> there's ethical dilemmas no matter how you slice it

You're exactly right. So the question becomes, "Is it better to disqualify applicants based on accusation alone, knowing that you'll disqualify some number of innocent people, or is it better to screen on convictions alone, knowing that you could possibly not screen out some guilty folks you otherwise would?"

It might also be illegal to deny employment to people just because they are accused of something and not convicted. Indian law assumes the culprit is innocent till proven otherwise.

Indian law takes infinite years to resolve a case. 1 year to actually frame charges, 10 years in lower court and 10 years in upper courts.

Absolutely, the question presupposes it's even up to the hiring company to make the distinction and that it hasn't already been made for them by the law.

On the question of 'is it better to exclude non-rapists than include rapists', especially in the case of claiming that their service is safer than taxis (which they do all the time, unless someone points to a counterexample at which point they disclaim all responsibility): I would say yes.

Is it legal to discriminate against employees who've been accused but not convicted of a crime? Well, no.

Is anything else Uber is doing in India legal? No.

So… if they're breaking the law anyway, plus making sure to hide everything they do, including basic contact information, from anyone who might need to contact the company (to the extent that the government themselves had to hire a driver just to get in touch with someone), I feel like denying employment to someone convicted of a violent sexual assault would probably be the least unethical thing going on with Uber in India.

I think it's better to quantify it and change the question to 'Is it better to include X non-rapists and Y rapists than to exclude X non-rapists and Y rapists.'

'Is it better to include into the set of Uber drivers, 10 non-rapists and 1 rapists or to exclude 10 non-rapists and 1 rapists.'

Probably the latter.

'Is it better to include, into the set of NYC residents, 5 million non-rapists and 3 rapists than to exclude 5 million non-rapists and 3 rapists.'

Probably the former.

Which is more profitable? Unfortunately such decisions often made on the basis of profit over ethics.

Screening on convictions alone may be more profitable in the short term but in the long run, as the article here shows, it may end up costing you much more.

I'm not sure it's accurate to say that this instance (or the choice to screen based on proven actions rather than accusations) is what led to the ban.

You can go better than "accusation". Anyone could accuse anyone of anything. But you could set the bar in the middle with "arrested", which is half way between "accusation" and "conviction".

If on a sliding scale "conviction" is a 100 and "accusation" is a 20, "arrested" falls somewhere between 18 and 22.

Unfortunately there really is no middle ground. You can't point to an event and say that you're __% certain that the accusation is true. So again it boils down to whether you base the decision off of accusations or convictions alone.

As someone stated elsewhere it's not just an ethical decision, either. Economics should play at least a minor role in the decision-making process.

That's not really in the middle. The only difference between "accused" and "arrested" is that the accuser told the police.

Yes the accuser told the police, and the police thought there was suffecient reason to arrest the accused. That's the important difference. Sometimes the police are told, and they interview the accused and don't arrest them. Sometimes they do. The police are (in theory) supposed to have standards for who they arrest.

In the experience of my friends with regards to sexual assaults in North America, there's a substantial gap between 'accuser told the police' and 'arrested'. I can't imagine it would be any closer of a gap in India.

Is it? I was accused of a robbery when i was a teenager. I was arrested on another kids claim that i had broken into his garage. No supporting evidence, no other testimony. The charges were dropped, but I was cuffed and taken in.

No it's not. Arrests can happen for only an accusation, or even less in some cases.

I would just like to point out, that the crimes aren't necessarily under-reported (i.e. 706 reported), rather, there was not enough evidence to convict.

I would still argue that there is a high amount of under-reporting because people are embarrassed, just want to put it behind them, etc. However, I also feel a large number of the reported cases are skewed due to angry ex-girlfriends, intoxication, etc.

Specifically, in this case if he was not convicted it's not the responsibility of Uber to disclose that information (instead it's the driver). Uber (in the U.S.) cannot even disclose if someone was accused of rape (unless there was a felony conviction), conversely it is the drivers responsibility to share any convictions upfront (though a background check should still be done).

Overall, I believe this has more to do with Uber's business practices. The rape wouldn't have even been an issue if Uber was capable of helping the police or explaining some basic questions.

In other words, if Uber was able to say, "We did a background check, and he wasn't convicted" then there wouldn't have been an issue. However, Uber couldn't even be contacted, and was breaking transportation laws.

>I would just like to point out, that the crimes aren't necessarily under-reported (i.e. 706 reported)

They were saying it is a generally under-reported crime. Saying that there was 706 reported cases doesn't change anything.

https://www.rainn.org/get-information/statistics/reporting-r...

Overall, your "feel" about a large number of reported cases being skewed are nothing but a feel. Proves nothing.

It's insane to discredit a valid point for being 'nothing but a feel'. You don't know if it's nothing or not. OP doesn't claim to prove anything and anyone reading can see that.

Well, false reports can not be considered false unless withdrew by the accuser. Otherwise is just a shot in the dark.

It is completely valid to discredit a point with no source. And there's sources that say it is 2% false accusations (like most other crimes) and there's sources that says is 40%. Why are numbers so separate from each other? Because it's a shot in the dark.

Withdrawn != false. There are many other reasons (social pressure, for example) why someone might withdraw an accusation. Particularly when the legal system is extremely unlikely to convict.

I would urge you to re-think your writing. "The rape wouldn't have even been an issue" indicates that you haven't thought very deeply about rape; if this woman was raped, it is certainly still an issue whether Uber can legally cover its ass or not.

It is unfortunate how popular your opinion is among young men: rape really isn't an issue; lots of "angry ex-girlfriends" and "intoxication" skewing those reports (factually incorrect, my friend). Being raped really sucks and is a continuing issue for those who experience it and those around them.

"The rape wouldn't have even been an issue [for Uber]"

It would still be an issue for Uber -- if nothing else, it's bad customer service and indicative of poor quality control. Can't people even admit that?

If someone was complaining about being overcharged, everyone would accept it without question and wouldn't say "it's not an issue" for Uber/consumer/whoever. But it seems that being overcharged is a complaint that is legitimate because men believe that it happens without the customer being in the wrong. Rape, on the other hand...

Companies have bad employees. People intuitively understand and forgive that. People are much less forgiving if the company does not help in dealing with its bad employees, or (is perceived to) have an unusually high number of them.

While the grandparent comment didn't claim his statement as a fact, you are mentioning your contradictory statement as a 'fact' (factually incorrect? What?) Being raped really sucks, yes, and IMO the rapist should get the most severe punishment imaginable, but being falsely accused of rape is even worse - it destroys the whole career and life of an innocent man - and this is something that happens a lot in India and anyone having a few contacts in Police knows that.

Also, not sure about other countries, in India a woman's statement is enough for a man to be arrested immediately, even if it was a false accusation.

> Being raped really sucks, yes,

> but being falsely accused of rape is even worse

Wow. Just wow. I'm pretty disgusted by this comment. Hopefully you've just phrased it badly, and can edit it to make it less like you're saying that men get a bum deal in India.

Thanks for confirming that rape is less important than a man's reputation :) Women know that already. That's why many don't report.

Having seen people report rape in the US, it is certainly not enough for anyone to be arrested immediately. There's the question of evidence, and whether anyone will look at the evidence, and whether the victim can be talked into ignoring it. In 2013 there were about 20,000 untested rape kits in Texas alone -- 20,000 crimes that were reported, where a woman had semen, hair, and other evidence collected through an invasive procedure, that were entirely ignored [1]. And that's only reported rapes. None of my friends who have been sexually assaulted have ever reported it (although these were all assaults by "friends", not strangers). They just wanted it to go away.

To top it off, in many locations in the US women still have to pay for their own evidence collection. If you haven't got the $600-$1200 it takes to pay for the exams yourself, you're out of luck on the prosecution front! (Yes, this is sort of illegal, but it's still happening [2].)

So rest easy -- come to the US where a woman's statement will probably be ignored for a long time [3].

[1] http://www.texastribune.org/2013/01/04/clearing-texas-rape-k... [2] http://www.nola.com/health/index.ssf/2014/09/state_leaders_p... [3] http://gawker.com/who-wants-to-remember-bill-cosbys-multiple...

No, I wouldn't say that had it 'just' been some reputation. As I already said an actual rapist should get the severest punishment imaginable, but I repeat, in a country like India, a man's (and his family's) entire life is ruined when he's falsely accused of rape. No one will befriend them, no one will lend them money, no one will marry even their siblings! I'm surprised that people here are so the unaware of the severity of a false accusation (may be just a cultural difference. In India it's a big social taboo). A girl falsely accusing (once proved to be false) a man of rape should get at least the same punishment in jail the man would have got had he been guilty.

I'm sorry for the state of affairs in the US about the claimed report ratio of the crime - however, a mere statement of anyone, by itself should never lead to an arrest, be it a man or a woman, because in a lot of cases there are ulterior motives in play.

Oh seriously. That's enough.

Post some examples of all these men's lives that have been ruined. Let's see whether these examples are, actually, worse than having been raped.

Keep an open, balanced mind, and learn to see things from both sides (this is not facebook). Rapes are as real as false cases. I'm not sure what are your criteria for deciding 'worse'. Mine is, more lives are ruined in a false rape case. As I said, anyone in contacts with police knows that. If you still don't want to believe, you can be happy assuming you got an 'online victory'. Many men have committed suicide due to that as well. Isn't that at least equally bad?

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/indore/Woman-sentenc...

If you search online, you'd find that there are many, many cases where an Indian girl elopes/lives with a man on free will, has consensual sex but after a few days, months, or even years files a rape case for various obvious reasons, surprisingly often when forced by parents.

You wouldn't 'like' to believe, but Pune police once said 74% of rape cases reported to them were consentual sex later turned rape. In fact Mumbai police says the main reason of the low conviction rate is false rape cases.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/mumbai/Rape-convicti...

https://www.facebook.com/notes/deepika-narayan-bhardwaj/fals...

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/ranchi/Lured-by-comp...

And a lot, lot more, just help yourselves with some Googling.

> However, I also feel a large number of the reported cases are skewed due to angry ex-girlfriends, intoxication, etc.

What are you actually trying to say here? How are these cases skewed?

That some accusations are not true, and that some rape never leads to accusations. Most rape is not ever reported, because of the psychological impact it has, and the kind of people clever rapists rape. The rapes that are reported stand in line with a sizable amount of accusations that are false. Sadly, for a jury to tease apart the liars from the valid accusers is hard. It's worse than chance, actually, because rape victims often react to talking about it, especially with the rapist in the room, in a manner which makes them look unconvincing.

What were you implying? That there's some easy answer here?

The use of "skewed" in that sentence doesn't make sense to me, and I'm trying to understand what he means. Is he saying that angry ex-girlfriends make false rape claims, which thus 'skew' the numbers, or does he mean something else?

Why would you think I'm implying anything?

> Heck, they even elected quite a few convicted criminals to lead the Government

Can you give an example of a "convicted" (not accused) elected member from India?

>For example, a small search on Amit Shah and his fake encounters

Amit Shah has not been convicted. The case is ongoing.

>To me all this showdown to ban Uber seems more like an attempt to squeeze a little extra dollars from an American company.

By banning Uber they are trying to squeeze more dollars from it?

Great idea, you could operate on a sliding scale that reduces the fare based on freakiness of the driver.

Make real killing by hiring a driver that torutured small animals and chronically wet the bed as a child, because although it has no real correlation with adult psychopathy you still save 8Rs/Km