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Uber Executive Suggests Digging Up Dirt on Journalists

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Re: Uber Executive Suggests Digging Up Dirt on Journalists

#171

Post by potatolicious »

DontBeADick wrote: post #155
Asparagirl wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please explain the NON "extreme and sensational" way to interpret comments talking about spending one million dollars to target, intimidate, and smear the press and to dig up dirt on their families. What's really cute is that even Uber doesn't even deny that this happened. No, that's all on you, dear HN commenter.

Your last 7 tweets were bashing Uber. You completely made up the "threatening to reveal the location of children" part. It's clear you're just another bored, delusional social justice warrior who wants to make a cause out of nothing. Sorry I don't share your hatred for Uber or your willingness to distort the truth to serve a personal agenda.

> "It's clear you're just another bored, delusional social justice warrior who wants to make a cause out of nothing."

No. Just no. This type of behavior is unacceptable around here - it may be in vogue around /r/TumblrInAction or GamerGate but it has no place here.

If you want to attack the substance of someone's argument fine but personal attacks, especially name calling are completely out of bounds in any sane venue of discussion. And note that Asparagirl has not attacked you personally throughout this entire conversation, much less resort to juvenile name-calling.

Personal side note: the "SJW" insult removes any shred of credibility you may have had.

Re: Uber Executive Suggests Digging Up Dirt on Journalists

#172

Post by none_for_me_thx »

eli wrote: post #168
none_for_me_thx wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was no mention of blackmail. There was no mention of revealing the location of children. There was no mention of "rifling" through the location metadata of another female journalist. There was no "implication" about leaking customer data. As far as I can tell, the article amounts to almost exactly what's in the headline: dirt digging. If you want to criticize Uber, it's certainly possible to do it without exagg…

According to the article an Uber executive did indeed access a journalist's data without her permission, something the spokesperson said was not possible: " In fact, the general manager of Uber NYC accessed the profile of a BuzzFeed News reporter, Johana Bhuiyan, to make points in the course of a discussion of Uber policies. At no point in the email exchanges did she give him permission to do so. " Or does "rifling"…

It wasn't clear what "accessed the profile" meant.

I guess it's talking about the travel logs from 2 paragraphs above?

Re: Uber Executive Suggests Digging Up Dirt on Journalists

#173

Post by potatolicious »

foobarqux wrote: post #147
potatolicious wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Surely you can see the difference between "loss of favorable treatment and perks" and "gross abuse of private data and anonymous slander"? What you've described - while highly problematic - is a pretty big distance away from "blackmail".

I'm not saying I support it, I'm just pointing out that companies manipulate journalists all the time and incentivize them not to "challenge the company's PR" as the GP put it. Uber's threats were extreme and beyond what is tolerated outside of politics. They could have manipulated her much easier by giving her unlimited free Uber "to better evaluate the service".

Oh I agree that there's a huge problem in using incentives to manipulate journalists and coverage - but I do think the comparison is a bit stretched.

It's like comparing a hang glider to a jumbo jet. Sure, both are bad behavior and have some common motivations, but the moral gap is gigantic.

Re: Uber Executive Suggests Digging Up Dirt on Journalists

#174

Post by ceph_ »

DontBeADick wrote: post #160
throwaway09F911 wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm writing this as a throwaway because this feels like mob and pitchforks. I'm a regular here and have no ties to Uber except using it. This whole story feels like they took a frustrated guy venting at dinner and making it into a conspiracy. Meanwhile, Sarah Lacey comments publicly and insultingly on people's political positions, emotions, and dating life. What the man said was very stupid. But it feels a lot like,…

Not to mention the fact that Asparagirl has intentionally interpreted his comments in the most sensational way possible, even going so far as to fabricate threats. "Look into your personal lives, your families" somehow magically became: > threatening to reveal details of the location of their children There's clearly a great deal of stupidity on both sides here.

Are you saying that wasn't a threat?

Also, if you don't interpret "families" as including children, what do you interpret it as? Her parents? Does that make it better?

Re: Uber Executive Suggests Digging Up Dirt on Journalists

#175

Post by softdev12 »

The most interesting thing to me about all this is that the tech media is probably about 50 percent responsible for pushing out tech start-ups to the wider world. If you go back and look at the beginnings of companies like Twitter (blogged about by prominent bloggers) and Facebook (published by the Harvard student newspaper), the initial snowball effect to get these companies going is largely based on journalists pushing these startups to their readership.

And now we have the case where a company that has successfully navigated the hardest part of the cycle (becoming a big enough snowball to be self-sustaining) that they can turn around and challenge the journalists.

It's like a child who has grown up and now comes back to challenge the parent. Fascinating in an abstract general way.

Re: Uber Executive Suggests Digging Up Dirt on Journalists

#176

Post by imanaccount247 »

thesystemis wrote: post #74
nailer wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's possible he's pissed of at Sarah Lacy for reasons other than that she's a woman.

I don't think he's pissed off because she's a woman, he's pissed about because she's critical. Still, when he says someone will be "personally" responsible for someone's sexual assault, he's essentially trivializing sexual assault. It's like saying that a rape victim is "partially at fault", it's wrong, indefensible and misogynistic.

No, it isn't. This culture of "words mean whatever I want them to mean" is ridiculous. His statement does not express hatred of women. So it is not misogynistic. Turning misogyny into a buzzword that everyone ignores because it is never used appropriately is not beneficial.

Re: Uber Executive Suggests Digging Up Dirt on Journalists

#177

Post by imanaccount247 »

andy_ppp wrote: post #56
thesystemis wrote: post #53

I am surprised not to see the word misogynist on this page. Here, a SVP is not only threatening a reporter and her family (which is truly repugnant) and reporters generally, he's also discussing sexual assault in such a trivializing way: "He said that he thought Lacy should be held “personally responsible” for any woman who followed her lead in deleting Uber and was then sexually assaulted." The top comment on this p…

Uber has now been deleted from my phone. I hope others consider doing the same.

I just downloaded it to support them. The more absurd the PC bullshit gets, the more the rest of us will push back just to spite you. I can't wait for my new shirt to arrive.

Re: Uber Executive Suggests Digging Up Dirt on Journalists

#178

Post by csorrell »

DontBeADick wrote: post #141
carrier_lost wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Over dinner, he outlined the notion of spending “a million dollars” to hire four top opposition researchers and four journalists. That team could, he said, help Uber fight back against the press — they’d look into “your personal lives, your families,” and give the media a taste of its own medicine." "your families" = "your children"

> "your families" = "your children" I don't think that's a reasonable assumption to make. "Your family" could just as easily be referring to adult family members only (spouses, siblings, parents, etc.). It seems like you're jumping to that conclusion solely because it makes his comments more inflammatory.

I don't think the comment was made to threaten her children, but any parent who hears those words is going to think about their kids first, and become very defensive.

Re: Uber Executive Suggests Digging Up Dirt on Journalists

#179

Post by aetherson »

none_for_me_thx wrote: post #172
eli wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

According to the article an Uber executive did indeed access a journalist's data without her permission, something the spokesperson said was not possible: " In fact, the general manager of Uber NYC accessed the profile of a BuzzFeed News reporter, Johana Bhuiyan, to make points in the course of a discussion of Uber policies. At no point in the email exchanges did she give him permission to do so. " Or does "rifling"…

It wasn't clear what "accessed the profile" meant. I guess it's talking about the travel logs from 2 paragraphs above?

I suspect that the information pulled form the journalist's profile was pretty innocuous, or else they would have made more of a big deal about it.

But at the same time, the point isn't that "the Uber GM found some hideously private information about the journalist," the point is that regardless of what their "information policy" is, the GM could access the account of the journalist, and was apparently comfortable doing so based on his own discretion and sense of propriety rather than explicit permission. If his sense of propriety was fine, and the information was innocuous, then that particular event wasn't a big deal. But it kind of makes lie of the idea that another high-level individual at Uber who may have, shall we say, different ideas about propiety could not abuse the information that Uber is entrusted with.

Re: Uber Executive Suggests Digging Up Dirt on Journalists

#180

Post by [deleted] »

DontBeADick wrote: post #141
carrier_lost wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Over dinner, he outlined the notion of spending “a million dollars” to hire four top opposition researchers and four journalists. That team could, he said, help Uber fight back against the press — they’d look into “your personal lives, your families,” and give the media a taste of its own medicine." "your families" = "your children"

> "your families" = "your children" I don't think that's a reasonable assumption to make. "Your family" could just as easily be referring to adult family members only (spouses, siblings, parents, etc.). It seems like you're jumping to that conclusion solely because it makes his comments more inflammatory.

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