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
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.
The more serious/terrible the accusation, the more likely it seems to me that people will just take it on face value.
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.
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.
Amy's specific experiences may or may not be verifiable. I believe you are missing the point though. This isn't about Amy herself. If it were, she would have come out publicly, like Susan has. I suspect the reason Amy posted her story anonymously is because it is about the treatment women in general receive at Uber. That's what makes her story credible: we have heard from multiple sources so far that the atmosphere at Uber is extremely hostile to women.
Here's an example why anonymity is important: law enforcement agencies receive anonymous tips all the time. One way they decide whether to follow up on a tip is by looking at surrounding factors. For instance, if multiple anonymous tips within a short period of time suggest that Bob may be involved in child trafficking, that is in most cases sufficient to earn Bob a police raid.
Same thing with Amy's story. By itself, it is full of extraordinary claims. In light of everything we have learned about Uber's company culture though, the claims are both ordinary and credible.
Is there a chance that it was written by a rival company's astroturfers? Sure. Just like how Bob may actually have been a target of swatting[1]. But law enforcement agencies still have an obligation to investigate the anonymous tips against Bob, just like we as the public have an obligation to offer belief or compassion to stories like Amy's.
- "Amy" might not think she's lying at all, but a combination of misunderstandings and POV-blindness can quickly turn an "awful" story around to a banal situation
- "Amy" isn't necessarily looking to "reinforce the narrative" - it is certainly possible that they just want empathy or attention(which is practically guaranteed, see this thread). You could parallel this with the hoax hate crimes that were reported once Trump was in office - they would all hurt the otherwise legitimate point that bigotry is on the rise, yet the people still did it, quite often claiming that they were going through a rough patch and wanted some sympathy and attention.
- Even if "Amy" was lying, they may be relying on the impossibility of Uber to defend themselves. If they aggressively pursue the claims, they will receive a ton of backlash for harassing an alleged survivor.
> I just don't see anyone with any brains trying to create a false narrative to smear Uber.
The case doesn't have to be a "false narrative" - boosting a shitty situation beyond its actual levels is certainly a bonus to any Uber competitor, or anyone who dislikes Uber. It may absolutely be the case that Uber has a systemic problem; or alternatively, they have had an unfortunate clump of scandals, boosted by their unpopular business practices making it easy to believe that Uber really are monsters. At that point, it's easy to pile on any accusation, people will believe it, and it hurts Uber.
I was careful not speak to "belief", which is unfortunately ambiguous; one could interpret "belief" of this testimonial as supporting millions in damages being awarded to the author right now on the basis of nothing else, which I hopefully have been clear about not supporting.
It surprises me that you have no compassion for an anonymous grievance, though, especially one that is (at least currently) asking for nothing else. Speaking for myself, at least, even (or especially) though there are usually two sides to every story, I pride myself on usually being able to have compassion for both sides.
Compassion for the suffering of the unknown is one thing. To make damaging public accusations behind the veil of the unknown is something else entirely.
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".
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.
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.
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.
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.
These claims can be easily disproven by Uber if they were false, and the fact that Uber hasn't denied them says a lot.
So I'm going to believe this until I have a compelling reason not to, and "but it could be fake" isn't one.
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.
Most of the women who left Uber didn't publicly announce why they did. Now we're seeing a plausible explanation.
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.
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.
-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.
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.
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.
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.
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...
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.
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.
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.
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.
But it's also possible that it's someone who likes Lyft or/and hates Uber.
After all the shady campaigns Uber has used against their competitors, even if this were true, I'd be fine with it.
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.