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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

#201
post #14

Someone @Lyft PR needs to be on this stat. I've hardly seen Lyft take any advantage of fuckups like these by Uber.

That would be the worst idea. They should stay far, far away and not say word one. You do not ever get involved in controversy if you can help it. Say a word and get you and yours investigated by those looking for a follow-up story.

Re: Uber Executive Suggests Digging Up Dirt on Journalists

#202
post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They should probably fire Emil Michael or similar. The "spending 'a million dollars' to hire four top opposition researchers and four journalists. .... they’d look into “your personal lives, your families,” and give the media a taste of its own medicine" proposal is a bit out of order. The money to throw $1m around that kind of way comes from Google and like investors and they could object that they don't want to be…

And you have the love the sequence of events: (1) First their senior business executive (Michael) not only floats his plan at very public venue, but mentions both the budget ($1M) and the number of researches (4) they were thinking of hiring. (2) And then later, in damage control mode, the spokesperson (Hourdajian) tries to clean up by saying they've "never considered" doing opposition research -- despite Michael hav…

And apparently a specific rumor about a specific person they wanted to validate.

Re: Uber Executive Suggests Digging Up Dirt on Journalists

#203

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…

Well, Nixon used to be equally vindictive with reporters (conplete with typed up master plan), most of whom were men (only one woman made it onto his infamous "Enemies List.")

It's very dangerous when people in power cannot maturely handle conflict and disagreement.

Re: Uber Executive Suggests Digging Up Dirt on Journalists

#204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It's not PC it's called the free market? If I don't like Uber I have the choice not to use them. Anyway, watch this :-D https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bmsV1TuESrc

I didn't say you had to use them. I said that when you come out and say "I'm boycotting X because they violated SOCJUS law" you help them more than you hurt them. Because the number of people who think the PC/SJW nonsense has gotten absurd is much higher than the number of people who think it is cool.

Re: Uber Executive Suggests Digging Up Dirt on Journalists

#205

The most recent Pulitzer Prize winner for journalism (Glenn Greenwald) says journalism is an "adversarial" process. However, adversarial is by nature a two way street. Journalists who go digging into the lives of people and businesses need to be prepared for adversarial response. If I'm a business owner that's being investigated by a journalist, I want to find out the who, what, where, when and why. I am entitled to…

Uber is not entitled to investigate by delving into private details of people, though. And just because Uber happens to hold that data doesn't mean they're entitled to grovel through it for whatever purpose they feel like. If a journalist gets into a fight with a hospital, should that hospital be entitled to use the journalists's private health records to fight back? I say, of course not. Uber is in the same position qualitatively. Of course, in the case of the hospital it's actually illegal while for Uber it's probably not, but that's just because the law on privacy is way behind the times.

Re: Uber Executive Suggests Digging Up Dirt on Journalists

#206

I can see how being assholes, intimidating the press, undermining rivals via dirty tricks, and other such behavior, can maximize shareholder value. So maybe we just have to accept that this is the new normal and we should all focus on how we can play dirty tricks on our competitors, how we can intimidate the journalists who have written bad stories on us or haven't covered us. Where does the strategy to use intimatio…

This is just a typical Prisoners' Dilemma scenario. An individual company can gain an advantage with dirty tricks, but everybody is worse off if all companies try it.

The optimal position (with no dirty tricks) is unstable. We stay there by punishing those who deviate. This is why the pitchforks come out in cases like this.

Re: Uber Executive Suggests Digging Up Dirt on Journalists

#208

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.

It's not the sort of thing you should have to aprse in the first place. There's a narrow set of circumstances in which some family issues might be legitimate to discuss, eg if a journalist's spouse or other immediate relative was a senior officer or investor in a direct competitor - but then you could just say 'we think X is an unethical journalist because s/he has a major conflict of interest which biases articles s/he writes about our firm' because there's plenty of precedent for dealing with such issues in the world of financial journalism.

Vague talk of investigating 'your families' comes off more as an attempt to intimidate; arguably the vagueness is intended to provoke anxiety and worry to a greater degree than a specific allegation (as above) that could be refuted or debunked.

Re: Uber Executive Suggests Digging Up Dirt on Journalists

#209

Attempting to blackmail the press if they challenge your company's PR? Specifically targeting parents' worst fears by threatening to reveal details of the location of their children? Openly rifling through the location metadata of another female journalist, a customer of theirs, without her consent? Implicitly saying they'll leak customer data of Uber customers who are journalists, the kind of thing that can potentia…

In all fairness, Paul and Sara have been on an absolute witch hunt, seemingly angry because of Travis' capitalist ideals. I'm not going to defend the guy that made these comments, but I've heard enough from Sara and Paul to know that Pando has waged war on Uber, and should not be surprised that they've ruffled some feathers. Pando also shares a common investor with Lyft, so there's that...

... then Travis is playing right into their hands and feeding the troll.

Personal flame wars on the net are one thing, but involving your company in that shit? The minute you take money and hire other people it's not your personal sandbox. This 4chan crap should at best come with a huge "my opinions are my own" disclaimer and should never involve your company.

Re: Uber Executive Suggests Digging Up Dirt on Journalists

#210

The most recent Pulitzer Prize winner for journalism (Glenn Greenwald) says journalism is an "adversarial" process. However, adversarial is by nature a two way street. Journalists who go digging into the lives of people and businesses need to be prepared for adversarial response. If I'm a business owner that's being investigated by a journalist, I want to find out the who, what, where, when and why. I am entitled to…

To what extent are you "entitled" to "investigate" into the personal lives of journalists and public critics?

If your goal is not to intimidate, what purpose does it serve and accomplish? Freedom of the press is important and is part of the Constitution. Journalists can investigate a business even if you think they shouldn't.

Looking into the financial ties of journalism is game. But the industry and business of journalism is not the same as someone's personal life, their sexual preferences, children, family, etc.

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