[jastingo]

I'm not in the business of defending Uber - quite the contrary - but reading through the comments it seems that most people are assuming that this post by an anonymous person is 100% true.

These types of posts are worrying to me. Why could this post not have been crafted by someone at Lyft? Or one of Uber's many other detractors? Given the PR nightmare that Uber is in why not pile on while the public seems primed for that type of information and stretch out the negative news cycle?

Just thought I'd throw out a word of caution: we know literally nothing about the credibility of this person.

[enraged_camel]

She posted anonymously, BUT also went out of her way to provide an awful lot of information about herself. Information that her ex-coworkers could presumably verify and figure out her real identity (especially since Uber seems to have very few women in engineering positions).

Based on the article, she is:

  1) A woman in her late 20s
  2) who used to work at Uber in Engineering working on database and networking scalability
  3) went to a top private college
  4) has a Masters in Information Systems
  5) previous to Uber worked as a Data Analyst in a tech company in the Midwest and left when it was acquired by a Chinese firm
  6) is 5 foot 7 Caucasian with dark hair
  7) never wears high heels

So yeah, the target demographic of the article is almost certainly her ex-coworkers. It seems to be a call to action of sorts.

[lr4444lr]

But the OP's point stands generally: If this were a smear campaign by a competing company, how different would it look?

I sympathize greatly with Ms. Fowler not least because she put her reputation out there and claimed to have documentation of the specific offenses, which a decently respectable journalism outfit like the NYTimes could fact-check. Fowler's story could be exaggerated, but I have reasonable doubt that it's true, or true enough to merit scorn toward Uber.

As inexcusable as this "Amy"'s story is if true, we have to keep our heads and recognize when we have a falsifiability problem on our hands with the current facts.

[UncleMeat]

It just seems surprising to many of us that this skepticism only seems to crop up in situations surrounding racial or gender discrimination.

[lr4444lr]

Can you describe a general situation where this kind of skepticism is avoided? I'm keenly aware that selective application of standards of evidence in legal matters is a serious bias problem, but if you are suggesting it happens in some issue to people across the ideological spectrum on that issue I don't know what you're talking about.

[Trundle]

Skepticism and comments about skepticism don't necessarily need a linear relationship. Making a pro skepticism comment is a reactionary move against people treating anonymous accusations as fact. If you see more people doing the latter when racial or gender discrimination issues are discussed then it makes sense that the former will follow.

The more serious/terrible the accusation, the more likely it seems to me that people will just take it on face value.

[steveplace]

Reactionary contrarian skepticism is kinda the MO of hacker news comments.

[enraged_camel]

These women are victims of harassment and abuse. It seems very unfair to expect them to also put their personal reputation on the line before we finally take them seriously. That's a very high bar to clear and it's the reason why so few women speak out publicly. That's why we must encourage, not discourage, anonymous disclosures, and give them the benefit of the doubt.

[lr4444lr]

I have a strong allegiance to the American justice principles of innocent until proven guilty beyond reasonable doubt, right to face one's accuser in open court, cross examination, and standards of evidence. So much so that I apply it to judging controversial current events like this. Much as I might dislike putting a powerful entity like Uber into the defendant's chair with those attendant protections, These principles and others have served me extremely well in suspending belief and not being led astray by sensationa news and consequently looking hotheaded and foolish when time bears out the details of the story.

You may feel otherwise, and I cannot and will not attempt to persuade you otherwise. But as I said before, I believe Ms. Fowler at this point, and take issue with Amy's claim on falsifiability grounds. "We" are under no obligation to take any particular person seriously. There are strong labor laws against the transgressions claimed, and if there are problems with enforcement or efficiency, I am all for examining our procedures, but I won't sacrifice the bedrock of fair and individualized consideration of the particular case within the storm of the prevailing dysfunction.

[laughinghan]

I understand where you're coming from; I don't think you've made enough of an effort to understand where your parent is coming from, your focus is entirely on how wrong you feel your parent is.

Of course the criminal justice system must abide by the principles of due process. Simultaneously, if someone anonymously expresses great suffering, we are of course under an ethical obligation to take them seriously, offer them our compassion, and take action based on what we can substantiate.

[lr4444lr]

I reread the parent, because your point is a well-taken that I might have brushed it aside too quickly. I can specify upholding my skepticism on the grounds that only Uber employees in some certain proximity to "Amy" could deduce whether she's a real person. If not Amy herself, but 2 or 3 of them who could vouch will come forward out of anonymity and say something along the lines of "yes, 'Amy' is a real person. Her story is real. Uber management treated her terribly and HR ignored her claims", then I'll be a lot more willing to consider this credible. I disagree that anonymous, unverifiable grievances impose on otherwise ethical and rational people a positive obligation of specific personal demand for belief or compassion. But I can only speak for myself.

[laughinghan]

These are not mutually exclusive.

We can extend our hearts and offer our support to the anonymous authors of these stories, seriously investigate the questions they raise, and prosecute to our fullest abilities all wrongdoings substantiated by credible reports (e.g. Susan Fowler's blogpost), while simultaneously being careful to restrict any punishment meted out to be only based on credible evidence.

"Believe victims" means offer support instead of minimizing ("I'm sure he didn't mean it") or making counteraccusations ("what were you wearing?"). It doesn't mean "automatically, immediately punish anyone accused of anything without due process".

[Trundle]

To give anonymous accusations of harassment and abuse the benefit of the doubt is to believe that someone is an abuser without evidence to. Given the effect that this can have on a persons life I don't believe it should be encouraged at all. It's guilty until proven innocent.

[467568985476]

It's really not "guilty until proven innocent". Nobody has gone to prison, much less been charged with a criminal offense. The article doesn't name anyone in particular, so even if harassment accusations ruined mens' careers (which is a comically untrue assertion in the first place), that argument holds no water. Sexism is real, harassment is real, and demanding some arbitrarily high standard of evidence before you believe it is at best obtuse and at worst deliberately complicit.

[plainOldText]

I know comments on this type of articles get extremely heated, but with no intention to favor any side, I will say this: What if she provided that "awful lot of information about herself" with the intent of deceiving the audience and creating the illusion that she's this person, when in fact she's somebody else?

Maybe she aggregated attributes from multiple women at Uber and created this new person which cannot be specifically indentified. I see this as a valid strategy to conceal one's identity.

[oska]

I think they've lost the benefit of the doubt after responding in an unconvincing way to Susan Fowler's allegations and the critical open letter from one of their VCs, to name just two recent examples.

People deserve the benefit of the doubt and courts are very strict on this. Companies that let such an issue fester for such a long time without convincing remediatory action probably don't deserve it in the court of public opinion.

[relics443]

Or that was all made up? Who is in a position to know every employee at Uber, so they can verify that this person actually existed, AND that they actually wrote it?

[obstinate]

> Who is in a position to know . . .

Nobody is. She could be lying. She could even be providing the demographic information of a coworker who had none of these experiences. She might be a space alien for all we know.

So you just have to weigh the evidence and get comfortable with uncertainty. Is there someone who would make all this stuff up? Sure. No doubt there's someone out there who likes internet adulation enough to cook up a story. Is this an instance of that happening? Not very likely, I think, since it corroborates what we're hearing from a lot of other people about Uber's culture, and Ms. Fowler's story. I judge that there is a high likelihood this story is true or mostly true.

That's all you can do really. You're never going to get first-hand, attributed corroboration in a case like this. This is because anyone in a position to do that would be outing the anonymous whistle-blower by corroborating, especially if more than two people did. If they care about the victim, they will respect her choice to remain anonymous. So demanding more before assigning credibility is tantamount to deciding to always disbelieve anonymous accounts. That is an option available to you, but I don't think that option is the most useful for developing true beliefs about the world around me, so I don't choose it.

[memmcgee]

Fowler's post established that this was happening to many women in the company. If we accept that Fowler is a credible witness, which I think is a fair assessment, we already know that this is a systemic problem. It's safe to assume then that if more women come forward, they are more likely to be telling the truth than not.

Additionally, it's in Lyft's or other detractors best interests not to fake additional claims. This is a scandal that will grow on its own, as/if more women come forward. If Lyft et al is caught faking claims, they discredit all the claims and make themselves the bad guys instead of Uber. All Lyft has to do is sit back and watch Uber dig themselves deeper into the hole they're in.

As other posters have also touched on, there is a history of men (and women) doubting and minimizing abuse claims made by women. This is not a good mindset to take as it minimizes the women's experience in favor of a corporation or individual who is already in a more powerful position than the accuser. By minimizing one accuser, we make it harder for women as a whole to speak up against abuse, which is not acceptable.

[ryandrake]

Let's assume I am an internet troll. What stops me from anonymously signing up for Medium and publishing a similar story, now that there are two out there that corroborate?

[asdfologist]

You would be a pretty lousy troll in that case.

[rubicon33]

By what measure? If getting a group of people to be upset, and riled up, or otherwise add fuel to a fire, is the aim of a troll, then this would have been a very successful one.

[flippe]

How many thousands of votes on Hacker News are required to graduate out of lousy trolling?

[1_2__3]

I'd argue Fowler's claims are similarly unchallenged.

[joycey]

True, but her claims haven't been denied by anyone. And a lot of her claims should have a paper trail. Either she was propositioned by her manager over corp chat, or she wasn't. Either she emailed HR these screenshots, or she didn't. Either she informed HR about the leather jacket incident, or it didn't happen.

These claims can be easily disproven by Uber if they were false, and the fact that Uber hasn't denied them says a lot.

[asah]

This is Susan Fowler, who's very well known in the community. ~zero chance it's fake.

[openmosix]

Is Uber a company with a horrible culture? Pretty much. Are the details of these reports 100% accurate? Hard to tell. When talking about the subject, I'd recommend to think about the big picture and not the details (ehy, have you heard at Uber people call colleagues "dirty whore" during meetings?)

[eropple]

To be frank? Uber gets the benefit of the doubt when they demonstrate that they've earned it. Every bit of smoke I have seen, both online and in my social circles, has had fire behind it. Every one, without exception.

So I'm going to believe this until I have a compelling reason not to, and "but it could be fake" isn't one.

[walterstucco]

I come from the country that gave birth to Cesare Beccaria and I won't stop believing that everyone is innocent until proven otherwise. Besides this is exactly smoke, blocking us from seeing the majestic damages Uber is doing to labour ad mobility all over the world. there will always be a woman who'll accept to work for them if the pay is good enough, the ones harassed will be maybe compensated one day with a few million dollars, but the elephant Uber will still be in the room. No matter what, they are still growing, and doing it fast. That's what really scares me, and all the engineers who did a great job of building their infrastructure are, IMHO, somewhat responsible for giving them the power to abuse it. I'm sure they all thought "let's give'em time and see what happens". This happens! every f*ing time. will we learn someday? will we stop to go west looking for the gold? I'm not sure we'll ever understand.

[iopq]

Just because every time you personally saw fire behind smoke doesn't mean that in the future this will hold.

[eropple]

This is true! And when Uber demonstrates that they deserve the benefit of the doubt, I will give it to them. Because I'm not a court; I'm a person.

[losteverything]

Although I agree, my training informs me that there is quite a history of doubting reports made by women. From rape to domestic violence.

As a bystander I don't even want to say out loud what you did, even though it crossed my mind.

Women have historically been ignored when reporting.

[jakobegger]

Everyone believes the story because it sounds plausible. It's not the first time we've heard of very bad culture at Uber, and it fits the ways they have been reported to treat their drivers, etc.

Most of the women who left Uber didn't publicly announce why they did. Now we're seeing a plausible explanation.

[walterstucco]

As much as I oppose to Uber philosophy, technology.and their work and HR policies (I even think it's dangerous for the future of mobility), I still think plausible is not enough for news to be news. It's merely enough for bar stories. I respect so much journalism that I don't want enough, I want facts, names, proofs and the smocking gun.

[laughinghan]

Do you also believe Hacker News comments should be held to the standards of journalism, and people on Hacker News shouldn't even discuss something unless there are facts, names, proofs, and the smoking gun?

No, reputable news sources shouldn't (and don't) publish claims like these without substantiation. But I don't see a problem with HN commenters discussing claims like these even though this is all we have to go on. And I don't see how that's an argument against its fundamental plausibility, which is what your parent comment discusses.

[nylonstrung]

At a company as large as Uber could someone working on database scalability be involved in calls about whether or not payment should be withheld from drivers before a ride ends? Would her manager be the decision maker for that?

That detail seems suspect to me. There are also essentially no details about the work that convey inside knowledge about the ideosyncracies of Uber specifically at a work place. It is also weird to me that she chose to be anonymous but included her height and a bunch of specific incidental details - it reminds me of how liars frequently add an excessive amount of detail to add credibility to their stories.

Personally it sounds true to me. but I'd like to see more scrutiny from someone with perspective on this.

[heisenbit]

The way I see it is that the team was working on the payment system. She may well have specialized on some scaling aspects but that does not preclude her working within a team having responsibility for building or maintaining the payment system. Considering that Uber has a micro services architecture the teams will be organized vertically along end-to-end functionality and not along the architectural layers. In that way the story is consistent with what is publicly known about Uber IT.

[arunitc]

I just returned to India after working in the US for one year. I find it extremely difficult to believe such a culture can exist in the country let alone an organization. People there were friendly, extremely polite and well mannered. I never once faced any incidents or racism or hatred in my work place and out. I can't imagine things like this even in my wildest dreams.

-Chauvinistic, racist and homophobic attitudes were far too normal

-It was normal for guys to openly refer to attractive female colleagues as sluts

-They had private chats where guys wrote sexual fantasy stories about female colleagues and supervisors where they performed all sorts of demeaning acts on the women

Also the fact that she talks about driver compensation makes it look like it was an article written just to smear Uber. I may be wrong though, but really, really hard to believe.

Edit: She refused to meet Freda Kapor (see comments in post) makes it all the more suspicious.

[kdamken]

This 1000 times. It so easy to lie on the internet. It's even easier to get riled up and pick up pitchforks. The things this person wrote about were horrifying, yes, but an anonymous post on the internet should not be immediately accepted as cold hard facts.

[Tycho]

I wouldn't be surprised if this was fake. It seemed to hit on too many talking points and buzzwords. It has a "too good to be true" feel to it.

[lenkite]

I didn't see any buzzwords or liberal talking points in this article. Could you provide specifics ? This article feels exactly as it would be written by a scared and angry person. Not everyone is cool,(as in calm headed) brilliant and courageous as Fowler. Fowler had the smarts, strength and level headedness to keep proof and you get the strong feeling that she has kept more proof hidden and ready to use as ammunition . I suspect she would make a very good troop leader if she had ever joined the military - her writing gives the vibe of an very strong willed woman. But expecting most folks (whether women or men) to be like her and track all facts and evidence in a personal crisis situation is expecting too much of anybody.

[Tycho]

It's not what the author left out (eg. proof, evidence) that makes me suspicious, it's what they put in.

To wit:

- in the 3rd paragraph, it includes the gender wage gap topic. Usually companies keep employee salaries hidden from each other, so the way its included here feels more like box-ticking of a feminist talking point

- also in the 3rd paragraph, it establishes the character as somebody who is not overly "privileged", which is important for liberals (privilege undermines your platform of victimhood; if you're writing something like this, the less privilege the better)

- the 4th paragraph introduces the ideals of respecting human beings regardless of their gender, sexuality of religion. It's like the writer is going for a broad thematic sweep.

- also in the 4th paragraph, it refers to the concept of "triggering", another SJW trope that other people would probably cringe at using

- this sort of thing just sounds like it was written by Lena Dunham: "Uber finally broke me by destroying my dignity as a human being, and reduced my aspirations by attaching their worth them to a female reproductive organ. Like they did to Susan, Uber killed a part of me that was most precious."

- this bit sounds very far fetched, like the author is trying to work in examples of misogyny that they've witnessed on the web: "They had private chats where guys wrote sexual fantasy stories about female colleagues and supervisors where they performed all sorts of demeaning acts on the women."

- the author seems to have a hang-up about high-heels, another feminist issue, and even works it into dialogue: after casually asking me if I was married or in a relationship, he told me that he liked women in heels. “You know what heels do don’t you?”

- weaving in another grand feminist theme: "I would wonder why I went to grad school instead of wearing heels and marrying a rich guy so I would never have to work."

- as others have noted, the personal detail that is included doesn't seem like it's written by someone really concerned about preserving their anonymity. And at the same time, the rest of the article seems strangely impersonal, running through generic feminist tropes

I am not saying the basic details are entirely implausible, but the way it's written leads me to strongly suspect it's fake.

[laughinghan]

Are there publicly known instances of something like this being "too good to be true", or is your feeling based only on private experience?

I have had no private experience with something like this being "too good to be true", and multiple instances of it being all too true. And there is obviously a publicly known instance of something like this that appears quite credible (the Susan Fowler blogpost). So you understand why I'd feel the opposite way---that in spite of the lack of substantiation, this feels all too true.

[Tycho]

Here is one example

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/nov/28/alt-ri...

I could tell it was fake because it hit on so many tropes of the left.

Here's a more directly comparable example (incredibly long winded expose... skimming recommended)

https://contraspin.co.nz/the-weaponising-of-social-pt1-the-c...

It's not about the events, it's about how they are framed and told by the anonymous author.

[laughinghan]

I'm confused. Are you saying that Guardian article is a hoax? In what way is that a publicly known fact? I did not see any retraction or correction on the link provided.

The Contraspin article is pretty fascinating and from skimming it, makes a decent case worth taking seriously, but one good case isn't a consensus; in fact, it appears to run directly contrary to the consensus. (It also has plenty of weak spots; for example, someone who's been Executive Director of the EFF for 15 years has a lot of credibility in my eyes.) By contrast, Sarah Fowler's article has been corroborated by reputable sources like the New York Times [1], who've found additional horror stories along similar lines. (To be clear, I'm operating under the assumption we're in agreement that all indications are that Sarah Fowler's story is fundamentally accurate.)

Do you have any examples where it's a thorough consensus that an anonymous testimonial was made up to hurt someone, the way, for example, there's a thorough consensus that the Rolling Stone UVA article was pretty much made up?

[1]: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/22/technology/uber-workplace...

[Tycho]

Someone called Godfrey Elfwick claimed to have written the Guardian article as a spoof, although on closer investigation it seems there's no solid proof. That said, it reads like perfect satire, I can't believe it's genuine.

I recall a few similar instances over the years but I can't find links to all of them. Not sure if I can find an exact fit for an anonymous story made up to smear someone. The accusations of child-rape against Trump just before the election spring to mind:

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/jul/07/donald-trump...

More generally on fake accounts, there was the fake Syrian lesbian blogger:

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-13760208

There was the fake deaf cerebral palsy blogger:

http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/dave-on-wheels

There was this "meeting a troll" story from years ago which I always suspected was fake - looked it up just now, and while there's no hard evidence that it is fake, the writer (who made no claims to using a pseudonym), has since vanished from the face of the web, and it seems no journalists ever fact checked the story:

http://paulclarke.com/honestlyreal/2012/10/for-whom-the-bell...

My google search turned up this article from Breitbart which is actually pretty good, a rundown of fake stories that became national news over the years:

http://www.breitbart.com/big-journalism/2016/11/22/12-fake-n...

Their comment on the infamous Stephen Glass I think gets to the heart of how fake articles get written:

Some speculated Glass fooled so many editors because he had “wonder boy” star power and great personal charisma. Others thought it was because he understood and flattered the biases and expectations of the publications he worked for – he sold them stories they wanted to publish, surfing the early wave of “narrative” obsession that has completely consumed mainstream journalism over the past two decades. Glass invented people, organizations, and events that lived down to his publishers’ darkest expectations of every social group and profession except their own.

[rifung]

> These types of posts are worrying to me. Why could this post not have been crafted by someone at Lyft? Or one of Uber's many other detractors? Given the PR nightmare that Uber is in why not pile on while the public seems primed for that type of information and stretch out the negative news cycle?

This is a good point, but I thought what historically happens is that there are women who are too afraid to speak up? That's why I personally believe the story.. hopefully more people will speak up and so it won't matter that one of them isn't real.

[angryredblock]

Definitely agree caution is a good stance to take -- as much as we need to be supportive of victims we also need to be smart about doing our research. With that said, given Uber's recent history (Fowler) and without any action from Uber's higher-ups that indicates they actually give a shit (frankly a twitter apology from Kalanick and a half-assed 'investigation' isn't enough at this point), I'm far more inclined to err on the side of supporting the alleged victim than the alleged perpetrator in this case.

[Gatsky]

I would worry less about this credibility issue. Uber management, Mike#2, HR and likely every Uber employee will know if these claims are true, and if so, who they refer to. Our opinion and our degree of outrage matters not at all.

If history shows anything, and despite what we may like to think, public outrage has very little impact on corporate reality. The key to enacting change at Uber is the company management and HR. Rest assured the people that matter will know if this story is true.

[freyr]

From these comments, I can't tell if Uber is a scrappy startup where everybody knows everybody, or it's a huge global corporation where nobody knows what's going on elsewhere.

[joelx]

If this was a science post that had no evidence, everyone here would be shooting it down. Something about a tawdry narrative though seems to instantly be believed.

My first thought was that someone has launched an all out PR attack against Uber. There are hundreds of comments here going after Uber. This was an anonymous post and could be totally fake.

[netsharc]

It would be stupid for Lyft to do this, because if they get busted, it'd be a PR nightmare and counter-productive, because Uber can change the narrative and call Lyft the lying bad guys.

But it's also possible that it's someone who likes Lyft or/and hates Uber.

[uremog]

> Why could this post not have been crafted by someone at Lyft?

After all the shady campaigns Uber has used against their competitors, even if this were true, I'd be fine with it.

[dustinmoris]

Because only a disgusting company like Uber would pull such a thing off and since Uber wouldn't criticise Uber we can safely assume this is probably legit.

[specialist]

Do you know the difference between punching up vs punching down?