Publicly considering such STASI tactics for me is the last nail in the coffin, I'll never use a product of this strange company.
(I'm from Germany, maybe we are more sensitive to such threats)
Uber Executive Suggests Digging Up Dirt on Journalists
291–300 of 373 posts
Re: Uber Executive Suggests Digging Up Dirt on Journalists
#292Earlier quoted context omitted.
Also on the plus side, it was an off-the-cuff remark that only people who like getting upset over nonsense got upset about. If firing were imminent, it would be an insult to all reasonable human beings who know that sometimes you vent at parties. If you want to dislike Uber, dislike them over their anti-competitive practices, not over this.
> it was an off-the-cuff remark There's no such thing without some form of prior agreement that it's off the record. If you're hanging out with family, it's probably off-the-record, even if they're reporters. If you're hanging out with friends, it's likely but not guaranteed off-the-record, even if they're reporters. If you're in front of reporters that don't have specified ground-rules, it's on the record. It has be…
> Why should this guy get a pass? What's the guideline?
Many HNers like Uber and identify with its leaders because it's a successful startup. Therefore, they want to give him a pass.
Re: Uber Executive Suggests Digging Up Dirt on Journalists
#293Earlier quoted context omitted.
That is not what I said. If you're really having trouble interpreting what I wrote, perhaps you could ask less loaded question, and one more specifically related to what you're replying to.
That is exactly what you said! You said that when a woman journalist accuses you of sexism, it's already a "gendered incident" (even if you didn't do anything to deserve the original accusation!) and getting angry at her can be "reasonably" interpreted as a "continuing pattern of misogynistic behavior". The logical consequence of that is that any woman journalist can indict someone for misogyny and it's automatically…
Logical? By no-shades-of-gray, nuance-eliminating, crazy-person logic, sure.
Uber did some sexist stuff. A woman called them out for it. A man got upset and talked about a detailed revenge fantasy against her. He did not name any other journalists, even though plenty of people have been critical of Uber. Gender is part of this story.
I'm not saying that this guy is or is not a sexist or a misogynist, and I'm not saying that Uber does or does not have a culture that contributes to sexist or misogynist behavior. I wasn't present. I don't know enough to determine "true" here. Probably nobody does. Probably nobody ever will.
I am saying that is reasonable to suspect that gender plays a role here. Which is why I said "interpreting this as a continuing pattern of misogynistic behavior seems reasonable," and not whatever you think I said. We live in a world with a history millennia long of systemic sexism and endemic misogyny, a history we haven't entirely emerged from yet. People who see this incident as part of that history are not insane. They are reasonable.
I'm not saying that's the only reasonable interpretation. I'm saying reasonable people can differ on things like this, and you frothing at me won't change that.
Re: Uber Executive Suggests Digging Up Dirt on Journalists
#294Earlier quoted context omitted.
To say that this is "media controversy" borders on the absurd: this is entirely inappropriate and indefensible behavior from a top executive at a top company -- and it raises all sorts of legitimate questions about corporate culture and how companies internalize public criticism. You use the passive voice when you say that "it seems destined to be above the line" when in fact it is above the line because many in the…
I'm a bit confused, because this comment mostly seems in vigorous agreement with what we actually did. We restored the story to the front page, where it still is. But let me try to address your concerns as I understand them. The posts were obvious duplicates, so we did the routine thing and demoted all but one of them. It's true that we didn't merge the threads (which we've recently begun doing in many such cases), b…
The entire point of clickbait sensationalist journalism is to get people fighting about non-issues. A guy who landed a probe on a fucking comet was forced to apologize in tears because he wore a shirt that these same people disliked. Now even the MSM is pointing out how ridiculous that was. He was called sexist, exemplifying why women don't work in STEM. They just found evidence of organic matter on the comet. This is groundbreaking. But the fucking shirt. Scientific achievements don't generate the clicks and outrage like sensationalist "fuck ethics" journalism.
Let's make HN about sensationalist articles about shirts and off-hand jokes at private dinners.
Why not just unmod all of the websites that do this routinely. This is hardly as big as half of their "stories", and then let the front page be covered with stories that sit there for 2 days because they have 3000+ upvotes?
This place has become a more toxic version of Reddit. Oddly, this story isn't on the front page there, or even on the front of /r/programming. Or even in the first 4 pages. I guess they're doing something better.
How about we take it a step further and ban positive mention of Uber, since it seems the majority here hates Uber for one reason or another, even if they're mostly uninformed (and yes, quoting BuzzFeed or PandoDaily as fact makes one uninformed) or do so because someone poked their feelings. Maybe next we can ban gendered pronouns and require people disclose their full names, place of employment, and home address, because anonymity is the cause of online toxicity. We definitely need to lower the downvote bar to 0 so that new people can immediately begin downvoting anyone they don't like or disagree with. Let's see how deep this rabbit hole goes.
Re: Uber Executive Suggests Digging Up Dirt on Journalists
#295Poke a bear with a hot stick and you might get bit. I don't see what the big deal is.
Re: Uber Executive Suggests Digging Up Dirt on Journalists
#296Earlier quoted context omitted.
Also on the plus side, it was an off-the-cuff remark that only people who like getting upset over nonsense got upset about. If firing were imminent, it would be an insult to all reasonable human beings who know that sometimes you vent at parties. If you want to dislike Uber, dislike them over their anti-competitive practices, not over this.
> it was an off-the-cuff remark There's no such thing without some form of prior agreement that it's off the record. If you're hanging out with family, it's probably off-the-record, even if they're reporters. If you're hanging out with friends, it's likely but not guaranteed off-the-record, even if they're reporters. If you're in front of reporters that don't have specified ground-rules, it's on the record. It has be…
He wrote an apologetic email later, knowing full well we're now in a time where an ostensibly private email can be made public by the recipient and did not ask for any special status.
His email (which I did not read until you mentioned it) essentially said that he was just venting, and that is how myself and any other reasonable person would have interpreted it even before reading his email. Whether or not it was meant to be off-the-record is of no consequence here. It's the interpretation that is absurd and sensationalist.
Re: Uber Executive Suggests Digging Up Dirt on Journalists
#297I think this article is relevant context- Sarah Lacy is a professional troll:
http://www.cnet.com/news/journalist-becomes-the-story-at-mar...
Re: Uber Executive Suggests Digging Up Dirt on Journalists
#298I think making comments this stupid as a SVP is a fireable offense and I can somewhat see how the "family" mention makes Sarah Lacy worried about her children, but I totally don't get where this gender angle is coming from in this story. I don't read any of that in the original comments by Emil Michael.
Re: Uber Executive Suggests Digging Up Dirt on Journalists
#299Uber's only purpose and meaning is exploitation. Yes, the app is handy, but it's no disruption. The disruption is in destabilizing the taxi cooperatives and weakening the drivers' position. We should all cut the crap, there is nothing to be surprised by here.
Destabilizing taxi monopolies is a very positive societal disruption. I don't know where you're from but here Uber is half the cost of a cab, better service, and they actually have clean cars.
If you don't think they're disruptive, I'm not sure how you define disruptive.
Re: Uber Executive Suggests Digging Up Dirt on Journalists
#300Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 do…
Agree. In contrast, when I worked at Amazon, customer privacy was pretty religiously protected. To access detailed customer information required getting a one-time-use key, which is generated from a request that references other documentation (bug reports, customer support requests, etc) as well as a justification. This key would only work against a single customer, and expires after some time. The requests themselve…
This is the point.
The fact that the CEO can access data at whim should be very troubling. That means they don't have even the most basic infosec guidelines in place.