[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?)