Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's quite literally Uber's business model for large parts of the world. It's rather sad that these kind of "businesses" aren't just banned and prosecuted as criminal conspiracies. I really think that's the appropriate classification for an organisation that goes in to a country, sets up a business it knows is illegal, stokes up violence, and reaps in profit (well, "profit", because it still doesn't actually make a…
> stokes up violence What now?
Amid taxi strikes and riots in Paris, Kalanick ordered French executives to retaliate by encouraging Uber drivers to stage a counter-protest with mass civil disobedience.
Warned that doing so risked putting Uber drivers at risk of attacks from “extreme right thugs” who had infiltrated the taxi protests and were “spoiling for a fight”, Kalanick appeared to urge his team to press ahead regardless. “I think it’s worth it,” he said. “Violence guarantee[s] success. And these guys must be resisted, no? Agreed that right place and time must be thought out.”
The decision to send Uber drivers into potentially volatile protests, despite the risks, was consistent with what one senior former executive told the Guardian was a strategy of “weaponising” drivers, and exploiting violence against them to “keep the controversy burning”.
It was a playbook that, leaked emails suggest, was repeated in Italy, Belgium, Spain, Switzerland and the Netherlands.