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.
Then the logical strategy is not to operate in a market where your brand is at severe risk of being tarnished.
Uber banned from operating in Indian capital after rape accusation
201–210 of 224 posts
Re: Uber banned from operating in Indian capital after rape accusation
#202Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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…
Why would you think I'm implying anything?
Re: Uber banned from operating in Indian capital after rape accusation
#203Earlier quoted context omitted.
Singling me out for nonsensical comments based on a wild misreading of my posts has reached the point of silliness. Why do you bother?
Your suggestion - that women should carry guns - ignores the society that doesn't condemn rape; the courts that don't convict rapists; and the police who don't arrest rapists. It ignores the fact that people have to be 21 to get a gun and gun ownership is not guaranteed. You migt not think you're blaming the victims but here tou definitely are. You are saying that women who don't carry guns are to blame for being rap…
I'm not defending or attacking his position, I just think these hair-trigger accusations of victim-blaming are harming your cause far more than they're helping, since they make people tune out actual victim-blaming. Regardless of the merit of his suggestion, its silly to say he's blaming the victim when he's not, and clearly didn't intend to. It would be perfectly acceptable to actually argue against his statement, but this "anything that isn't focussed solely on changing society is victim-blaming" is getting ridiculous, and trivializes the disturbing reality of actual victim-blaming. (for example, the quote I read the other day which said "something like that doesn't just happen, she must have done something to get herself in that kind of situation").
As a disclaimer: I don't think his suggestion is a realistic solution on a widespread basis, though it may be helpful in individual cases. Just because someone might suggest, for example, that their sister carry a gun if she goes to the red-light district at night, doesn't mean they're going to blame her if she doesn't carry and gets raped.
Re: Uber banned from operating in Indian capital after rape accusation
#204Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
I'm sorry for the state of affairs in the US about the claimed report ratio of the crime - however, a mere statement of anyone, by itself should never lead to an arrest, be it a man or a woman, because in a lot of cases there are ulterior motives in play.
Re: Uber banned from operating in Indian capital after rape accusation
#205Watching the Uber saga unfold has been a fascinating time-lapse into how and why industries become regulated in the first place. It's fashionable to decry calcified organizations that refuse to adapt to change, but we regulate industries in response to market failures, and Uber's approach has been to toss out the the baby with the bathwater.
Or another point of view is that this 'saga' has been caused by a political vendetta against Uber - a common problem for startups like Uber and Tesla who are attempting to scale and share their innovations with the world.
Re: Uber banned from operating in Indian capital after rape accusation
#206Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
No, I wouldn't say that had it 'just' been some reputation. As I already said an actual rapist should get the severest punishment imaginable, but I repeat, in a country like India, a man's (and his family's) entire life is ruined when he's falsely accused of rape. No one will befriend them, no one will lend them money, no one will marry even their siblings! I'm surprised that people here are so the unaware of the sev…
Post some examples of all these men's lives that have been ruined. Let's see whether these examples are, actually, worse than having been raped.
Re: Uber banned from operating in Indian capital after rape accusation
#207Earlier quoted context omitted.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/12/10/delhi-rape-one-conv... Of 706 reported rape cases, 1 lead to an actual conviction. So you have an under-reported category of crime which is irregularly prosecuted. There's obvious ethical issues with denying jobs to people based on accusation rather than conviction, but in a society with a broken justice system surrounding that, there's ethical dilemmas no matter how you slice…
> 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?"
Is it legal to discriminate against employees who've been accused but not convicted of a crime? Well, no.
Is anything else Uber is doing in India legal? No.
So… if they're breaking the law anyway, plus making sure to hide everything they do, including basic contact information, from anyone who might need to contact the company (to the extent that the government themselves had to hire a driver just to get in touch with someone), I feel like denying employment to someone convicted of a violent sexual assault would probably be the least unethical thing going on with Uber in India.
Re: Uber banned from operating in Indian capital after rape accusation
#208Earlier quoted context omitted.
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".
That's not really in the middle. The only difference between "accused" and "arrested" is that the accuser told the police.
Re: Uber banned from operating in Indian capital after rape accusation
#209Earlier quoted context omitted.
No, I wouldn't say that had it 'just' been some reputation. As I already said an actual rapist should get the severest punishment imaginable, but I repeat, in a country like India, a man's (and his family's) entire life is ruined when he's falsely accused of rape. No one will befriend them, no one will lend them money, no one will marry even their siblings! I'm surprised that people here are so the unaware of the sev…
Oh seriously. That's enough. Post some examples of all these men's lives that have been ruined. Let's see whether these examples are, actually, worse than having been raped.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/indore/Woman-sentenc...
If you search online, you'd find that there are many, many cases where an Indian girl elopes/lives with a man on free will, has consensual sex but after a few days, months, or even years files a rape case for various obvious reasons, surprisingly often when forced by parents.
You wouldn't 'like' to believe, but Pune police once said 74% of rape cases reported to them were consentual sex later turned rape. In fact Mumbai police says the main reason of the low conviction rate is false rape cases.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/mumbai/Rape-convicti...
https://www.facebook.com/notes/deepika-narayan-bhardwaj/fals...
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/ranchi/Lured-by-comp...
And a lot, lot more, just help yourselves with some Googling.
Re: Uber banned from operating in Indian capital after rape accusation
#210Earlier 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?"
On the question of 'is it better to exclude non-rapists than include rapists', especially in the case of claiming that their service is safer than taxis (which they do all the time, unless someone points to a counterexample at which point they disclaim all responsibility): I would say yes. Is it legal to discriminate against employees who've been accused but not convicted of a crime? Well, no. Is anything else Uber i…
'Is it better to include into the set of Uber drivers, 10 non-rapists and 1 rapists or to exclude 10 non-rapists and 1 rapists.'
Probably the latter.
'Is it better to include, into the set of NYC residents, 5 million non-rapists and 3 rapists than to exclude 5 million non-rapists and 3 rapists.'
Probably the former.