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This reminds me why calling out a company on twitter for something that goes wrong is way more effective than calling customer support. Basically a life lesson: Public shaming is way more effective than the processes set up to handle these things.



You're not wrong, but at a certain point public shaming as a method will lose it's efficacy or become so ubiquitous that everybody is publicly shaming everybody else. Is public shaming, just another name for mob justice? I guess what I'm saying is, it is a powerful weapon, so we should be really careful with how we use it.


When the alternatives could also range from process to beating to killing, public shaming is one of the best options for criminals.


Especially since we have absolutely nothing to go on, in this case, except the word of one disgruntled former employee.

Maybe it's all true, maybe it's totally made up, maybe it's basically true but exaggerated and missing important information. We don't know, but plenty of people are happy to pile on.


It's highly unlikely that Susan's account is untrue.

Making an untrue statement, this publicly, would mean Uber's lawyers would have a strong civil case to sue her for defamation: http://www.dmlp.org/legal-guide/california-defamation-law

Susan was brave to share her story. There's very little upside for her, and tons of potential downside.


Furthermore, she says she has evidence in the form of emails. I'm not suggesting she will, or even should, make them public, but it would be a hell of a gamble to claim publicly to have them if she didn't, as she will need them if she finds herself in court.


Those hipchat messages and emails are available to anyone with the ceo's say-so who cares to look.


Sadly, it goes both ways. I wouldn't be surprised if there weren't "leaks" or outright statements which attack Susan from Uber or other Uber "employees" showing up on Twitter and in the news.

Deserved or not, public shaming of users on forums like Yelp or Twitter has become a common business tactic to battle bad press.


True, Indian "startups" who just are a VC money sink spammed me with emails and texts, for emails, I can set rules and I am not mandated to read their propaganda, with text messages, I can't block them! One tweet and they got me out of their spam list




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