This is cynnical of me, but I feel like in a way Yelp is catering to techies and others with the free speech angle, since it's kind of a very easy way to get a

This is cynnical of me, but I feel like in a way Yelp is catering to techies and others with the free speech angle, since it's kind of a very easy way to get a very large crowd on your side. Technically speaking, you're right that the legal definition of Free Speech doesn't apply, but there's a moral principle of free speech which has been the subject of a lot of debate in recent years, with persons of varying political backgrounds and agendas arguing about whether abusive speech should be promoted as the poster-child for free speech. (though I'm hesitant to invoke any of this for fear of it exploding...stuff like the Twitter fights that people get into over things like misogyny, misandry, rape, social justice, etc) Basically, like with a lot of topics online, there's a built in audience you gain access to if you say the right incantation; if you're not clear on what I mean, just look at any topic about the NSA or encryption on HN and look at some of the more popular comments; you'll get an idea of how by stating a stance, you can sometimes get new audiences. The childish cynic in me thinks that this is what Yelp is doing, along with cementing their business model as free speech. Yelp has been guilty of extortion like practices in the past against businesses, and their users are equally obnoxious with restaurants at times. There was even a Southpark episode about it, so it was wide spread enough to be picked up offline. I honestly don't think Yelp really gives a rats ass about its users, it's just this sort of pro-consumer stuff is majorly beneficial to Yelp. There's no doubt in my mind that Yelp would gladly take the notice down if the price was right and the business did a bit of advertising for Yelp. Not that I can prove that. This is all just a misanthropic rant on my part, and I am not trying to pass it off as anything else. But the point is that there's a lot more to "free speech" than the US legal definition right now.