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Conjecture. You have literally no evidence in support of that belief. Not forced, full stop, the headline of the article is flat out wrong. If you defend this s

Conjecture. You have literally no evidence in support of that belief. Not forced, full stop, the headline of the article is flat out wrong. If you defend this shit just because you agree with the sentiment, you have no right to an opinion about fake news. EDIT: For the record, the parent has ghost-edited their post.

ceejayoz 10y ago
Sure. No evidence except centuries of union busting, Uber's flouting of regulations, metrics on everything, digging into ride records without permission to prove points to journalists, etc.
icebraining 10y ago
I agree that the headline is over the top. That said, Uber now even tracks users when outside the car. Since they can't know for sure if it's being tracked, it's inevitable that the drivers will feel pressured, and Uber knows that.
- mseebach 10y ago
  It's not over the top, it's a lie. A creepy feature in the customer app has no bearing on that.
xg15 10y ago
After the recent reveals about the Greyball tool, such conjectures seem reasonable.
- mseebach 10y ago
  Do you think people who share fake news on social media think what it says seems unreasonable? Do you think that's a valid excuse to share fake news, or to defend it when it's called out for being fake?
  - xg15 10y ago
    Reasonable != true. The difference is between presenting your ideas as "facts" - or making it clear that they are theories, ideally with reasons given why you think they are worth considering. This exchange belonged to the latter category. More generally, the term "fake news" is thrown around far too often for my tastes. If I remember correctly, the origin was a scandal about eastern european scammers writing deliberately doctored news to create controversy and cash-in on ad revenue. Nowadays, this term seems to be used by anyone to describe any kind of rumors or guesswork (or occasionally well-researched journalism) that doesn't fit their particular view.
    - hueving 10y ago
      >Reasonable != true. Right, but in some peoples' opinions, the moon landing being a conspiracy is reasonable. That doesn't mean we should discuss it like it's true on this website.
      - xg15 10y ago
        Yup, hence why I specified why I find it worth to think about. (Greyball etc)
wmsiler 10y ago
I would dial this back a bit. Worst case scenario, the commenter you are responding to is committing confirmation bias by making negative assumptions to match their existing negatives beliefs. Confirmation bias is easy to slip into even if you know it exists, and this angry response isn't useful. Best case scenario (which I think is more likely), they are simply interpreting this story in context. Uber has several ethics scandals under their belt including ones involving them gathering and analyzing data for unethical purposes (guessing which of their customers have had one night stands).
- mseebach 10y ago
  How is this different from how fake news perpetuates? My foe has done bad things A, B and C, therefore it's OK to not just assume they are doing D as well, but OK to present D as fact. For the record, what I am reacting to is not the possibility of a belief that Uber might do such a thing[1], but the defence of a naked lie. 1: I think such a belief is an extremely shallow reading of Uber as wanting to do evil in and of itself, rather than willing to bend a lot of rules very very far to serve their customers (and sometimes cross the line in creative data-driven marketing), and have created a toxic corporate culture in the process -- it's easy to see how 'break all the rules as long as you're winning' can do that. I also don't think they will survive long, companies with less toxic cultures (but no less friendly to the taxi-interest-captured regulatory bodies or unions) will prevail because they can attract the better talent. Firing a driver with good performance because he doesn't listen to the company podcast is not even remotely consistent with that willingness. But that's not the discussion we're having.
  - ceejayoz 10y ago
    This is a company who wrote software to detect and hide from law enforcement, and you think it's not feasible they'd try and come up with a score for how friendly a driver is to unionization? C'mon. The headline is incorrect - they're not being forced - but it's hardly "fake news" conspiracy theory to speculate that some drivers may feel pressured over this.
    - 10y ago
Spooky23 10y ago
The company was just caught shadow-banning users who work for municipal government to avoid potential regulatory issues. Uber deserves zero benefit of the doubt, as they have proven themselves as an organization to be unworthy of trust.

ceejayoz 10y ago

Sure. No evidence except centuries of union busting, Uber's flouting of regulations, metrics on everything, digging into ride records without permission to prove points to journalists, etc.

icebraining 10y ago

I agree that the headline is over the top. That said, Uber now even tracks users when outside the car. Since they can't know for sure if it's being tracked, it's inevitable that the drivers will feel pressured, and Uber knows that.

mseebach 10y ago
It's not over the top, it's a lie. A creepy feature in the customer app has no bearing on that.

xg15 10y ago

After the recent reveals about the Greyball tool, such conjectures seem reasonable.

mseebach 10y ago
Do you think people who share fake news on social media think what it says seems unreasonable? Do you think that's a valid excuse to share fake news, or to defend it when it's called out for being fake?
- xg15 10y ago
  Reasonable != true. The difference is between presenting your ideas as "facts" - or making it clear that they are theories, ideally with reasons given why you think they are worth considering. This exchange belonged to the latter category. More generally, the term "fake news" is thrown around far too often for my tastes. If I remember correctly, the origin was a scandal about eastern european scammers writing deliberately doctored news to create controversy and cash-in on ad revenue. Nowadays, this term seems to be used by anyone to describe any kind of rumors or guesswork (or occasionally well-researched journalism) that doesn't fit their particular view.
  - hueving 10y ago
    >Reasonable != true. Right, but in some peoples' opinions, the moon landing being a conspiracy is reasonable. That doesn't mean we should discuss it like it's true on this website.
    - xg15 10y ago
      Yup, hence why I specified why I find it worth to think about. (Greyball etc)

wmsiler 10y ago

I would dial this back a bit. Worst case scenario, the commenter you are responding to is committing confirmation bias by making negative assumptions to match their existing negatives beliefs. Confirmation bias is easy to slip into even if you know it exists, and this angry response isn't useful. Best case scenario (which I think is more likely), they are simply interpreting this story in context. Uber has several ethics scandals under their belt including ones involving them gathering and analyzing data for unethical purposes (guessing which of their customers have had one night stands).

mseebach 10y ago
How is this different from how fake news perpetuates? My foe has done bad things A, B and C, therefore it's OK to not just assume they are doing D as well, but OK to present D as fact. For the record, what I am reacting to is not the possibility of a belief that Uber might do such a thing[1], but the defence of a naked lie. 1: I think such a belief is an extremely shallow reading of Uber as wanting to do evil in and of itself, rather than willing to bend a lot of rules very very far to serve their customers (and sometimes cross the line in creative data-driven marketing), and have created a toxic corporate culture in the process -- it's easy to see how 'break all the rules as long as you're winning' can do that. I also don't think they will survive long, companies with less toxic cultures (but no less friendly to the taxi-interest-captured regulatory bodies or unions) will prevail because they can attract the better talent. Firing a driver with good performance because he doesn't listen to the company podcast is not even remotely consistent with that willingness. But that's not the discussion we're having.
- ceejayoz 10y ago
  This is a company who wrote software to detect and hide from law enforcement, and you think it's not feasible they'd try and come up with a score for how friendly a driver is to unionization? C'mon. The headline is incorrect - they're not being forced - but it's hardly "fake news" conspiracy theory to speculate that some drivers may feel pressured over this.
  - 10y ago

Spooky23 10y ago

The company was just caught shadow-banning users who work for municipal government to avoid potential regulatory issues. Uber deserves zero benefit of the doubt, as they have proven themselves as an organization to be unworthy of trust.