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Another criticism faced by Uber results in the Delete Uber campaign

Uber, the world’s one of the largest online taxi-hailing networks has faced many criticisms, lawsuits, legal actions and protests from the both Government and its Uber drivers. At the end of January 2017, the campaign called Delete Uber has been trending in the social media and it results in the deletion of nearly two lakhs of Uber accounts. Though the Uber faced a lot of criticism from the people, it is trying to solve the issues in a different manner.

Executive order of President Trump

The United States President Donald Trump has signed an executive order in January 2017 in the name of Protecting the Nation from Foreign Terrorist Entry into the United States and the order blocked all the Syrian refugees from entering the United States. It also stopped the admission of refugees into the country for 120 days and barred the citizens and refugees of seven countries from coming into the US for 90 days. The listed seven countries are Iraq, Iran, Sudan, Libya, Yemen, Syria, and Somalia.

This ban created chaos on the immigration system in the airports of United States and abroad, and this act was condemned by many peoples. As a result of this ban, many people are started to protest on the roads of the country and the order was disapproved by the former President and around hundred American diplomats. There are thousands of people congregated at airports and several other places to express their disapproval in signing the order and confinement of the foreign nationals.

Effects of the ban

The executive order does not affect any naturalized citizens of United States from these seven countries. After the implementation of this order, visitors, students and green card holders from these seven countries and all the refugees from other countries were also stopped at the airports in the US and overseas like Dubai, Cairo, and Istanbul. Some people who are blocked from entering the country are sent back to their own countries.

The Federal judges of some states of the United States said that the travelers who blocked at airports across the country must not be sent back to their countries. But, the Government did not accept the statement and told that the green-card holders of the mentioned seven countries will not be stopped from entering the country.

Uber’s act of providing cars

The travel ban on the peoples of seven Muslim-majority countries entering the United States signed by the Donald Trump has resulted in the protests around the airports of the United States. In order to support this protest, the Taxi Workers Alliance of New York requested its members to stop the taxi services for one hour at John F Kennedy International Airport.

At the time of the strike, the ride-sharing company Uber announced that it switched off its surge pricing feature for the riders at the John F Kennedy International Airport. Surge pricing is defined as the rise in the price of any commodity when there is a high demand.

Delete Uber went viral

After viewing the tweet of Uber, people became offended and started to show their annoyance in the social media. In a short period of time, Delete Uber hashtag became more viral and many people started criticizing the Uber’s CEO and the company.

According to the reports, around two hundred thousand Uber users were deleting the app and also their Uber accounts. The announcement of the suspension of surge pricing came after the taxi strike and many people on social media suggested that the ride-hailing company Uber wanted to counteract or break the strike. It showed that the Uber is trying to make a profit by taking advantage of the situation and it also indirectly support the act of Trump’s Muslim ban.

Some of the people said that the Uber was trying to distract the taxi drive by providing cars at the airport during the scheduled taxi strike. Hence, the Uber taxis would be roaming in and around the airport that creates problems to the protesters. Many of the people who are angry at the company suggested others shift to Lyft, the competitor of Uber in the U.S.

Response of Uber

In response to the Delete Uber hashtag, many Uber users posted the screenshots of deleting their Uber app from the phones on the social media. Many of them confronted the Uber’s activity in the share details column provided while deleting the app from the smartphones.

The Delete Uber campaign become more popular among the social media and many of the people encouraged others to delete the app from their phones and even asked to deactivate their Uber account. Most of the people shared their views about the act of Uber in this situation and also started to trend the delete Uber hashtag.

In order to respond to this controversy, the company has told there was no any intention to break up the protest and the tweet was just to announce the people at the airports can use the Uber cars at normal prices to and from JFK airport. It also added that the elimination of surge pricing was done particularly in order to avoid making profits from the increased demand happened during the protest.

The company also mentioned its previous policy of stop increasing taxi fares during any state of emergency and natural disasters. The CEO of Uber also spoke about the executive order on the social media before the strike and also announced that the company will provide financial compensation to its employees who are all affected by the order. It is applicable for the drivers who are in their home country and unable to return to the United States during the period of three months where the ban is active.

Uber’s main rival, Lyft responded to the Trump’s executive order in a different way where the company has promised to donate one million dollars to a civil rights group, the American Civil Liberties Union which is fighting in the court against the ban.

Uber’s email to the users

Uber has faced severe criticism for a week by the people because of its announcement of taxi service without surge pricing during the taxi drivers strike at JFK airport. It was reported that many people has deleted the Uber mobile app and also their Uber account.

The spokesperson of Uber stated that Uber will create legal defense fund of three million dollars to help the drivers who are affected because of these immigration issues. It was predicted that the company was facing both internal and external pressures because of a large number of deletions of the app.

Uber circulated a Google Docs file named “Letters to Travis” at the company that provides the summary of the workers’ dissatisfaction about the Uber’s relationship with the Donald Trump. The company also sent an email to its former users who have deleted their accounts on that weekend to show their dissatisfaction with the companies.   

The email stated that the immigration ban was wrong and injustice and the company will provide financial support to the drivers’ families during the ban period. Travis Kalanick, Uber’s CEO also stated that he had spoken with the president regarding the executive order and also about its issues. He also added that he resigned from the Economic Advisory Board of Trump.

Author Bio : Anand Rajendran is CEO and Co-Founder of Dectar apps, best PHP scripts development company located in India. Dectar is a part of Casperon Technologies a leading social and mobile development company which is Developing Taxi Dispatch Software. I’m a Tech geek, Digital marketing expert, Entrepreneur, and Atheist who loves to write everything about PHP Scripts and mobile application development. Cabily Script is a clone of Uber, which developed by the tech gigs of his company.

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