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The power of any of these large platforms (and how they apply their "policies") is bewildering. I once listed some GPUs for sale on Amazon. Out of nowhere, wit

The power of any of these large platforms (and how they apply their "policies") is bewildering. I once listed some GPUs for sale on Amazon. Out of nowhere, without warning, they closed every account I had across Amazon platforms (including AWS). That was fun. Many people have reported the same thing with Google. Just this week a woman tweeted about a Lyft ride that went sideways. Of course some skepticism is warranted on versions of events because it is a bizarre story but Lyft summarily cancelled her account for "jumping out of" a Lyft ride[0]. Even after multiple attempts to give her side of the story they refused to re-open her account. It was only after the social media response that they reversed their position - which is incredible because they seemed to do this without any new facts. If she was really that dangerous to the platform they would/should have stood their ground. I have a similar story - I once had someone join me for an Uber ride and they yelled at the driver. The next day Uber sent me a notice that they "don't tolerate violence on the platform" and banned me from Uber worldwide for life (their description). It was embarrassing, I don't condone it, but I have to think the driver likely reported it as some kind of physical contact because I have no idea how yelling constitutes "violence". I didn't bother to pursue it in any way because if they don't want my money I won't give it to them. [0] - https://twitter.com/katlynskye24/status/1670819610138931202 https://twitter.com/katlynskye24/status/1670819610138931202

macintux 3y ago
Your friend probably made the driver feel unsafe; drivers are quite vulnerable to physical violence. Hard to defend yourself from attacks from behind you, driving or not.
- kkielhofner 3y ago
  I understand. Another reason I haven't pursued this (not like it would matter - I don't have millions of social media followers). The additional context here is she was yelling at me more than the driver and this was in a small Midwestern town where crime (and especially violent crime) is nearly non-existent. Unlike some of the incidents you hear about where there is physical violence there is a near-zero chance the driver had ever experienced any. To this day I am convinced a little yelling is more-or-less (unfortunately) par for the course of a day in the life of a ride share driver or really anyone in the service industry that interacts with the public. My perspective is that (again, unfortunately) people in these roles get yelled at on a daily basis (talk to anyone in service). If everyone who ever got yelled at (service industry or otherwise) described it as "violence" these industries would grind to a halt. My general sense (from my perspective, of course) is the drastic exaggeration and characterization on the part of the driver was more vindictive than a genuine concern for their safety. My version of events at least. Like the situation I linked to (Twitter thread) absent video (which should be mandatory and provided by the ride sharing platform) these situations are yet another they said/they said and wildly subjective.
  - ryandrake 3y ago
    The ban for selling GPUs I can't defend, but for the Lyft and Uber cases, I'm torn. Yes, companies are getting trigger-happy, but have you seen humanity lately? People are also trigger-happy and when triggered are becoming more and more belligerent and violent. As a company, for safety reasons you must be able to kick-out/ban them. People are freaking out in stores, public transport, airlines, everywhere. You don't want to be sitting next to someone at 30K feet in an airplane who's one comment away from having a total violent freakout.
    - kkielhofner 3y ago
      I'm with you on that. I shudder when I think how much law (for example) is based on "a reasonable person"... That definition (as vague as it has always been) is moving more and more in the wrong direction daily. This is why I mentioned mandatory platform provided dash and interior recording. It's very clear that in many of these scenarios (linked Twitter feed, my story) there isn't anything resembling an actual review. However the driver's issue was reported all they could have possibly considered to make their decision is whatever they reported. For all I know they said she hit them, for example. This of course goes the other direction. I was once in a Lyft where the driver had an associate (of some sort) clearly experiencing an overdose in the front passenger seat. She was slumped over, making gasping sounds. I calmly ended my ride early and my first call was to 911 to describe the car and the driver. Going in the app to report the driver was a remote second consideration. Yelling isn't criminal, what a "reasonable person" would characterize as violence is. As I noted it wasn't even really directed to the driver and at no point did I consider it threatening to either of us. If violence had actually taken place I would have expected the police to show up (as they did in my OD story). If she had hit them (or gotten anywhere close to threatening) I would be the first person to back the driver's story to the police. Like I said I woke up the next morning to an e-mail from Uber that was essentially "We got this report, the decision is final". Had I even had the opportunity to attempt to provide my version of events I'd feel a lot differently about this. Trigger-happy is putting it mildly.

macintux 3y ago

Your friend probably made the driver feel unsafe; drivers are quite vulnerable to physical violence. Hard to defend yourself from attacks from behind you, driving or not.

kkielhofner 3y ago
I understand. Another reason I haven't pursued this (not like it would matter - I don't have millions of social media followers). The additional context here is she was yelling at me more than the driver and this was in a small Midwestern town where crime (and especially violent crime) is nearly non-existent. Unlike some of the incidents you hear about where there is physical violence there is a near-zero chance the driver had ever experienced any. To this day I am convinced a little yelling is more-or-less (unfortunately) par for the course of a day in the life of a ride share driver or really anyone in the service industry that interacts with the public. My perspective is that (again, unfortunately) people in these roles get yelled at on a daily basis (talk to anyone in service). If everyone who ever got yelled at (service industry or otherwise) described it as "violence" these industries would grind to a halt. My general sense (from my perspective, of course) is the drastic exaggeration and characterization on the part of the driver was more vindictive than a genuine concern for their safety. My version of events at least. Like the situation I linked to (Twitter thread) absent video (which should be mandatory and provided by the ride sharing platform) these situations are yet another they said/they said and wildly subjective.
- ryandrake 3y ago
  The ban for selling GPUs I can't defend, but for the Lyft and Uber cases, I'm torn. Yes, companies are getting trigger-happy, but have you seen humanity lately? People are also trigger-happy and when triggered are becoming more and more belligerent and violent. As a company, for safety reasons you must be able to kick-out/ban them. People are freaking out in stores, public transport, airlines, everywhere. You don't want to be sitting next to someone at 30K feet in an airplane who's one comment away from having a total violent freakout.
  - kkielhofner 3y ago
    I'm with you on that. I shudder when I think how much law (for example) is based on "a reasonable person"... That definition (as vague as it has always been) is moving more and more in the wrong direction daily. This is why I mentioned mandatory platform provided dash and interior recording. It's very clear that in many of these scenarios (linked Twitter feed, my story) there isn't anything resembling an actual review. However the driver's issue was reported all they could have possibly considered to make their decision is whatever they reported. For all I know they said she hit them, for example. This of course goes the other direction. I was once in a Lyft where the driver had an associate (of some sort) clearly experiencing an overdose in the front passenger seat. She was slumped over, making gasping sounds. I calmly ended my ride early and my first call was to 911 to describe the car and the driver. Going in the app to report the driver was a remote second consideration. Yelling isn't criminal, what a "reasonable person" would characterize as violence is. As I noted it wasn't even really directed to the driver and at no point did I consider it threatening to either of us. If violence had actually taken place I would have expected the police to show up (as they did in my OD story). If she had hit them (or gotten anywhere close to threatening) I would be the first person to back the driver's story to the police. Like I said I woke up the next morning to an e-mail from Uber that was essentially "We got this report, the decision is final". Had I even had the opportunity to attempt to provide my version of events I'd feel a lot differently about this. Trigger-happy is putting it mildly.