I only regret that I have but one app to delete
What about Uber Eats? I got to delete two apps, myself.
Uber has a law firm investigating me – Susan Fowler
81–90 of 120 posts
Re: Uber has a law firm investigating me – Susan Fowler
#82I may be missing something but why isn't the burden of proving those allegations on Susan Fowler? Why are we so quick to point fingers at Uber without even giving them the chance to defend themselves? Many people hate Uber and what they do. There is a strong incentive to smear the company. Smearing Uber has been done in the past when the whole #deleteUber was started becaude Uber drivers were not force to participate…
In her blog post she claims she took and shared many screenshots, among other items, with Uber management of messaging she received. There is proof. Will it come out in public forums? Why would it?
The odds of a lawsuit from one side or the other seems high, at least right now. Why air that all publicly? Doing so can and has undermined cases for both sides in the past.
Besides that, does our justice system now use Twitter to try and convict? Are trials by public opinion what matter now? When did that change?
What exactly is stopping Uber from defending themselves? They have a lot of money, top-notch PR folks, and I suspect top-notch legal representation. If they could easily disprove this, would they not have done so already?
Re: Uber has a law firm investigating me – Susan Fowler
#83I had an extended exchange with an Uber employee the other day, in which he steadfastly refused to believe that Uber was going after Fowler after the initial reports of this. Despite countless examples of this kind of behavior in the past, he kept insisting that everything was only "alleged" or "unverified." I'm not sure what kind of cargo cult they have going on over there, but it sure is effective at getting people…
It's not just Uber. When your identity gets caught up in your employment, political party, religion, etc. you end up suffering from serious cognitive dissonance regarding it. They don't want to believe that an entity they identify with is a bad (ethical, political) actor. They see themselves as good (and maybe they are), and so this thing that they base their identity on must also be good (and in some ways, maybe eve…
Or as Upton Sinclair put it, "It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it."[1]
Re: Uber has a law firm investigating me – Susan Fowler
#84Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think this is probably right. It is very common when a company has been sued (or, in this case, probably worries that it will be sued) for the company's lawyers to conduct a pretty deep background investigation on the (would-be) plaintiff. It's not necessarily a savory practice, nor is it universal, but it is definitely common. I think it's unfortunate that Fowler has to go through this indignity as well as what sh…
Just to nitpick ... 'on the (would-be) plaintiff.' ... IIRC, Susan has not made any indication she intends to sue. Her article merely commented on her experience at Uber and I didn't pick up any language which indicated she was still annoyed or angry enough to want to sue.
It's cheaper to investigate their potential liability than to risk it though.
Re: Uber has a law firm investigating me – Susan Fowler
#85I think going through the court system would be much better way to find out the truth and serve punishment if needed, but only if the ground is a bit more even between a major corporation and an individual. Is there a way to support Fowler in some way, like contributing to a legal fund?
Buy her book on microservice architecture:
Re: Uber has a law firm investigating me – Susan Fowler
#86I may be missing something but why isn't the burden of proving those allegations on Susan Fowler? Why are we so quick to point fingers at Uber without even giving them the chance to defend themselves? Many people hate Uber and what they do. There is a strong incentive to smear the company. Smearing Uber has been done in the past when the whole #deleteUber was started becaude Uber drivers were not force to participate…
Uber has a history of atrocious behavior. If you want to talk about "smearing" ask Sarah Lacy about Uber circa 2014. As for "the burden of proving" what, exactly, do you expect? Screenshots of the harassment? The "hard proof" is for a court, if it comes to that, and not you, the general public.
Uber's opponents also have a history of atrocious behavior. I could cite numerous assaults against Uber drivers by taxi drivers, unfair lobbying of politicians, slander and hit pieces by so-called journalists etc.
Whether we are in a court of law or not, the burden of proof must remain on the accuser. So far, Susan Fowler has provided no proof. There is no tape, no email, no corroboration by other witnesses. Are we just supposed to take her word for it and sharpen our pitchforks?
Re: Uber has a law firm investigating me – Susan Fowler
#87Earlier quoted context omitted.
Because Kalanick is awkward and unlikeable. Just look at how he behaves in that video in the back of an Uber - rather than empathizing with his driver and saying nothing substantial, he actually discusses the business reasons for creating UberX. He treated his driver a a rational human being like himself rather than an emotional being to be placated. See also this blog post by Jeff Atwood, where he advocates for poin…
Well put. I've noticed a phenomenon where people seem to substitute PR/optics for their own morality. That is, people will criticize a public person not for what they've done or said, but for how it looks or how it is likely to be perceived by others.
I have a Hansonian theory that we actually want powerful and visible people to engage in PR for us in spite of knowing it's BS. The reason is that this suggests to us that they care what we think, at least enough to signal tribal loyalty to us, to tell us that they need us.
One of the greatest fears of the modern world is that the higher quality people might one day exit. We demonize companies for outsourcing, rich people for living in gated communities and sending children to private schools, tech bros for using Uber/google bus/etc rather than riding the broken SF public transit.
A person like Kalanick (or Thiel, to name a similarly disliked figure) who refuses to engage in this kind of PR is scary; it's a reminder that they don't need us.
Re: Uber has a law firm investigating me – Susan Fowler
#88I may be missing something but why isn't the burden of proving those allegations on Susan Fowler? Why are we so quick to point fingers at Uber without even giving them the chance to defend themselves? Many people hate Uber and what they do. There is a strong incentive to smear the company. Smearing Uber has been done in the past when the whole #deleteUber was started becaude Uber drivers were not force to participate…
This is not a court of law.
We as individuals can take a look at all of the evidence available about the illegal things that Uber does, and decide for ourselves if the allegations are credible.
This is not about 1 story by one woman who was harassed. This is a story about a dozen women who are already coming forward, and a toxic culture that anyone at Uber can confirm exists.
If Uber wants people to give them the benefit of the doubt, then maybe they should stop doing so many terrible things.
Similarly, if I had 10 separate female friends that I trust tell me about how this one guy had harassed them in different situations, I wouldn't bother going to each of them and demand that they give me video evidence. I would just stop talking to the guy, and warn my other friends about him. Doubly so if the guy just responded by saying, "I will not confirm or deny any allegations, but I would like to point out that nobody has any proof!".
If you are reduced to saying "No proof has been shown yet!", as opposed to actually making an argument, putting your reputation on the line, then you have already lost.
Or in otherwords, in order for me to give ANY weight to the "There are 2 sides to any story", then Uber needs to come out and claim that there are 2 side. Silence doesn't count. Silence in this case is admitting that they are in the wrong.
Re: Uber has a law firm investigating me – Susan Fowler
#89Because the best thing to do when you step into a legal shitstorm is to keep talking about it publicly.
I'm not denying her claims, but if what happened to her was true, she could have gotten a good bit of cash out of the deal if she had any evidence. If she doesn't have any evidence then the public smear campaign only opens her up to defamatory suits against herself.
Re: Uber has a law firm investigating me – Susan Fowler
#90The title of this submission is a strict paraphrasing (despite being in quotes) of an already short tweet, which is pretty meh. The full tweet is: "Uber names/blames me for account deletes, and has a different law firm -not Holders - investigating me. I have hired" "Uber names/blames me for account deletes" is a pretty bold claim, and doesn't feel like a routine investigation.
> despite being in quotes
Good point. That's bad. We removed the quotes above.