what's really cool about this new report on SA at Uber is that Uber knew
because of their own internal analyses
that the people most likely to commit SA
were men who had previous complaints of seggsal misconduct against them
and who had very low ratings
yet they continued to let those men drive and ride using their app
what's also cool and I hope you recognize I'm using that term sarcastically
is that they severely misled the public about how pervasive this issue was
in a report that revealed data from 2017 to 2022
they announced that there had been roughly 12,500 cases of SA
or what they called severe SA
in reality
that only reflected data from five of the 21 categories of seggsual misconduct
people could report through their app
and in total in that period of time from 2017 to 2022
there were actually 400,000 cases reported of seggsual misconduct
or seggsual a$$ault but wait
there's more they found through their internal analysis
patterns of when SA was most likely to occur
and they intentionally chose not to share that information
with the general public or riders or drivers using the app
because they were concerned about their business interest
and whether people would continue to use their services
they found seggsual misconduct
and as they were most likely to occur if there was a man involved
men were the most likely perpetrators
and women were the most likely victims if the ride included a pickup
at a bar if the person who was riding was inebriated
and if the rides were initiated on evenings or weekends
they also found that when women drivers
and riders were allowed to choose each other
the rates of SA went down significantly
yet they refused to implement that option in the US for the last few years
because of concern for supposedly culture wores and politics
and potential lawsuits so
even though they knew that would be the safest option
for the people who were most likely to be SAed in their vehicles
they refused to give us that option for several years
because of their own interest
in summary based on the information in this article
not only did Uber refuse to do the right things to protect their riders
and their drivers
but they also refused to even give us the information that we could use
to make informed choices for ourselves
as someone who studies seggsual hara$$ment and teaches a class on seggsual a$$ault
none of this is surprising to me
but it remains despicable