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Dear Miriam,
I love giving recommendations based on a job well done! Whether it’s painters, barbers, caterers, etc, I am always happy to share my positive experiences in my neighborhood/online communities. But what is your opinion on sharing negative experiences? If someone asks for a recommendation of a contractor, and I have a company they should avoid, should I tell them? Is this lashon hara?
Signed,
Rate and Review
Dear Review,
The following statement applies to any online comment thread: What will your comment accomplish? If you can answer, sincerely, that it will help someone, you’ve passed the first hurdle. Beyond that, you still need to consider how enmeshed you want to get in an online conversation, how strongly you want to defend your position if someone else disagrees with you, and whether you want your comment to be in writing on the internet for posterity.
If an online group is well-moderated and is confined in some way (people you know, people who live in a certain radius, people who have answered a certain set of questions before joining the group), your risk level is probably fairly low. But what if you post about your favorite coffee shop and then someone else comments that the owner is actually a terrible person and you shouldn’t support it? Or what if you post about a handyman who put a hole through your wall and didn’t come back to fix it, and then you find out he’s your co-worker’s brother? In short: Entering a conversation you don’t have to be in can cause unintended consequences, or at least unnecessary awkwardness.
And yet, giving recommendations is a great way to engage with friends and neighbors, a way that businesses build their customer base, and usually an overall feel-good thing to do, the above circumstances notwithstanding. So by all means, give the positive recommendations despite everything I’ve said so far. In my own experience, the best hires have come from recommendations, and I do enjoy the opportunity to pay it forward both to the people hiring and those being hired.
If you have an anti-recommendation and you’re in an in-person conversation, go ahead and tell the person who not to hire. Almost any kind of information is easier and safer to share that way. Online, consider sending a private message saying that you didn’t have a good experience with so and so and encouraging the person to find another option. I especially encourage this course of action if you know the person seeking the recommendation. If you don’t know them, consider sticking to positive comments only, both so as to avoid entanglements and to avoid spreading negative feedback further than it needs to go.
Which brings us to your final questions. Lashon hara (literally wicked tongue, often translated as gossip) implies spreading rumors with no reason, telling tales for fun, or sharing negative information that’s none of your business. If you’ve been ripped off by a company and you want to prevent someone else from that fate, it’s not quite in the category of lashan hara, at least according to my standards. And, at the same time, unless there are very extreme circumstances, you don’t want to be responsible for tanking someone’s business or harming their reputation. Keeping your comments as private as possible allows you to share relevant information without being unnecessarily public about it.
Be well,
Miriam
P.S. If you are receiving recommendations for babysitters or other caregivers, the onus is on you to do the necessary reference background checks!