Rideshare boycott sparked by murders in China • Hacker News Board

Re: Rideshare boycott sparked by murders in China

#41

Post by Markoff » Thu, Aug 30, 2018, 5:58 AM UTC

illuminati1911 wrote: post #18

person_of_color wrote: post #16

Western media loves reporting on instances of rape, murder in India, China even though statistics reveal they are lower per capita than in the West. Hegemony in action.

This. I moved to to Shanghai from North Europe and while there are dangers here in the traffic, food safety etc. violence is not one of them. The violent crime here and in China in general from western point of view is almost non-exisistent.

i will rather take my chances with violent crimes in west than with pollution affecting everyone, accidents affecting everyone, subpar ingredients in restaurants affecting everyone etc

Re: Rideshare boycott sparked by murders in China

#42

Post by mb_72 » Thu, Aug 30, 2018, 6:10 AM UTC

illuminati1911 wrote: post #18

person_of_color wrote: post #16

Western media loves reporting on instances of rape, murder in India, China even though statistics reveal they are lower per capita than in the West. Hegemony in action.

This. I moved to to Shanghai from North Europe and while there are dangers here in the traffic, food safety etc. violence is not one of them. The violent crime here and in China in general from western point of view is almost non-exisistent.

Or is is that such crimes are under-reported by the state-controlled media? Or that statistics for such crimes cannot be easily located, or at all? Someone else has posted on this thread stating they couldn't find relevant statistics easily. What you are saying may well be correct, it just seems that it's hard to verify with hard information.

Re: Rideshare boycott sparked by murders in China

#43

Post by toomanybeersies » Thu, Aug 30, 2018, 6:22 AM UTC

lhorie wrote: post #32

toomanybeersies wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've personally had enough problems with taxi drivers (and I live in a developed country) that I will only take a taxi as a last resort. They overcharge, they demand cash because apparently their EFTPOS machine is broken, they drive you on the scenic route to increase the fare, or they'll try to set a fixed price when you know it's cheaper to run the meter, half the time the driver doesn't even know how to get there…

As I understand, people are outraged because Didi built the ability to "rate" passengers in terms of their looks, i.e. whereas riders would rate drivers in terms of "fast, professional, etc", drivers could share ratings of riders in terms of "young, sexy, cute, etc". This last murder also apparently happened a mere day after Didi's decision to re-enable drivers' abilities to see riders pictures (a feature which had b…

Thanks for the clarification. I thought there might be more to the story than what I initially read.

That's pretty fucked up for Didi. Do you know if these "features" for the drivers were on versions of the app outside of China (i.e. in Australia)?

Re: Rideshare boycott sparked by murders in China

#44

Post by cbhl » Thu, Aug 30, 2018, 6:35 AM UTC

mb_72 wrote: post #42

illuminati1911 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This. I moved to to Shanghai from North Europe and while there are dangers here in the traffic, food safety etc. violence is not one of them. The violent crime here and in China in general from western point of view is almost non-exisistent.

Or is is that such crimes are under-reported by the state-controlled media? Or that statistics for such crimes cannot be easily located, or at all? Someone else has posted on this thread stating they couldn't find relevant statistics easily. What you are saying may well be correct, it just seems that it's hard to verify with hard information.

Murders are under-reported in the mass-media in America because it would make for boring news.

Imagine, day after day, the news saying, "and another 47 people were murdered today in America, including 13 in Chicago, and 4 each in Baltimore and Houston".

While the homicide rate in the United States is dropping, there were still ~17000 of them in 2016.

Re: Rideshare boycott sparked by murders in China

#45

Post by odiroot » Thu, Aug 30, 2018, 7:08 AM UTC

person_of_color wrote: post #16

Western media loves reporting on instances of rape, murder in India, China even though statistics reveal they are lower per capita than in the West. Hegemony in action.

I have to agree regarding China. Admittedly I only spent there 6 weeks (an the country is naturally enormous and diverse) but I've seen less shady situations than in any of Western EU countries I vacationed in.

Most Chinese people I know feel much safer in their homeland than in the west. Funnily enough some of them even prefer eastern parts of Europe for the same reason.

Re: Rideshare boycott sparked by murders in China

#46

Post by tdfx » Thu, Aug 30, 2018, 7:27 AM UTC

0x8BADF00D wrote: post #14

village-idiot wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There’s often political pressures on police departments to fix unpopular statistics, and not the actual issue. Most famously this leads Japanese departments to label difficult murder cases as suicides.

Excellent point. This is a prime example of how government intervention mucks things up by setting up relatively benign goals, but in practice leads to an outcome that is unchanged, or perhaps even worse. What if all Japanese citizens were allowed to carry guns out in the open? An armed society is a polite society.

> An armed society is a polite society.

*An armed society of rational people is a polite society. And people tend to slip in and out of a rational state depending on their emotions, pride, sobriety, etc.

Re: Rideshare boycott sparked by murders in China

#47

Post by mirimir » Thu, Aug 30, 2018, 7:48 AM UTC

dis-sys wrote: post #30

fantasticsid wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, that’s what companies do : look at the stats. And as long as stats say it’s rare enough, it’s not that bad. People are boycotting not because there’s a higher chance of being murdered/kidnapped with Didi, but that the company was unresponsive, did not have proper procedure/policy for vetting drivers, and took way too long to get even basic info about the suspect driver. What the stats say here, higher or lower,…

> Because the issue is that Didi does not give a shit about passenger safety. Didi intentionally setup the system this way to promote its rideshare as a hook up service for its drivers. When describing the service, its top management made it clear that such a service in which drivers and passengers are locked up in a moving car provides a "sexy scenario" and thus Didi must take the opportunity and try its best to pro…

That is insane. They deserve to go out of business.

I can't imagine that Lyft or Uber could have done something like this. But maybe I'm just too naive.

Re: Rideshare boycott sparked by murders in China

#48

Post by bopbop » Thu, Aug 30, 2018, 7:52 AM UTC

village-idiot wrote: post #25

0x8BADF00D wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Excellent point. This is a prime example of how government intervention mucks things up by setting up relatively benign goals, but in practice leads to an outcome that is unchanged, or perhaps even worse. What if all Japanese citizens were allowed to carry guns out in the open? An armed society is a polite society.

It’s less about governments, and more about how the law of unintended consequences applies in all human matters. Example: anthropologists believe that on the whole, more polite societies typically murder each other at a higher rate than less polite societies.

That's an amazing stat - do you have a source for that?

Re: Rideshare boycott sparked by murders in China

#49

Post by mirimir » Thu, Aug 30, 2018, 8:00 AM UTC

07d046 wrote: post #28

I thought this NYT article gave some good context. Didi promoted the ride sharing service as a way to meet people and for hooking up: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/29/technology/china-didi-chu... > So through suggestive ads hinting at hookups through driving, Didi pushed Hitch’s romantic possibilities. In a 2015 interview with the Chinese online portal NetEase, Ms. Huang compared Hitch cars to cafes and bars. And:…

Seriously, "Hitch"?

That blows my mind. I guess it's one way to get drivers for less money. But damn, what horrible selection.

Re: Rideshare boycott sparked by murders in China

#50

Post by solarkraft » Thu, Aug 30, 2018, 8:11 AM UTC

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #12

azurezyq wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have data supporting data for your claim? I'm a Chinese and this kind of murders are really rare. The last one I heard in my hometown (a small costal city) is over 10 years ago. And with taxi-hailing apps' commence, this is becoming really rare since the driver can easily pin-pointed (by cross-referencing ubiquitous street cams). Actually in this case the murderer got arrested soon afterwards. While I agree Ch…

In Beijing it wasn’t uncommon to hear of a PKU student every few years being murdered by a taxi driver (especially black taxis), once they went full in on satellite campuses causing lots of transit headaches. And like I said originally, I don’t know if it was higher than average or just well publicized when it happens. Ride sharing and taxi hailing apps have definitely made taking a taxi mug safer. Conserving how did…

> I’m not sure why the government wants didi to shutdown

You finally mention it. Without the government wanting it, this story wouldn't have broken. It seems like the c. gov could easily hide hundreds of murders.