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Comment by Asparagirl | Hacker News Reader

Attempting to blackmail the press if they challenge your company's PR? Specifically targeting parents' worst fears by threatening to reveal details of the location of their children? Openly rifling through the location metadata of another female journalist, a customer of theirs, without her consent? Implicitly saying they'll leak customer data of Uber customers who are journalists, the kind of thing that can potentially endanger sources and compromise whistleblowers?

These people are scum. Uber was a neat app, but I have PLENTY of alternatives these days.

I opt out at airports, I donate to the EFF, I don't use Uber or any other app that targets people's privacy and actively threatens the freedom of the press.

(Oh, and like Sarah Lacey, I'm a mom of young kids too. Reading that article induced such a shudder of horror, and will likely do the same for any parent who reads, or even hears about, that story. Uber has done major, major damage to their brand on a visceral level.)

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I'm writing this as a throwaway because this feels like mob and pitchforks. I'm a regular here and have no ties to Uber except using it.

This whole story feels like they took a frustrated guy venting at dinner and making it into a conspiracy.

Meanwhile, Sarah Lacey comments publicly and insultingly on people's political positions, emotions, and dating life.

What the man said was very stupid. But it feels a lot like, "She wants to attack our sex lives, politics, and call us terrible people? We should dig in to what she's done."

That's still unacceptable, but seems like blowing off steam and being frustrated at someone who makes money off of being mean and generating outrage.

Again, the behavior is totally unacceptable. But making this out to be a conspiracy rather than a frustrated executive ranting at someone who is known to be rude and very personal about the rudeness and who gets paid on pageviews and outrage is a little much.

a journalist's job often involves being "rude". some journalists specialize in "rude" reporting. scrutinizing powerful and wealthy people is one of the legitimate roles of a journalist, even when it comes across as "rude".

powerful and wealthy people NEED to be scrutinized. when we do, we often discover that they are sociopathic scum like several of the executives at Uber have turned out to be.

This is almost akin to a celebrity getting upset and punching a paparazzi. It happens due to stupidity, human emotion and rash behavior. Is it right? No, but it does shed light on some issues.

Reporters and journalists can and do scrutinize people. However, what has become of journalism is that for sites like Pando Daily/Tech Crunch/? etc. they are gossip magazines about Silicon Valley business people and software developers. Not only are they talking about the companies, they are talking about the personal lives of the people that make up the companies.

Given the work/life balance of most startups and successful companies, it is tough to judge the differentiation between a tech company's executives. There are reasonable legal precedents being set for common tort law with celebrities, however when do the executives of a company become a 'Public Figure' and lose their right to privacy? Why is it okay to follow someone and publish everything they say and do?

The same thing, of course, can be said for journalists. The lines are being blurred all around.

these aren't blurry lines. if Emil Michael feels like a journalist stepped over a line in reporting then he should have filed a civil suit. that's not what he suggested. he suggested utilizing millions of dollars of the resources of a billion dollar company to engage a campaign of systematic intimidation and harassment against journalists he didn't like.

Because this is what journalists do.

Ah, yes. Two wrongs make a right. Of course they do.

Is that really your position? Or do you want somebody in the room to be a responsible grownup?

(Of course, preferably both sides would be grownups, but one side crawling into the gutter does not excuse the other side for also doing so.)

I agree. But does it justify idly suggesting, in frustration, that one do so?

There's scrutiny, and then there's repeatedly provoking people until they react. Has it occurred to you that "journalists" can be powerful and wealthy too, and just as sociopathic?

they sure can. we should have journalists who cover other journalists too.

So, journalists get a pass when they 'investigate' someone, but the people they're investigating can't do a 'counter-investigation'? Are journalists some kind of special beings?

You're equating the two kinds of investigating. The "counter-investigation" you're talking about is retaliatory — write something we don't like and we'll punish you with details about your personal life.

Journalists are not special beings, but it is typically presumed that they report in good faith, and without ulterior motives. I know that isn't always true, but it's true often enough that I think the burden of proof would be on the people being investigated to prove that the journalist's intent was malicious.

How would they prove the journalist's intent was malicious without conducting an investigation of their own?

Not to mention the fact that Asparagirl has intentionally interpreted his comments in the most sensational way possible, even going so far as to fabricate threats.

"Look into your personal lives, your families" somehow magically became:

> threatening to reveal details of the location of their children

There's clearly a great deal of stupidity on both sides here.

Are you saying that wasn't a threat?

Also, if you don't interpret "families" as including children, what do you interpret it as? Her parents? Does that make it better?

The guy never threatened to target children or reveal any information about them. Why is that so difficult for you to grasp?

How long would it take to get a restraining order if he had done as you say? And what would be the effect on the valuation of the company if that happened?

Play fair. Don't be a Prolog interpreter.

>Does that make it better?

It avoids the "think of the children" reaction, so yes.

In the same story that they talk about digging up dirt on reporters' families, Uber revealed details of a different reporter's movements to her, without her consent, and supposedly an impossible thing to do. Is it such a stretch to think that revealing details about your family + revealing details about your movements and location could also = revealing details about the movements and location of your family?

Again, read Sarah Lacey's rebuttal piece in PandoDaily. Her first thought after hearing about the threats (by phone) is for the safety of her kids, who are not with her at that moment.

It's not fair to make up a very specific statement, attribute it to someone, and then say it was in accordance with how you think their views run. You are right about uber being slime but don't pull a mark fuhrman.

Sarah Lacy is hardly a reliable witness. The whole reason she got involved is because Emil Michael got frustrated with her hit pieces. And if your claim to fame is writing hit pieces, of course an incident like this is going to land right in your wheelhouse and you're going to make hay of it.

Don't misunderstand me here--I just think there are two sides to this story, and both sides are assholes.

> Sarah Lacy is hardly a reliable witness. The whole reason she got involved is because Emil Michael got frustrated with her hit pieces

1) How does someone being annoyed by a story make the reporter unreliable?

2) Why would they be in full damage control mode over the earlier articles or this one if they weren't true?

1) She was writing hit pieces on Uber before this incident and clearly has an axe to grind regarding that company. Of course she's going to milk this incident for all she can and react as uncharitably as possible. That's PandoDaily's business model.

2) The thing about bad PR is that it doesn't have to be true. Regardless, I'm not even talking about the basic facts reported by Buzzfeed. I'm talking about Sarah's interpretation of them as a threat against her children, which is unwarranted by the original report and likely her own sensationalism.

1. "Hit piece" is a loaded term. So far there's no reason to warrant it just because they wish she was channeling their PR department.

2. Again, we have no reason to think this isn't true - they're in damage control mode trying to say it wasn't serious but nobody is claiming that it wasn't a real quote. Much as you seem to be personally invested in attacking her credibility, it's simply not possible to seriously claim that "My family and my children" (her words) is a particularly unreasonable interpretation of a threat to investigate “your personal lives, your families” (his words). Even assuming the most likely interpretation that the threat was to expose something about an adult (past legal mishaps, an affair, etc.) some of the most significant damage from those attacks would be suffered by children who don't really understand why their parents are being targeted.

I think Sarah's sensationalizing it because sensationalizing things is her business. That's all.

Let's assume that the Uber Executive was also doing his business then.

Seems to me very clear that one's quite a bit deeper in the wrong than the other, "doing their business".

(also, I disagree with the term "sensationalizing" when the facts of what actually happened are in fact already "sensational" enough to stand for themselves. Stating that you're worried about your children when someone calls to investigate and dig dirt on "your personal lives, your families" isn't really adding any extra "sensation" to what is already out on the table, it merely informs me that she has children to worry about)

To "dig dirt" means to gather embarrassing private information about someone that could ruin their reputation. Exactly what information could you gather to embarass and discredit a small child? There's no logical way to interpret that as a threat against Sarah's kids, and I'm giving Sarah the benefit of assuming she's clever enough to realize that. Sarah brought her own damn kids into this to tug at the audience's heartstrings and make herself look more sympathetic.

Isn't it a clearly established principle of journalism that reporters should report only for the benefit of the people and organizations they're reporting on?

If she wasn't kowtowing to Kalanick's PR team, she was remiss and doubtlessly only hunting for page views. Definitely had it coming--turnabout is fair play.

Regardless, there's a line: press intimidation is unacceptable from any company. Even if the press is biased and has an axe to grind. If their reports are factually untrue and you have evidence to the contrary, write a press release and present it publicly. If this happens to a reporter enough times, they'll be branded unreliable. If their reports are factually correct and the facts therein piss off your customers, well, that was always a risk of doing those things in the first place.

But this type of stuff has happened to Uber enough times that they've developed quite a shady reputation. Uber has lost the benefit of the doubt in many people's eyes because at the very best, they hire shady people to do shady things for them. At the worst, they're stalking private citizens and intimidating them to keep quiet.

You clearly have no children of your own, Mr. Throwaway. While Asparagirl might have been a bit too creative when filling in the details, every parent would be very concerned when some hostile entity hints to be "looking into... your family".

While confrontational by nature, I do not see any of the parts displaying stupidity, but perhaps yourself. Please try to live up to your chosen handle for this exchange.

Perhaps.

OTOH, it could also be (certainly if it was serious and possibly if it was just venting) a sign of something bad. Sarah Lacey's criticism was that Uber have an "asshole culture." This does not exactly disprove her statement.

I'm not touchy. I think a lot of "PC outrage" (including possibly hers, I haven't really dug) is the nasty "fun to be outraged" variety. This has a terrible effect, turning corporate (also police and every type of official) vernacular into an unnatural lifeless sludge. I'm usually on the other side of these kinds of debates. But, there is such a thing as misogyny, asshole culture and such. They exist, and this might be a sign of it here.

Uber are an extremely aggressive company. They need that aggression to do the job they're trying to do which brings them into conflict all the time. Aggressiveness can spread. Uber is now a big company. They have many people's livelihoods, safety & privacy in their hands. There's a standard they need to meet. If a senior exec talks like this to reporters off the record, it may be the kind of talk that happens a lot.

It is a little disturbing, even as just talk.

> That's still unacceptable ...

Yes! Extremely unprofessional and completely unacceptable regardless of whatever it is she did to "deserve" it.

By the way, is there a link to this article she wrote that is allegedly so over the line?

Sure, that could be the case.

Of course you would have to completely ignore the constant pattern of scummy behavior from Uber that is perfectly consistent with this particular incident.

a) Organizations (for profit and not) should be monitoring journalists and columnists who write about them. Conflicts of interests are rampant and often undisclosed. Individuals, both writers and editors are courted and manipulated continuously. You should care if journalist X is getting invited to the White House or your competitor's private events. As a blatant example there is a certain NYT columnists whose contributions have included almost word for word the position of a lobbying group I'm familiar with. I'll leave him unnamed.

b) The page view journalism model rewards writers for being inflammatory and exaggerating. This means you really need to keep a close eye on writers for disinformation because when something spreads, it happens really fast, within hours. Rather than lengthy investigative pieces, the model is basically a fire hose of shit and watching which chunk sticks and goes viral. This also means writers tend to produce volumes of articles attacking the same or similar individuals and organizations. Some of the ludicrous stories I've seen recently track back to writers with minimal to no credentials and a long stream of irrelevant "stories." One piece of shit stuck and it blows up. What these guys are doing is more closely analogous to trolling and hate speech than informed research.

I'm not the kind of person who imagines the world is constantly devolving towards a lower state. I think the negatives from the current nature of "journalism" are outweighed by the positives we have gained from the same communications & publishing trends.

The best thing you can do as an individual is to not read stories from these sorts of groups. The headlines are misleading, the stories are often irrelevant and misinformed. Stick to places that publish accurate titles and require writers with some sort of credentials.

> The page view journalism model rewards writers for being inflammatory and exaggerating

Just look at this discussion

I think it's sad that you feel the need to use a throwaway, because your interpretation is pretty much how I read things.

In front of journalists, the man talked in detail about a plan to destroy journalists giving negative coverage. As far as I know, you're the only person calling it "a conspiracy". But plenty of people are taking that as a way of threatening journalists.

The "blowing off steam" theory doesn't strike me as plausible. If it had happened at his local alley while talking with his bowling team, sure, maybe. But the CEO and and SVP of a $16 bn company don't sit down with a bunch of journalists by accident. Either the guy was intending to intimidate journalists (and Lacy in specific) or he is so dangerously clueless that a) he should not be a senior executive of anything bigger than a lemonade stand, and b) it would be hard to explain how he made it this far.

A journalist friend said that powerful people threatening journalists is routine, and that this sort of thing has a chilling effect on coverage. When smart people "accidentally" do something very self-serving, a reasonable working hypothesis is that they actually knew what they were doing.

> If it had happened at his local alley while talking with his bowling team, sure, maybe.

Several relevant scenes from The Big Lebowski come to mind ... :)

(it'd make me seriously reconsider my choice of bowling-buddies, though :) )

Amen.

Ya, on the record here, I think you're absolutely correct. A lot of journalists, Lacy included, have written pieces targeting founders based on events in their personal lives and their pasts.

People are correct to freak out when someone targets another person by digging into their private lives, the problem is a lot of tech journalists have gotten away with this, especially when the founders or entrepreneurs in question have been libertarians or right-wingers.

> This whole story feels like they took a frustrated guy venting at dinner and making it into a conspiracy.

A frustrated guy venting at a business dinner, attended by an influential crowd, specifically addressing a person they just hired that could (and probably would) make this "conspiracy" happen for real if he made the call.

See, personally, I think even in a perfectly informal off-the-record setting, what he suggested was simply wrong and should be called on it. Whether you're frustrated or not. Unless it was extremely clear from the context it was just a joking "haha we should .." with no intent to follow through, then, maybe then it becomes acceptable to say these sorts of things in an informal off-the-record setting, assuming you're sufficiently acquainted with the current company that you know they won't be put off by such a tasteless remark.

What he called for was a personal attack on someone's personal life. With a straight face, to his hired media mouthpiece. It's IMO not very different (though obviously less illegal) from telling your hired muscle "we should teach that person a lesson, beat them up a little", with no intent to follow through, obviously. The window to make that last bit over-abundantly clear evaporates within a minute or so. And even then, in what sort of company does he think it's okay to even begin to vent about that sort of thing, even without intent to follow through? Surely a lot more private than some fancy I-thought-it-was-off-the-record dinner.

Obviously his own moral compass didn't prevent him from saying these things, in the first place. That's exactly why he should be called on "venting" such ideas. Even when he honestly had no intent to follow through, he's a powerful man, speaking directly to someone whose task it would be to make this happen, someone might take it seriously and warm to the idea that such behaviour could be acceptable.

They should probably fire Emil Michael or similar. The

"spending 'a million dollars' to hire four top opposition researchers and four journalists. .... they’d look into “your personal lives, your families,” and give the media a taste of its own medicine"

proposal is a bit out of order. The money to throw $1m around that kind of way comes from Google and like investors and they could object that they don't want to be associated with that stuff.

App was a great step forward, but it's clear they have a poisoned culture. Emil isn't a bad apple, he's the same as the rest of the barrel.

yeah that is not....

Anyway, the idiom is "one rotten apple spoils the whole barrel."

Perhaps this is not a case of a barrel full of rotten apples, but a barrel full of durians.

Given the Benny Hill-esque series of blunders by Uber in recent memory, I'm not sure it's safe to think that Emil Michael and his behavior is the exception at Uber, rather than the rule, and that firing him would rid them of this type of behavior/culture.

And given the publicly documented exploits of Travis Kalanick I think there's a strong case to be made that Uber's toxic culture comes from the top.

yeah, quite likely

You may be right, but its still clear that Emil Michael is toxic and not suited for a leadership position of anything larger than a shoebox. He should be fired.

>I think there's a strong case to be made that Uber's toxic culture comes from the top.

Culture always comes from the top, toxic or otherwise, imho.

To be fair, there's a big gap between saying how you could spend a million dollars and spending a million dollars.

But if someone who worked for me started talking about exacting revenge on enemies -- in a public forum or not -- I would definitely have a problem with that.

I get the feeling that there's a side that Buzzfeed and Pando aren't mentioning.

The executive mentioned 'they'd be justified' in digging up dirt on Sarah Lacy. I wonder on what basis that one would justify that - the article mentions Lacy's criticism for a dumb ad campaign in France, but that doesn't seem like something that would provoke a response saying 'we'd be justified on digging up dirt about you'.

Does anyone know if Sarah Lacy has dug up dirt on Uber staff and their families?

That is extremely speculative. I know you're just asking questions, but let's give her the benefit of the doubt. Most people don't do things like that and it's not nice to imply otherwise absent any evidence.

It's speculative, but not extremely so. Most people don't randomly suggest they'd be justified going after other people's families after simple criticism, so let's give everyone the benefit of the doubt.

EDIT: according to other posters, who read the website in question, Sarah Lacy regularly reports on people's personal lives. Which sounds like exactly what the under person was talking about doing back.

Most people aren't Uber.

What specifically did she do that would justify investigating her family?

And you have the love the sequence of events:

(1) First their senior business executive (Michael) not only floats his plan at very public venue, but mentions both the budget ($1M) and the number of researches (4) they were thinking of hiring.

(2) And then later, in damage control mode, the spokesperson (Hourdajian) tries to clean up by saying they've "never considered" doing opposition research -- despite Michael having just named both a specific budget they were thinking of allocating, and a specific number of researchers they were thinking of hiring.

And apparently a specific rumor about a specific person they wanted to validate.

As if to drive the point home.

I'm sure they should fire him, but from what I've seen and heard around town, this is an expression of their culture, not some outlier.

They want to "give the media a taste of its own medicine"? They already are. It's called marketing and advertising. The press, political parties and private businesses constantly manipulate people's opinions. They both use elements of fantasy and attention grabbing headlines.

Here's the marketing copy on Uber's website right now: "WELCOME TO ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE", "TIME, VALUE, AND CONVENIENCE — YOU CAN HAVE IT ALL", "HAVE MORE FUN WITH THE PEOPLE WHO MATTER MOST", "YOUR SHORTCUT TO EVERYWHERE IS ARRIVING NOW".

Oh really, so you're fine spewing total bullshit but you're gonna have a hissy-fit and act like a toddler when someone writes a sensational article?

Get over yourselves!

In all fairness, Paul and Sara have been on an absolute witch hunt, seemingly angry because of Travis' capitalist ideals. I'm not going to defend the guy that made these comments, but I've heard enough from Sara and Paul to know that Pando has waged war on Uber, and should not be surprised that they've ruffled some feathers.

Pando also shares a common investor with Lyft, so there's that...

... then Travis is playing right into their hands and feeding the troll.

Personal flame wars on the net are one thing, but involving your company in that shit? The minute you take money and hire other people it's not your personal sandbox. This 4chan crap should at best come with a huge "my opinions are my own" disclaimer and should never involve your company.

Acting like an ass is not necessarily a zero-sum game. But that doesn't change the fact that publicly musing about going after someone's family for revenge is totally unacceptable.

In all fairness, Paul and Sara have been on an absolute witch hunt, seemingly angry because of Travis' capitalist ideals.

I've desperately avoided commenting on anything related to his because I've known Travis for about a decade, but... you are sadly mistaken. Uber has a downright toxic culture. Sarah might have gone a little far here and there, but it is not because Travis is capitalistic, but because he's turned into some kind of megalomaniac nearly unrecognizable from the person I knew a decade ago.

I recently saw a lovely email sent by Travis for an offsite reminding everyone that they were not allowed to fuck their subordinates and he, by extension, was not allowed to fuck anyone. That isn't just toxic to women. That is downright scumbaggery.

That sounds like a reasonable reminder of the rules and protocols. Unless you are suggesting that the power differential can be overcome and managers should have sex with their subordinates.

> but because he's turned into some kind of megalomaniac nearly unrecognizable from the person I knew a decade ago.

Hundreds of millions of dollars of VC money does that to people. Looking forward to the documentary about Uber after its function is turned into a commodity.

> I recently saw a lovely email sent by Travis for an offsite reminding everyone that they were not allowed to fuck their subordinates and he, by extension, was not allowed to fuck anyone.

What's wrong with that?

> Paul and Sara have been on an absolute witch hunt, seemingly angry because of Travis' capitalist ideals

That sounds very speculative and about someone's state of mind. Could you give concrete examples of what you mean?

There was no mention of blackmail.

There was no mention of revealing the location of children.

There was no mention of "rifling" through the location metadata of another female journalist.

There was no "implication" about leaking customer data.

As far as I can tell, the article amounts to almost exactly what's in the headline: dirt digging.

If you want to criticize Uber, it's certainly possible to do it without exaggerating or making stuff up, otherwise you risk making legitimate critics look like sensational buffoons.

According to the article an Uber executive did indeed access a journalist's data without her permission, something the spokesperson said was not possible:

"In fact, the general manager of Uber NYC accessed the profile of a BuzzFeed News reporter, Johana Bhuiyan, to make points in the course of a discussion of Uber policies. At no point in the email exchanges did she give him permission to do so."

Or does "rifling" mean something else to you?

It wasn't clear what "accessed the profile" meant.

I guess it's talking about the travel logs from 2 paragraphs above?

I suspect that the information pulled form the journalist's profile was pretty innocuous, or else they would have made more of a big deal about it.

But at the same time, the point isn't that "the Uber GM found some hideously private information about the journalist," the point is that regardless of what their "information policy" is, the GM could access the account of the journalist, and was apparently comfortable doing so based on his own discretion and sense of propriety rather than explicit permission. If his sense of propriety was fine, and the information was innocuous, then that particular event wasn't a big deal. But it kind of makes lie of the idea that another high-level individual at Uber who may have, shall we say, different ideas about propiety could not abuse the information that Uber is entrusted with.

Agree. In contrast, when I worked at Amazon, customer privacy was pretty religiously protected.

To access detailed customer information required getting a one-time-use key, which is generated from a request that references other documentation (bug reports, customer support requests, etc) as well as a justification.

This key would only work against a single customer, and expires after some time.

The requests themselves are regularly audited internally to prevent abuse.

This is the level of internal privacy guarantees a company like Uber needs. No employee should have unmonitored, carte blanche access to customer data.

This is the point.

The fact that the CEO can access data at whim should be very troubling. That means they don't have even the most basic infosec guidelines in place.

There's a difference between accurately representing a statement and being being willfully blind to the statement taken as a whole. It's not fair to take an isolated statement out of context, but it's also not fair to assert that a series of statements taken in context don't mean anything more than they do in isolation.

All of those things are in his statements. He doesn't have to spell it out for you to know what he means.

There was no mention of blackmail.

There was no need. It's kind of like when someone says "we know where you live", "watch your back", etc -- the implication is clear.

You don't say things like this to an audience containing media members and not expect it to get out. Not only that, but by the same token this is in no way "attempted" blackmail. Are we supposed to assume Uber does not already buy 1MM PR spends?

Yeah, if this is the shit they do and talk about in public, WTF do they do and talk about in private?

EDIT: Oh my God, they also have the location data of the comings and goings of lots of politicians and industry regulators, don't they? Late night trips from locations some of those people might not want made public? If they'll so casually threaten a mother's kids, threaten journalists with $1M smear campaigns, what else have they already done?

They have the location data of everyone using their service. They also have "god view":

http://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2014/10/03/god-view-...

Now, which of their executives is going to end up as a senator?

>"Sims got the text “from someone he hardly knew,” he recalls in a Medium post, asking him if he was in an Uber car at 33rd Street and 5th Avenue."

Wow I forgot about this fiasco. It literally reads like a scene from The Circle. Disturbing.

That fiasco is reason alone to never ride in an Uber.

> Not only that, but by the same token this is in no way "attempted" blackmail.

This is a direct attempt to shut her up -- this an attempt to silence their critics via blackmail -- and they hoped it wouldn't get mainstream press coverage. They hoped she would find out just via whispers from those who were there.

It's not blackmail by either the legal or common-usage definition of blackmail. Even if Uber followed through with such a sleazy plan, it would not be blackmail. For blackmail, a demand must be made, accompanied by a menace. Floating an idea that you plan on digging up dirt? That might have been an incipient but ill-advised plan, it might be idle dreaming, or it might be it might be machiavellian FUD.

Not all blackmail is done by cartoon villains. This was clearly a threat, made by someone who has made more than a casual thought about it: “Stop reporting about us or we attack you personally”

> For blackmail, a demand must be made, accompanied by a menace.

It may not meet the legal definition -- but there is a clear demand and menace:

The demand is that journalists do not write negative stories on Uber.

The menace is that Uber will retaliate against any journalists by digging up dirty on them personally and thus hurting either their reputation, careers, or relationships.

Except the "demand" is not a demand directed at anyone, but just the world in general -- since it's after the fact. They would dig up dirt on those who have already written negative articles. No demands are made of them. And no demands are made of any nameable individuals. If you ask "who are they blackmailing", the answer is "a hypothetical."

> You don't say things like this to an audience containing media members and not expect it to get out.

You do if you're a psychopathic megalomaniac who got shoved money up the ass by shriveling old millionaires for having a business model that is based on siphoning money off less-than-minimum wage workers.

I wonder... what if that's the point? What if mentioning it to an audience containing media members means that it does get out, and therefore they don't have to spend the million bucks?

Are you reading a different article? None of those threats were mentioned in the one I'm reading...

Emil Michael suggested that Uber should hire opposition researchers to investigate the personal and family lives of journalists, including but not limited to, harassment of their spouses and children.

Uber explicitly talked about going after reporters' families.

The primary reporter that Uber was talking about at that dinner is Sarah Lacey at PandoDaily. Sarah has been very critical of Uber in the past. She also has two very young children and has written a lot about what it's like to start a company and pitch investors while being pregnant and/or having young kids at home.

The obvious implication is that they were going after her kids.

Here's her response, in PandoDaily: http://pando.com/2014/11/17/the-moment-i-learned-just-how-fa...

> Uber explicitly talked about going after reporters' families.

> The obvious implication is that they were going after her kids.

Obvious implication? I think it's more of a convenient assumption you're making to suit your own personal grudge against Uber.

The comments he made were clearly idiotic, but your eagerness to interpret them in the most extreme and sensational way possible is no better.

Please explain the NON "extreme and sensational" way to interpret comments talking about spending one million dollars to target, intimidate, and smear the press and to dig up dirt on their families.

What's really cute is that even Uber doesn't even deny that this happened. No, that's all on you, dear HN commenter.

Didn't the parent post already explain? The journalist writes details about people personal lives for a tech gossip site. The Uber person is non seriously (even accordion to the article) musing over what would happen if the company was to do the same thing back. No conspiracy theory needed.

I couldn't even install the app - it asks for way too much permissons.

The threat against the children was vile and terrifying. The investors of Uber should be ashamed of themselves. Needless to say, a lot of Uber users are parents, and this news will definitely spread.

Where does the article say anything about children?

"Over dinner, he outlined the notion of spending “a million dollars” to hire four top opposition researchers and four journalists. That team could, he said, help Uber fight back against the press — they’d look into “your personal lives, your families,” and give the media a taste of its own medicine."

"your families" = "your children"

> "your families" = "your children"

I don't think that's a reasonable assumption to make. "Your family" could just as easily be referring to adult family members only (spouses, siblings, parents, etc.).

It seems like you're jumping to that conclusion solely because it makes his comments more inflammatory.

Family refers to all members of a family - adult members AND children. So, by threatening someone's family, one implicitly threatens any members of a family who are children (as well as the other members of a family).

plus it's much more fun to get all spun up about the most uncharitable interpretation possible. it works for Internet fights, relationship fights, street fights... an amazingly versatile technique for disrupting harmony.

There were no threats. Stop making stuff up.

The comments were about "digging up dirt". Sleazy as that is, it doesn't even require personal contact.

When they're talking about "digging up dirt" I don't see how that's going to apply to children. Context is important, and reducing it to 'threat' is misleading. Even though yes it is a subtype of threat.

Really? You don't know anyone who has a special-needs child? The public at large can be very unkind to any who aren't "normal". And that's leaving alone those disturbed individuals who just like to "break things" and are just looking for a target.

Even simply exposing that information is a threat, possibly causing a chilling effect - which is exactly what this Uber exec wants.

Knowing that a child exists with special needs doesn't hurt the child...

>disturbed individuals [...] looking for a target

What??? Where did you get here from "digging up dirt". (For one, you don't need dirt to post someone's name on /b/ or whatever you have in mind.) The level of hyperbole on this submission is awful and pains me to read.

I don't think the comment was made to threaten her children, but any parent who hears those words is going to think about their kids first, and become very defensive.

It's not the sort of thing you should have to aprse in the first place. There's a narrow set of circumstances in which some family issues might be legitimate to discuss, eg if a journalist's spouse or other immediate relative was a senior officer or investor in a direct competitor - but then you could just say 'we think X is an unethical journalist because s/he has a major conflict of interest which biases articles s/he writes about our firm' because there's plenty of precedent for dealing with such issues in the world of financial journalism.

Vague talk of investigating 'your families' comes off more as an attempt to intimidate; arguably the vagueness is intended to provoke anxiety and worry to a greater degree than a specific allegation (as above) that could be refuted or debunked.

That's not really a statement that can be defended.

"No, no, we won't look ONLY into your children, we'll ALSO look into your spouses, siblings, and parents."

The language you use makes it seem like this guy threatened to physically hurt people's children. That's quite manipulative, especially your choice of emotional words such as "vile" and "terrifying".

His language was indeed a bit hyperbolic. But this doesn't lessen the inherent creepiness -- and sure, let us also say vileness -- of what the Uber executive said in that meeting.

What a sensationalist reaction to a sensationalist article.

> These people are scum. Uber was a neat app, but I have PLENTY of alternatives these days.

You won't consider them only because alternatives exist? What are you trying to say there?

That's the lowest level of vote with your wallet statement.

Like "That's it facebook, you have abused my privacy one too many times, I will disconnect for a whole week-end."

How do you opt out of airports?

I believe she is referring to opting out of the full body scanners[1] in American airports. One can do that by telling the TSA agent that they'd like to opt out of the scanner. They will instead do a manual pat down.

1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Full_body_scanner

> Attempting to blackmail the press if they challenge your company's PR?

Every major company does this, just not in the ham fisted way that Uber has done. Want NYT tech reporter to give positive reviews of Apple? Give him special access to newsworthy stories from inside, early access to devices, free gear, fly him out to special events and treat him like a prince. He gives an overly critical review? Take it all away. He'll have to hear from his friends at WSJ how great this year's event was, or how cool the devices are. They'll be special, he won't.

Surely you can see the difference between "loss of favorable treatment and perks" and "gross abuse of private data and anonymous slander"?

What you've described - while highly problematic - is a pretty big distance away from "blackmail".

I'm not saying I support it, I'm just pointing out that companies manipulate journalists all the time and incentivize them not to "challenge the company's PR" as the GP put it. Uber's threats were extreme and beyond what is tolerated outside of politics. They could have manipulated her much easier by giving her unlimited free Uber "to better evaluate the service".

Oh I agree that there's a huge problem in using incentives to manipulate journalists and coverage - but I do think the comparison is a bit stretched.

It's like comparing a hang glider to a jumbo jet. Sure, both are bad behavior and have some common motivations, but the moral gap is gigantic.

That's very very different than ruining the journo"s life.

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