Last month, after reports surfaced that Uber had allegedly broken a taxi driver strike at JFK Airport amid protests against President Trump’s immigration ban, the hashtag #DeleteUber caught fire on social media, leading hundreds of thousands of users to cancel their accounts with the ride-sharing giant. But just when the grassroots backlash against Uber seemed to be dying down, a former engineer went public with her tale of rampant sexism and bureaucratic incompetence within the company. And like flipping a switch, #DeleteUber is back blazing up the social networks.
In the last 24 hours, #DeleteUber was sent out by over 1,000 Twitter users in 1,388 posts, with a potential 30,124,190 impressions, according to Keyhole. That’s almost 5 million more impressions than the weekend of January 27th, when the hashtag first started gaining steam.
Gross. Gross gross gross. #deleteuber https://t.co/4b1AFwj9x0
— Felicia Day (@feliciaday) February 19, 2017
Travis Kalanick, the guy who once bragged to GQ about how Uber was helping him get laid. #DeleteUber https://t.co/YIUKcnckHm
— HUNTER S. FAILSON (@Bro_Pair) February 20, 2017
This Uber situation is utter chaos internally. Even worse than #deleteuber weeks ago. And at the time, that was the worst I had seen yet.
— ಠ_ಠ (@MikeIsaac) February 20, 2017
Uber’s bungled response to the JFK strike, and its slow-motion response to CEO Travis Kalanick’s participation in a Trump advisory committee (he eventually backed out) helped #DeleteUber gain traction. People were mad that Uber seemed to have a callous response to the taxi worker strike, and then they got madder when they learned Kalanick would be advising Trump on economic policy. It fed into their preconceived notions about Uber as Silicon Valley’s most hated company, the one that breaks laws, manipulates markets, ignores allegations of abuse, and actively blocks its drivers attempts to organize and fight for better earnings.
What’s different is that this time Uber has a playbook for how to deal with the backlash. Rather than dally over how much credibility to give ex-engineer Susan Fowler’s allegations of sexism and a toxic corporate culture, they came out with an immediate response. Kalanick denied any knowledge of Fowler’s situation, and put the company’s recently hired head of human resources, Liane Hornsey, in charge of an “independent” investigation. Arianna Huffington, who sits on Uber’s board, will also be involved.