restaurants

Courtesy of Facebook
Courtesy of Facebook

In the never-ending battle between Google and Facebook for Internet supremacy, Facebook wants you to start using it to find places to eat. Starting Tuesday, you'll see more than just your friends' and other people's reviews on restaurant pages: reviews by critics from a select group of big-time food publishers will be making their way there, too. Basically, Yelp!, but by pros. And on Facebook.

For now, the reviews will appear for only a select number of restaurants in the US from Facebook's publisher partners Eater.com, New York Magazine, Bon Appetit, Conde Nast Traveler, and the San Francisco Chronicle, according to Facebook.

Interestingly, the social media giant said negative reviews will be included in the content shown if they're provided by the publications, but a spokesperson noted that almost all of the content is coming from things like positive power ranking lists. With that said, restaurant owners -- or the people who manage the restaurant pages -- won't have any say in what reviews appear when people look up their restaurants like they do with reviews by users. Leave it to the professionals, people.

Tony Merevick is Cities News Editor at Thrillist and hopes there's a hide button (shouldn't there be a hide button for everything?). Send news tips to news@thrillist.com and follow him on Twitter @tonymerevick.