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Comment by ivanca | Hacker News Reader

The funny (or scary) thing is that South Park predicted exactly this 100%: An Uber competitor hires a criminal to be a Uber (Timmy) driver to sexually assault the first female passenger it gets[0] and get it really bad press.

BTW, this also happen in taxi cabs, but somehow they don't make the front-page of hacker news[1][2][3], I wonder why that is.

[0]7:40 at http://southpark.cc.com/full-episodes/s18e04-handicar

[1]http://www.sun-sentinel.com/local/broward/fort-lauderdale/fl...

[2]http://www.bendigoadvertiser.com.au/story/2370444/taxi-drive...

[3]http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/victoria/bail-refused-for-t...

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>BTW, this also happen in taxi cabs, but somehow they don't make the front-page of hacker news[1][2][3], I wonder why that is

Woman speaking here. I've been using Uber/Lyft over taxis because of the driver verification system and also the tracking. I will always send my ride tracking link to whoever I am travelling towards if I am solo. I am sure that taxis have their drivers verified also, but taxis don't send me their driver's name and car license plate nor can I track the ride within the taxi service system itself. User is using technology to make the relationship between passenger and driver safer. If they fail on this, they need to be totally open and honest about it and discuss how to find better solutions. Drivers also get attacked by passengers - the safety measures go both ways.

I had a family member attacked by a cabbie. The driver was actually mere hours away from getting away with it too because a) The passenger had no record of the transaction and b) The cab service recycles their camera data every few days.

The way I see it, there is no guarantee of safety in either situation. You never know if your driver is a criminal or crazy. But services like Uber seem considerably more safe: There is extreme record keeping, user ratings, and no direct money changing hands.

South Park wasn't "predicting" this, they were engaging in their usual sophisticated commentary on news stories of the day. Various pundits, who shall go unnamed here, have made a big deal of the threat of sexual assault by Uber drivers, which, you so correctly, have pointed out is a real issue for Taxi Drivers as well (just without the clear audit log)

I'm fairly certain the reason this one made it to the front page of HN is because it happened in an Uber car.

> An Uber competitor hires a criminal to be a Uber (Timmy) driver to sexually assault the first female passenger it gets

Really? How very bizarre to come up with weird concepts like sexual assault for hire and sexual assault as a publicity stunt, then call it humor. Shame on them.

Edit: OK, pretty sure I just got down voted for pointing out that sexual assualt isn't at all funny. Oh hn...

South Park is a better show than you give it credit. They frequently explore serious issues in earnest and I have often felt the gravity of the message outweighs the humor in its presentation.

They've done bits that I have liked, a lot that I didn't care for but can just respectfully not be a fan of, but if this episode is really as described above (link won't let me watch it) it sounds kind of sick.

Which description are you referring to? I don't think anyone described that bit as humor. In the show it was used to portray how vile commercial sabotage can be, even to the consumer. The grave realization is that while the chosen situation seems hyperbolistic, it isn't—it's a real concrete possibility.

> In the show it was used to portray how vile commercial sabotage can be, even to the consumer.

Regardless about how you feel about Uber or its competitors, I do not believe they actually endorse rape or are capable of hatching a plot to plan a real life rape to occur as a publicity stunt. This is what was described in this thread. And I found it disgusting, even if it were satire.

But I guess some folks on HN don't really take this kind of thing seriously.

You've lost me. Nobody described the South Park episode that way. Honestly I think you just want to be mad about something and you found a trigger.

The part I quoted says exactly that. I think you're just not very used to finding overt references to sexual assault offensive, since this site is full of 22 year old kids etc. with very little life experience. I hope you have a daughter some day.

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