A group of moderate Democrats in Congress has suggested that federal agencies be required to start using the online review site Yelp.
“We support broad adoption of a platform like Yelp for government — a modern method of allowing those who interact with government agencies to say what’s working and what isn’t,” the New Democrat Coalition wrote in a Thursday letter addressed to the Office of Management and Budget.
The General Services Administration recently partnered with Yelp, a site that allows consumers to rate and comment on the services they use, to allow federal agencies to use the platform. However, they are not required to do so.
“As a next step, we believe [OMB] should issue guidance to require relevant agencies to take the necessary steps to adopt and maintain a Yelp page,” the 21 Democrats wrote. “Especially given the success with which most federal agencies have adopted many social media platforms, we are confident that, with appropriate guidance from OMB, agencies can promptly and successfully begin using Yelp to better respond to public feedback.”
The New Democrat Coalition, which was founded in 1997, is a 46-member group led by Rep. Ron Kind, D-Wis. Less than half of the coalition signed the letter. The most notable non-signer included Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Fla., who also serves as chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee.
Users can already set up pages on Yelp to review federal agencies. One such page for the Internal Revenue Service has 11 comments, with one representative piece of feedback saying, “The IRS is my charity of choice. It gets 5 stars ’cause I don’t wanna get audited.” The agency has an overall rating of 2.5 stars out of 5.
Under the Democrats’ proposal, presumably, the agencies would be forced to acknowledge in some manner the feedback they receive.
