6 ms·

You are assuming that the allegations are true. From what I've heard, it seems plausible that the alleged culture may exist at this company. But I don't take a

You are assuming that the allegations are true. From what I've heard, it seems plausible that the alleged culture may exist at this company. But I don't take allegations to be true simply because they have been made - as is, in my opinion and in the opinion of the legal system of the United States, the correct perspective.

forrestthewoods 10y ago
The allegations are trivially falsifiable. Did multiple women report the same person for harassment? Were multiple accusers told that it was his first offense? If the answer is yes then heads should roll. Why were reporters of harassment falsely told it was the accused harasser's first offense? Good question. There are several possible answers. Some more malicious than others. But they all end with several high level someone's losing their head.
- aisofteng 10y ago
  If the allegations are true, yes, heads should roll. Why are there no examples of this wealth of evidence that has been claimed to exist?
  - enraged_camel 10y ago
    I think what the parent is implying is that it would be career suicide for anyone to make such serious accusations unless they have considerable evidence to back them up. I mean let's face it: Susan doesn't stand to gain much from publicly accusing her former employer of harboring and shielding sexual harassers, but she has a lot to lose. Heck, she probably has hurt her employment prospects quite a bit, since many future employers will label her as a "troublemaker" and refuse to hire her. My guess: Susan has hard evidence that she can use if Uber comes after her with a defamation lawsuit. Otherwise Uber management wouldn't bother with this investigation (not to mention publicly announce that there is an investigation).
    - aisofteng 10y ago
      I will preface this comment by saying that I think this may be a true allegation just as much be a false allegation; I, like any other Internet commenter, do not know enough to be able to judge. What I do want to say, however, is that in the United States there is, in fact, currently a culture that not only favors women making accusations of sexism and harassment, but also one that makes it taboo to express the normal standard of "innocent until proven guilty" in cases when the accuser is a woman. To be clear, I am not saying that this accusation must be necessarily false or with some sort of ulterior motive. As far as I can tell, there are more than a few places in the US where this sort of thing not only exists but is considered normal, and that is a legitimate issue that needs correction ASAP. But we still have the concept of "innocent until proven guilty", and we do have the effect I mentioned above in cases where the accuser is female. In this case, we have a blog post and nothing more, and so I think it is not only premature but also morally and ethically wrong to bring the pitchforks out immediately.
      - pjc50 10y ago
        > culture that not only favors women making accusations of sexism and harassment No there isn't, or we wouldn't be having this conversation! Culture is tilted very heavily against the accuser and they are usually disbelieved and nothing is done. As in this case. Note that "innocent until proven guilty" is only the criminal standard of proof, whereas civil law is "balance of probabilities" and the court of public opinion .. well, that does whatever the hell it likes.
    - gydfi 10y ago
      >I think what the parent is implying is that it would be career suicide for anyone to make such serious accusations unless they have considerable evidence to back them up. I dunno, remember Ellen Pao? Sued Kleiner Perkins for sex discrimination several times, lost over and over, but still managed to land in a position as "an investment partner at Kapor Capital,[2] the Chief Diversity and Inclusion Officer at the Kapor Center for Social Impact,[3] and co-founder of the diversity consulting non-profit organization Project Include". And that's after getting sacked from reddit, too. The nature of the "women in tech" scene is such that you can make a niche for yourself by complaining even if your complaints are later shown to be bullshit.
  - powera 10y ago
    Verbal testimony IS a kind of evidence.
matt4077 10y ago
I civil cases such as this the standard is "preponderance of evidence" meaning "more likely to be true than not". At this point, considering both the detailed description and the public record showing that Emil Michael and others at the very top of Uber like to behave like drunken frat boys, that standard seems easily met to me.
mistercow 10y ago
That is a very unwise way to look at evidence. You can't apply the legal standard of evidence to the rest of the world, because courtrooms have facilities that make evidence highly available. You have discovery, expert analysis, compelled testimony, and the possibility of sealing records to protect the parties involved. When evidence should be available, absence of evidence is strong evidence of absence. Outside of court, things work differently. But we have other ways of dealing with evidence and trust, which wouldn't work very well in the courtroom. But you already know this, and I can prove it. Suppose a close friend, who you trust, tells you that someone broke into his house and stole his TV. Are you going to set aside judgment about this situation until you can collect more evidence? Are you going to demand that he show you security camera footage? Probably not, and rightly so. You believe your friend because of reputation. Your friend has staked your trust in him against his lying. You both know that if you find out that he lied, it will hurt your friendship, and you will be unlikely to trust him in the future. This is very much like the concept of precommitment in game theory. He has set up the situation so that if his claims turn out to be false, he's likely to suffer negative consequences. This allows him to produce evidence seemingly out of thin air, by tying his personal interests to the veracity of his claim. Now look at the two parties in this case. Fowler has staked her professional reputation on the truth of her allegations. She posted this under her real name, on her blog which is the second Google result for her name. If she turns out to be lying, things will go very badly for her. Not only will it be difficult for her to find a company willing to hire her, but Uber could sue her for defamation. Uber has staked... nothing. Indeed, they've done the opposite. Rather than cutting off their escape routes to establish credibility, they sacrificed credibility to buy an escape route. They publicly stated that their CEO is too unaware of the goings on at his own company to confirm or deny the allegations. They took a hit now so that they have more flexibility later. It would be hard to overstate how bad this looks. There's no good outcome for the move Uber just made, which means that they're probably hedging against something even worse. Barring the possibility that Uber has no idea how to handle basic PR scenarios, the only reasonable explanation is that they know they're holding a weak hand.
- abandonliberty 10y ago
  > If she turns out to be lying, things will go very badly for her. Not only will it be difficult for her to find a company willing to hire her, but Uber could sue her for defamation. Exactly. Given the risks, there should be some evidence. Perhaps it's not getting released at this stage to strengthen her legal position. It is popular in the USA right now to silence rational, evidence based discussions. Now more than ever it is of vital importance that we stick to values of relying on open dialogue, reason, and facts. If these values only apply when they are convenient and comfortable for you then they aren't your values, but instead a rhetorical tool you abuse. As a community of above-average intelligence and reason, I am disappointed to see hacker news commenters abuse their power to silence requests for evidence. If you approach things objectively you must always seek evidence. In this case the evidence shared thus far is character-based. That doesn't obviate the need or prevent the ability to have a rational, logical discussion about evidence. Please, go ahead and silence this post as well. Show me how badly you deserve your current political situation and fractured nation. If this community behaves this way, I don't have much hope for the world.

forrestthewoods 10y ago

The allegations are trivially falsifiable. Did multiple women report the same person for harassment? Were multiple accusers told that it was his first offense? If the answer is yes then heads should roll. Why were reporters of harassment falsely told it was the accused harasser's first offense? Good question. There are several possible answers. Some more malicious than others. But they all end with several high level someone's losing their head.

aisofteng 10y ago
If the allegations are true, yes, heads should roll. Why are there no examples of this wealth of evidence that has been claimed to exist?
- enraged_camel 10y ago
  I think what the parent is implying is that it would be career suicide for anyone to make such serious accusations unless they have considerable evidence to back them up. I mean let's face it: Susan doesn't stand to gain much from publicly accusing her former employer of harboring and shielding sexual harassers, but she has a lot to lose. Heck, she probably has hurt her employment prospects quite a bit, since many future employers will label her as a "troublemaker" and refuse to hire her. My guess: Susan has hard evidence that she can use if Uber comes after her with a defamation lawsuit. Otherwise Uber management wouldn't bother with this investigation (not to mention publicly announce that there is an investigation).
  - aisofteng 10y ago
    I will preface this comment by saying that I think this may be a true allegation just as much be a false allegation; I, like any other Internet commenter, do not know enough to be able to judge. What I do want to say, however, is that in the United States there is, in fact, currently a culture that not only favors women making accusations of sexism and harassment, but also one that makes it taboo to express the normal standard of "innocent until proven guilty" in cases when the accuser is a woman. To be clear, I am not saying that this accusation must be necessarily false or with some sort of ulterior motive. As far as I can tell, there are more than a few places in the US where this sort of thing not only exists but is considered normal, and that is a legitimate issue that needs correction ASAP. But we still have the concept of "innocent until proven guilty", and we do have the effect I mentioned above in cases where the accuser is female. In this case, we have a blog post and nothing more, and so I think it is not only premature but also morally and ethically wrong to bring the pitchforks out immediately.
    - pjc50 10y ago
      > culture that not only favors women making accusations of sexism and harassment No there isn't, or we wouldn't be having this conversation! Culture is tilted very heavily against the accuser and they are usually disbelieved and nothing is done. As in this case. Note that "innocent until proven guilty" is only the criminal standard of proof, whereas civil law is "balance of probabilities" and the court of public opinion .. well, that does whatever the hell it likes.
  - gydfi 10y ago
    >I think what the parent is implying is that it would be career suicide for anyone to make such serious accusations unless they have considerable evidence to back them up. I dunno, remember Ellen Pao? Sued Kleiner Perkins for sex discrimination several times, lost over and over, but still managed to land in a position as "an investment partner at Kapor Capital,[2] the Chief Diversity and Inclusion Officer at the Kapor Center for Social Impact,[3] and co-founder of the diversity consulting non-profit organization Project Include". And that's after getting sacked from reddit, too. The nature of the "women in tech" scene is such that you can make a niche for yourself by complaining even if your complaints are later shown to be bullshit.
- powera 10y ago
  Verbal testimony IS a kind of evidence.

matt4077 10y ago

I civil cases such as this the standard is "preponderance of evidence" meaning "more likely to be true than not". At this point, considering both the detailed description and the public record showing that Emil Michael and others at the very top of Uber like to behave like drunken frat boys, that standard seems easily met to me.

mistercow 10y ago

That is a very unwise way to look at evidence. You can't apply the legal standard of evidence to the rest of the world, because courtrooms have facilities that make evidence highly available. You have discovery, expert analysis, compelled testimony, and the possibility of sealing records to protect the parties involved. When evidence should be available, absence of evidence is strong evidence of absence. Outside of court, things work differently. But we have other ways of dealing with evidence and trust, which wouldn't work very well in the courtroom. But you already know this, and I can prove it. Suppose a close friend, who you trust, tells you that someone broke into his house and stole his TV. Are you going to set aside judgment about this situation until you can collect more evidence? Are you going to demand that he show you security camera footage? Probably not, and rightly so. You believe your friend because of reputation. Your friend has staked your trust in him against his lying. You both know that if you find out that he lied, it will hurt your friendship, and you will be unlikely to trust him in the future. This is very much like the concept of precommitment in game theory. He has set up the situation so that if his claims turn out to be false, he's likely to suffer negative consequences. This allows him to produce evidence seemingly out of thin air, by tying his personal interests to the veracity of his claim. Now look at the two parties in this case. Fowler has staked her professional reputation on the truth of her allegations. She posted this under her real name, on her blog which is the second Google result for her name. If she turns out to be lying, things will go very badly for her. Not only will it be difficult for her to find a company willing to hire her, but Uber could sue her for defamation. Uber has staked... nothing. Indeed, they've done the opposite. Rather than cutting off their escape routes to establish credibility, they sacrificed credibility to buy an escape route. They publicly stated that their CEO is too unaware of the goings on at his own company to confirm or deny the allegations. They took a hit now so that they have more flexibility later. It would be hard to overstate how bad this looks. There's no good outcome for the move Uber just made, which means that they're probably hedging against something even worse. Barring the possibility that Uber has no idea how to handle basic PR scenarios, the only reasonable explanation is that they know they're holding a weak hand.

abandonliberty 10y ago
> If she turns out to be lying, things will go very badly for her. Not only will it be difficult for her to find a company willing to hire her, but Uber could sue her for defamation. Exactly. Given the risks, there should be some evidence. Perhaps it's not getting released at this stage to strengthen her legal position. It is popular in the USA right now to silence rational, evidence based discussions. Now more than ever it is of vital importance that we stick to values of relying on open dialogue, reason, and facts. If these values only apply when they are convenient and comfortable for you then they aren't your values, but instead a rhetorical tool you abuse. As a community of above-average intelligence and reason, I am disappointed to see hacker news commenters abuse their power to silence requests for evidence. If you approach things objectively you must always seek evidence. In this case the evidence shared thus far is character-based. That doesn't obviate the need or prevent the ability to have a rational, logical discussion about evidence. Please, go ahead and silence this post as well. Show me how badly you deserve your current political situation and fractured nation. If this community behaves this way, I don't have much hope for the world.