[mseebach]

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]

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.

[mseebach]

The word was 'forced'. You defended it. C'mon yourself.

Speculating what people might be doing, especially when it sounds plausible, then presenting it as fact, is exactly fake news.

[ceejayoz]

My post literally stated (now edited to add "the headline is misleading / clickbaity" to be even more crystal-clear on that point) that they're not technically forced.

[mseebach]

I understand, and I understood before. You're defending the lie by saying that it's only technically incorrect. You do understand that the phrase means that you think it's still substantially correct -- not that it conceivably could be true?

[ceejayoz]

I believe it is substantially correct that Uber and companies like it engage in ethically dubious and legally murky anti-union actions.

I believe it implausible that Uber didn't consider the pressure/intimidation aspect that a daily prompt to listen to their propaganda entails when adding it to the system.