Uber and Lyft ban rightwing activist after racist tweets
After Charlottesville, tech companies have taken a stronger stance against hate speech.
In the aftermath of the attack in Lower Manhattan, in which a former Uber and Lyft driver is accused of ramming his truck into pedestrians and cyclists, killing eight people and injuring 11 more, an outspoken rightwing commentator has been banned from both services for posting inflammatory tweets.
Former Project Veritas activist Laura Loomer, a self-declared "Investigative Journalist", tweeted: "Someone needs to create a non Islamic form of @uber or @lyft because I never want to support another Islamic immigrant driver."
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Then, she ranted that every Uber and Lyft driver in NYC is Muslim:
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Ending up with a tweet saying she's going to be late to the NYPD press conference "because I couldn't find a non Muslim cab."
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But it gets worse. Loomer though it was a good idea to start snapping pics of random New Yorkers from behind accusing them of "rubbing [the attack] in everyone's face" and "aimlessly walking around in hijabs."
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A Uber spokesperson confirmed to Mashable that Loomer's account was disabled and "she was banned for violating our community guidelines."
The platform's Community Guidelines say riders and drivers should "respect each other". If you're a rider, you could lose access to the service for "use of inappropriate and abusive language or gestures:"
For example, asking overly personal questions, using verbal threats, and making comments or gestures that are aggressive, sexual, discriminatory, or disrespectful.
Lyft also deactivated her account, according to a company spokesperson.
This is not the first time that Uber has banned someone from its platform for violating terms of service.
In August, Uber banned white supremacist James Allsup after he made racist remarks.
