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Uber banned from operating in Indian capital after rape accusation

reuters.com

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Re: Uber banned from operating in Indian capital after rape accusation

#191

Post by tormeh »

anu_gupta wrote: post #180
lettergram wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would just like to point out, that the crimes aren't necessarily under-reported (i.e. 706 reported), rather, there was not enough evidence to convict. I would still argue that there is a high amount of under-reporting because people are embarrassed, just want to put it behind them, etc. However, I also feel a large number of the reported cases are skewed due to angry ex-girlfriends, intoxication, etc. Specifically,…

> However, I also feel a large number of the reported cases are skewed due to angry ex-girlfriends, intoxication, etc. What are you actually trying to say here? How are these cases skewed?

That some accusations are not true, and that some rape never leads to accusations. Most rape is not ever reported, because of the psychological impact it has, and the kind of people clever rapists rape. The rapes that are reported stand in line with a sizable amount of accusations that are false. Sadly, for a jury to tease apart the liars from the valid accusers is hard. It's worse than chance, actually, because rape victims often react to talking about it, especially with the rapist in the room, in a manner which makes them look unconvincing.

What were you implying? That there's some easy answer here?

Re: Uber banned from operating in Indian capital after rape accusation

#192

Post by kaitai »

piyush_soni wrote: post #178
kaitai wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would urge you to re-think your writing. "The rape wouldn't have even been an issue" indicates that you haven't thought very deeply about rape; if this woman was raped, it is certainly still an issue whether Uber can legally cover its ass or not. It is unfortunate how popular your opinion is among young men: rape really isn't an issue; lots of "angry ex-girlfriends" and "intoxication" skewing those reports (factual…

While the grandparent comment didn't claim his statement as a fact, you are mentioning your contradictory statement as a 'fact' (factually incorrect? What?) Being raped really sucks, yes, and IMO the rapist should get the most severe punishment imaginable, but being falsely accused of rape is even worse - it destroys the whole career and life of an innocent man - and this is something that happens a lot in India and…

Thanks for confirming that rape is less important than a man's reputation :) Women know that already. That's why many don't report.

Having seen people report rape in the US, it is certainly not enough for anyone to be arrested immediately. There's the question of evidence, and whether anyone will look at the evidence, and whether the victim can be talked into ignoring it. In 2013 there were about 20,000 untested rape kits in Texas alone -- 20,000 crimes that were reported, where a woman had semen, hair, and other evidence collected through an invasive procedure, that were entirely ignored [1]. And that's only reported rapes. None of my friends who have been sexually assaulted have ever reported it (although these were all assaults by "friends", not strangers). They just wanted it to go away.

To top it off, in many locations in the US women still have to pay for their own evidence collection. If you haven't got the $600-$1200 it takes to pay for the exams yourself, you're out of luck on the prosecution front! (Yes, this is sort of illegal, but it's still happening [2].)

So rest easy -- come to the US where a woman's statement will probably be ignored for a long time [3].

[1] http://www.texastribune.org/2013/01/04/clearing-texas-rape-k... [2] http://www.nola.com/health/index.ssf/2014/09/state_leaders_p... [3] http://gawker.com/who-wants-to-remember-bill-cosbys-multiple...

Re: Uber banned from operating in Indian capital after rape accusation

#193

Post by EpicEng »

rmc wrote: post #91
pc86 wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> there's ethical dilemmas no matter how you slice it You're exactly right. So the question becomes, "Is it better to disqualify applicants based on accusation alone, knowing that you'll disqualify some number of innocent people, or is it better to screen on convictions alone, knowing that you could possibly not screen out some guilty folks you otherwise would?"

You can go better than "accusation". Anyone could accuse anyone of anything. But you could set the bar in the middle with "arrested", which is half way between "accusation" and "conviction".

Is it? I was accused of a robbery when i was a teenager. I was arrested on another kids claim that i had broken into his garage. No supporting evidence, no other testimony. The charges were dropped, but I was cuffed and taken in.

Re: Uber banned from operating in Indian capital after rape accusation

#194

Post by mercurial »

anigbrowl wrote: post #174
mike_hearn wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately, rape cases are very hard to convict (even in US) because police & prosecutors does not take rape investigations seriously. They are hard to convict because usually there are no witnesses and it turns into he said / she said. I see a lot of people wishing it were not so, but the legal system has severe punishments and thus a high bar for conviction (or that's how it's supposed to be).

It's more complex than that. If we have words on the street, and I punch you and break your nose, you won't have any problems getting your complaint taken seriously. Nobody gets their nose broken for pleasure; even boxing clubs and so on have rules of conduct and activities are generally supervised to ensure conduct remains within those boundaries. On the other hand, people have sex for pleasure a lot, and sexual act…

My impression is that in many countries, police officers are inadequately trained and often do not treat rape and sexual assault as seriously as they deserve.

Re: Uber banned from operating in Indian capital after rape accusation

#195

Post by gizmo686 »

kaitai wrote: post #186
gizmo686 wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The rape wouldn't have even been an issue [for Uber]"

It would still be an issue for Uber -- if nothing else, it's bad customer service and indicative of poor quality control. Can't people even admit that? If someone was complaining about being overcharged, everyone would accept it without question and wouldn't say "it's not an issue" for Uber/consumer/whoever. But it seems that being overcharged is a complaint that is legitimate because men believe that it happens with…

Companies have bad employees. People intuitively understand and forgive that. People are much less forgiving if the company does not help in dealing with its bad employees, or (is perceived to) have an unusually high number of them.

Re: Uber banned from operating in Indian capital after rape accusation

#196

Post by [deleted] »

RealGeek wrote: post #21
pyrois wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't quite understand the wording on the website. The article said the driver was acquitted; would a proper screening still have disqualified him, given his acquittal? Quick disclaimer: clearly, given what you said, Uber needs to dramatically change how it operates in India, and thorough background checks are hugely important for a commercial transport service. I'm just wondering if it would have been enough to pr…

If Uber didn't hire this driver, this crime could have been prevented. Delhi laws require all cabs to have an onboard GPS: "The vehicle must be fitted with GPS/GPRS based tracking devises which must be in constant communication with the Central Control unit while the vehicles is on duty." Uber didn't even have an on-board always on GPS, their only way to track is through mobile app; which the driver conveniently turn…

[deleted]

Re: Uber banned from operating in Indian capital after rape accusation

#197

Post by textframe »

RealGeek wrote: post #21
pyrois wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't quite understand the wording on the website. The article said the driver was acquitted; would a proper screening still have disqualified him, given his acquittal? Quick disclaimer: clearly, given what you said, Uber needs to dramatically change how it operates in India, and thorough background checks are hugely important for a commercial transport service. I'm just wondering if it would have been enough to pr…

If Uber didn't hire this driver, this crime could have been prevented. Delhi laws require all cabs to have an onboard GPS: "The vehicle must be fitted with GPS/GPRS based tracking devises which must be in constant communication with the Central Control unit while the vehicles is on duty." Uber didn't even have an on-board always on GPS, their only way to track is through mobile app; which the driver conveniently turn…

>If Uber didn't hire this driver, this crime could have been prevented.

How about, the crime wouldn't have committed if the rapist didn't rape? Taking the blame away from him is as dumb as blaming the victim.

Re: Uber banned from operating in Indian capital after rape accusation

#198

Post by lotsofmangos »

pyre wrote: post #190
lotsofmangos wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Getting a London black cab license is about as difficult.

I have no experience with the London cab system, but is getting a London black cab license really as difficult as going through a 4-year university degree program (+ whatever 'residency'-type work afterwards)? [In any case, this is a side point. Most places don't have severe barriers to becoming a cab driver other than limit supply of licenses. And none of that even applies to Uber since they are ignoring that system…

Getting The Knowledge is pretty hard. Half of the people who try still fail after spending years on it.

In order to qualify as a licensed London taxi driver, a trainee must learn the complex and irregular layout of London's ~25,000 streets (Figure 1) within a 6-mile radius of Charing Cross train station, along with the locations of thousands of places of interest. This spatial learning is known as acquiring “the Knowledge” and typically takes between 3 and 4 years, leading to a stringent set of examinations, called “appearances,” which must be passed in order to obtain an operating license from the Public Carriage Office (PCO, the official London taxi-licensing body).

from 'Acquiring “the Knowledge” of London's Layout Drives Structural Brain Changes' - http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3268356/

Re: Uber banned from operating in Indian capital after rape accusation

#199

Post by simplekoala »

sriramk wrote: post #136

I think Uber is being unfairly maligned here - too long for a comment, long piece at https://medium.com/@sriramk/in-defense-of-uber-in-india-f81c... . tldr: Uber just can't do the same checks it does in the US in other parts of the world which don't have records. And even though it did actually get the right certificate from the cops in this case, they should have thought of doing more.

As a top technology company, Uber should have had some basic measures to ensure safety of their rides. In this specific case, the driver turned off the GPS, and took a detour. At the very least, these incidents should have triggered alerts on their internal monitoring systems. And, assuming they had an agreement with cellular service providers for public safety, they could have tracked of the location of the female rider through her cellphone, and dispatched cops to that location.

Precisely for the reasons you mentioned in your blog post about how things can be gamed in India through bribes, Uber should have been careful about expanding in India. Asking the drivers to provide a conduct certificate in a corrupt country like India is a "cover your ass" move to precisely brandish this certificate and say - "Hey, see, we did our homework. It is not our fault" in situations like this.

This was an opportunity for them to raise the bar. This is a leadership failure. They were too eager to just expand overseas. They could have used technology to mitigate such risks in the "rape capital" of India (world?). Some things I think they can do as a technology company in India

- Install custom GPS trackers which cannot be turned off manually on the cars.

- Install a special audio/video cam in the car, and automatic audio/video feed analysis for distress screams, struggle.

- Automatic algorithmic tracking of the car route/de-tours

Like I said, they had a golden opportunity to showcase how technology could be used to mitigate the risk of such incidents in Delhi, and used it in their marketing. They could have raised the bar. They could have shown how it is done. They could have made the world safer and better. This is what separates the great from the good. Larry Page calls them Moonshots. Uber had the resources to do it. They played the "CYA" game. They should take responsibility. They could have taken something and made it 10X better. That's what great companies do.

Re: Uber banned from operating in Indian capital after rape accusation

#200

Post by dang »

Someone1234 wrote: post #171
dang wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> No, but I do know you don't understand reporting and statistics No personal attacks on HN, please. This comment has a good argument. Abrasiveness tarnishes it.

That wasn't a personal attack. It was a statement of fact based on the obvious misinformation within their post (which was worse pre-edit, by the way). If someone said "the moon is made of cheese" and someone replies "you don't understand what the moon is made of" that isn't a person attack, since it was directed at their argument not their character. If I had called them names, broadly questioned their intelligence,…

It was personal and its presence at the start of your comment was obviously abrasive. For our purposes that counts as a personal attack. It wasn't egregious, but (a) this kind of subtle nastiness toxifies the environment here, and (b) it marred your otherwise fine comment.

"It was a statement of fact", if true, is beside the point. Facts are often used as ammunition for gratuitous jabs. Indeed, they make the best such ammunition, because then one can say "I'm just stating facts." But it's the gratuitous jab that's the problem.

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