Uber is looking into a solution for a small amount of drivers who reportedly game for cancellation fees.
It comes following a report by Nine on some drivers who claim they “game the system” by trying to force passengers to cancel trips, and receiving a cancellation fee for it.
There have been other reports of similar tactics, which include messaging passengers to cancel rides, or driving far away from the pick-up location.
On a popular forum for Uber drivers, some reasons for cancelling include when passengers take too long to get in the vehicle, when riders are inaccessible (within a gated property, for instance), or when the rider is trying to hail from an illegal area, which could result in fines.
It’s no secret that rideshare drivers are poorly paid, with companies taking high commissions from fares. Fines, or waiting for long periods don’t help with driver earnings.
An Uber Australia spokesperson told Mashable that instances of drivers gaming the system represent a “minute portion of all trips,” and that it’s looking into a solution to the issue.
“We are continually working on technology solutions as well as education to inform driver partners and riders about safe pick-up zones and ways to reduce cancellations,” Uber’s spokesperson said.
“We have an in-app Help section where riders can report issues around cancellation fees and we follow up with driver partners who regularly have cancelled trips. We are also working on an enhanced technology solution to further examine cancellations that will be rolled out in April.”
Uber didn’t offer any further detail on the “enhanced technology solution” it is planning to roll out when asked by Mashable.
The Deseret News‘ Eric Woodyard shared a video in which Westbrook can be heard saying, “I’ll f–k you up. You and your wife. I’ll f–k you up.” (warning: post contains profanity):
Eric Woodyard @E_Woodyard
Things get heated between Russell Westbrook and Utah Jazz fans again. “I’ll f*ck you up. You and your wife,” he says. Not sure what these fans said to him, but he also had issues with Jazz fans during the postseason. https://t.co/LquwRmLVNy
Westbrook revealed after the game what he heard the fans say, via Andy Larsen of the Salt Lake Tribune, “The realization of it is, how it started was, a young man and his wife in the stands told me ‘to get down on my knees like you used to.’ To me, that’s just completely disrespectful, to me, I think it’s racial, and I think it’s inappropriate.”
Brett Dawson @BDawsonWrites
Russell Westbrook made a statement and did not take questions tonight. Here’s all of the statement I can fit into one Twitter vid: https://t.co/EQA3A4jaQQ
Thunder forward Patrick Patterson supported his teammate on Twitter (warning: post contains profanity):
Patrick Patterson @pdpatt
Fans can say shit about a mans family, wife, & kids.. Tell a player “Get down on your knees like your use to.” As men, what do you expect us to do? Shut up & dribble? No one is held accountable for their actions except for us. Fans are protected in every way possible but not us.
The fan, Shane Keisel, shared his side of the story, via Jeremiah Jensen of KSL TV:
Jeremiah Jensen @JJSportsBeat
Shane Keisel, the Jazz fan who was involved in a verbal altercation with Russell Westbrook during the Jazz loss to the Thunder, explains his side of what happened. @KSL5TV @kslsports #nba https://t.co/ScCSRttTCg
The Jazz released a statement regarding the incident, via Tim MacMahon of ESPN.com:
“We are continuing to investigate the unfortunate exchange at tonight’s game between Russell Westbrook and fans. Multiple warning cards were issued by arena security. Players and fans have a shared responsibility to create a safe and respectful environment. If it is determined that any fans violated the NBA Code of Conduct, appropriate action will be taken.”
According to Woodyard, five fans at Vivint Smart Home Arena received a formal warning that their “comments, gestures and/or behaviors directed at players were in violation of the NBA Fan Code of Conduct.” The fans subsequently returned to their seats.
Westbrook has had issues with Jazz fans before.
As he was walking off the court following Oklahoma City’s Game 6 loss to Utah in the first round of the playoffs last April, he swiped in the direction of a fan.
“I don’t confront fans, fans confront me,” he told reporters. “Here in Utah, man, a lot of disrespectful, vulgar things are said to the players here with these fans. It’s truly disrespectful. (They) talk about your families, your kids. It’s just a disrespect to the game and I think it’s something that needs to be brought up.”
I thought 2015, when Meerkat dominated SXSW, would be the last year the annual tech festival turned brand extravaganza had a breakout star. Scooters have proved me wrong.
While the conversation on SXSW’s many stages has been dominated by politicians talking 2020, scooters have taken over just about everything else.
There are currently 8,403 electric scooters in Austin, according to city data. And while not all of them are in the streets and sidewalks immediately surrounding the convention center, you wouldn’t know it from walking around.
Scooters are literally everywhere, with shared vehicles from Uber, Lyft, Bird, Lime, and Spin (and a couple of others) lining the sidewalks. Uber and Lyft have a number of employees promoting their companies’ wheels, while others in safety vests walk around and attempt the impossible task of righting all the knocked over scooters so they resemble a gleaming example of micro-mobility and not a useless pile of scooter trash.
On the roads, Austin’s cyclists and pedicab drivers fight for space in the bike lanes. Signs warn cars to watch out for “people on wheels and feet.” Police officers patrol the official “pedestrian zones,” where scooters aren’t allowed but somehow still manage to end up.
And if you’re not riding a scooter, you’re probably complaining about them. Ask around and everyone has a story about almost being hit by an oblivious scooter rider, or seeing someone on a scooter doing something dumb.
Because while Austin has embraced scooters more than many other municipalities, the chaos of SXSW has put some of the issues surrounding the vehicles on full display. For example: not everyone got the memo that you’re not supposed to ride on the sidewalk. (Though Lyft, to its credit, did hand out a pamphlet advising on proper scooter etiquette.)
Having taken a couple scooter rides around Austin myself, it’s quickly apparent that scooter riders on the sidewalk is likely about much more than just plain ignorance. While some streets have protected bike lanes, many do not. And the amount of construction currently happening in downtown Austin means there are numerous potholes and less usable space than in the past.
As a city Austin has gone from 708 scooters last April to the more than 8,000 today, so these growing pains aren’t unique to SXSW, even if they are exacerbated by it.
Still, while combining thousands of scooters with hordes of party-hopping pedestrians seems like a recipe for disaster, city officials say that so far, there haven’t been any major incidents.
A spokesperson for Austin Transportation Department said 33 scooters have been confiscated by police for blocking the right of way since SXSW started. She added that there have not been any “significant” crashes, though I did hear talk of at least one scooter-related broken bone.
For scooter companies, these kinds of issues are likely little more than a necessary blip on their way to getting thousands of scooters into every city. And, at SXSW — a place already dedicated to corporate one-upmanship — every scooter company wants to be the scooter company.
Uber has big stands filled with its Jump scooters and bikes. Lyft handed out pamphlets. Spin attached “Free $5” signs to all its scooters (which means that you get a $5 credit, not that the scooter is simultaneously free and $5).
Whether this will succeed in winning over riders’ loyalty when scooters inevitably arrive in their own towns is unclear. What is obvious, though, is that these companies firmly believe scooters are the future.
And our sidewalks are only going to get more crowded.
The inventor of the World Wide Web questioned what it has become on the 30th anniversary of its creation, noting democracy and privacy were now under serious threat by the internet.
The web’s designer Tim Berners-Lee said on Monday online users had found it “not so pretty” recently. But he added it wasn’t too late to straighten the ship’s course.
“They are all stepping back, suddenly horrified after the Trump and Brexit elections, realising that this web thing that they thought was that cool is actually not necessarily serving humanity very well,” Berners-Lee told reporters at CERN, the physics research centre outside Geneva where he invented the web.
“It seems we don’t finish reeling from one privacy disaster before moving onto the next one,” he added, citing concerns about whether social networks were supporting democracy.
People who had grown up taking the internet’s neutrality for granted now found the administration of US President Donald Trump had “rolled that back”.
There was also a threat of fragmentation of the internet into regulatory blocs – in the United States, the European Union, China and elsewhere – which would be “massively damaging”, Berners-Lee said.
‘Digital adolescence’
In an open letter to mark the anniversary, he said many people now felt unsure about whether the web was a force for good, but it would be defeatist and unimaginative to assume it could not change for the better in the next 30 years.
Russia’s internet control bill triggers protests
“If we give up on building a better web now, then the web will not have failed us. We will have failed the web,” he wrote.
“It’s our journey from digital adolescence to a more mature, responsible and inclusive future.”
He said the editorial power of Facebook’s algorithm was “scary”, but the company was clearly thinking about such questions a great deal, and it and other social media firms backed the principle of letting users extract and move their data.
In a sign of the times, Facebook on Monday pulled and then later restored ads by US presidential hopeful Senator Elizabeth Warren calling for tech giants to be broken up.
“We removed the ads because they violated our policies against use of our corporate logo,” Facebook told AFP news agency. “In the interest of allowing robust debate, we are restoring the ads.”
Warren unveiled a proposal days earlier to break up major technology firms, arguing Amazon, Google and Facebook hold ” too much power” in society.
“Curious why I think FB has too much power?” Warren said on Twitter. “Let’s start with their ability to shut down a debate over whether FB has too much power.”
Previous comments from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler already made clear that Democrats have set a high bar for impeachment proceedings. | J. Scott Applewhite/AP Photo
Some Democrats argue that impeachment should be based on the evidence, not political considerations.
Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s pronouncement that she is opposed to impeaching President Donald Trump without overwhelming public support divided Democrats Monday — receiving a strong endorsement from her top deputies even as it rankled some who said they don’t want to be boxed in.
Pelosi told The Washington Post that she’s “not for impeachment” and is wary of such a move “because it divides the country. And [Trump’s] just not worth it” — her strongest comments to date on the subject, as she attempts to tamp down speculation surrounding Democrats’ ever-expanding investigations.
Story Continued Below
But some members of her caucus pushed back on her comments, arguing that impeachment should be based solely on facts and evidence — not political considerations.
“If the facts require us to initiate removing the president, we are obligated to do it. If the facts don’t support it, we won’t,” said Rep. David Cicilline (D-R.I.), a member of leadership who also sits on the Judiciary Committee. “This determination will be driven solely by the facts.”
Still he acknowledged, “there’s no question it would be divisive.”
Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), who sits on the Oversight and Judiciary committees, said impeaching the president isn’t about “whether or not the president is worth it. The question is whether the republic is worth it and whether the public interest commands it and whether there are high crimes and misdemeanors.”
“We can’t get so frustrated with Donald Trump that we impeach him just for being Donald Trump, but we can’t get so frustrated with Donald Trump that we don’t impeach him because he’s Donald Trump,” Raskin said.
Pelosi appeared to be further distancing herself and House Democrats writ large from the prospect of impeaching the president, while not ruling it out. It comes after a difficult week for her speakership, during which an intraparty spat over anti-Israel comments buried the party’s legislative win on ethics reform.
Pelosi’s comments have already set off a firestorm among liberal activists, with billionaire Tom Steyer saying in a statement: “Is doing what’s right ‘worth it?’ Or shall America just stop fighting for our principles and do what’s politically convenient?”
Yet Pelosi’s top deputiessaid lawmakers need to proceed carefully and that the various House probes into multiple aspects of Trump’s presidency and business empire would expose the president’s alleged wrongdoing.
“I think there’s enough going on in the various committees for impeachment to take care of itself,” said House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn (D-S.C.). “These committees have to build will in the American people for impeachment. Impeachment is a political question. I don’t care what we may feel — if the public isn’t there, we can’t go there. And I think the committee hearings and various things going on are what’s needed in order for the public to get where they need to be.”
House Oversight Committee Chairman Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) stressed that Democrats would need support from Republicans to proceed with impeachment.
“Keep in mind, impeachment is a political process. … What does that mean? You’ve got to have bipartisanship,” he said. “Right now when you’ve got 40 something percent of the country pleased, I guess, with what the president’s doing. I think Pelosi realizes this.”
Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.), chairman of the House Democratic Caucus, said Monday he agrees with Pelosi that Democrats “should proceed with caution.”
“We have to take our time with respect to our oversight function and wait for the Mueller report to be completed before we decide what’s the appropriate road to go down,” Jeffries said after walking out of a meeting with Pelosi.
Pelosi’s previous comments — along with those of Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.) — had already made clear that Democrats have set a high bar for impeachment proceedings.
Nadler told POLITICO last week that evidence would have to be “so stark, the deed so terrible, that you believe that once it’s all laid out, then you will be able to get an appreciable fraction” of support from the general public.
Democratic leaders have long argued that impeachment should be an option only when public opinion turns against the president so much that it’s no longer politically advantageous for Republicans to stick with Trump.
But Pelosi’s left flank has called for immediate impeachment proceedings, arguing there is already evidence that the president has abused the powers of his office. Steyer, who leads the Need to Impeach PAC, has been targeting Nadler and other House Democratic committee chairs in their home districts, running television ads and holding town halls to push them toward beginning the impeachment process.
Last week, the Judiciary Committee kicked off a sweeping investigation into Trump over allegations of obstruction of justice, corruption and abuses of power. The panel requested documents from 81 individuals and entities tied to the president as part of its probe, which Democrats have said could draw out enough evidence to impeach Trump.
Pelosi’s comments to the Post reassert her party’s policy agenda as leadership moves ahead with signature policy priorities, such as reducing the gender pay gap, protecting immigrants brought to the country illegally as children and lowering drug costs — goals some of her own members fear are being overshadowed by Trump investigations.
“We are currently having hearings on bringing down the cost of health care but that gets no attention because you’ve got [former Trump lawyer] Michael Cohen testifying. All of that just sucks up all of the energy,” Rep. Cheri Bustos (D-Ill.), chairwoman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, told reporters Monday.
“I want us to focus on what the people back home are asking us to get done,” Bustos said, adding that impeachment is far from the top concern in her district, which Trump won in 2016. “When I go home, I don’t have people asking me about impeaching him.”
John Bresnahan and Heather Caygle contributed to this story.
Elon Musk quietly accepted their judgement and … just kidding. In a court filing, on the day of the deadline for his response, the Tesla CEO accused the SEC of “unprecedented overreach,” warned that his First Amendment rights were at risk of being violated, and patted himself on the back for “dramatically” reducing “his volume of tweets.”
So, let’s break this down. After the infamous “funding secured” tweet, Musk reached a settlement with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) that required him to get pre-approval from Tesla before sending out tweets “that contain, or reasonably could contain, information material” to the company or its shareholders.
He then proceeded to tweet this:
Tesla made 0 cars in 2011, but will make around 500k in 2019
The SEC argued that disclosing those production numbers violated their agreement, which is probably why Musk later clarified in a tweet that Tesla wouldn’t make 500,000 cars by the end of 2019. Instead, he explained, it was making 10,000 cars a week — which would put it on pace for more than 500,000, but, seeing as they were making fewer cars earlier in the year, Tesla would only deliver 400,000 cars in 2019.
In the court filing, Musk’s legal team argues the tweet was “celebratory, aspirational, and forward-looking” on numbers already disclosed to investors.
Also, Musk didn’t have to get Tesla’s approval for his tweet, because he’s allowed to “exercise his reasonable discretion” on whether “his communications contain information requiring pre-approval.” So, you see, because he didn’t think the tweet needed to be approved, it didn’t need to be.
Also, he’s tweeting so much less! In the three months after the SEC order, he “cut his average monthly Tesla-related tweets nearly in half.” That “self-censorship” — that’s right, Musk has been censoring himself — shows how “committed” he is to the agreement.
And if the SEC forced Musk to “seek pre-approval of any tweet that relates to Tesla, regardless of its significance, prior dissemination, or nature,” it would “violate the First Amendment.”
The court filing continued: “This contempt action, following Musk’s sincerely-held criticism of the SEC on 60 Minutes, also reflects concerning and unprecedented overreach on the part of the SEC.”
Seems like a lot of trouble compared to, you know, not tweeting or having someone look at your tweets beforehand, but hey, I never launched a rocket into space so what do I know.
But her point was somewhat proven on Monday, as per a Politico report, when Facebook briefly took down the senator’s ads promoting her plan to curtail the influence of the social media giant.
According to Facebook’s ad database, Warren’s ads ran from Friday, targeting the lobbying efforts of tech giants Google, Amazon, and Facebook, and their dominance over the internet. Each ad had a budget of less than $100 to promote it around the site.
“Facebook and Google account for 70% of all internet traffic — if we didn’t run ads on Facebook, like this one, we wouldn’t be able to get our message out around the country,” the ad reads.
A Facebook spokesperson confirmed to Mashable the company had removed the ads, but is bringing them back.
“We removed the ads because they violated our policies against use of our corporate logo. In the interest of allowing robust debate, we are restoring the ads,” the spokesperson said.
As per Facebook’s ad policy, the company prohibits the use of its corporate logo in its ads. Warren later responded to the takedown and restoration of her ads.
“Thanks for restoring my posts. But I want a social media marketplace that isn’t dominated by a single censor,” she wrote.
Curious why I think FB has too much power? Let’s start with their ability to shut down a debate over whether FB has too much power. Thanks for restoring my posts. But I want a social media marketplace that isn’t dominated by a single censor. #BreakUpBigTechhttps://t.co/UPS6dozOxn
You shouldn’t have to contact Facebook’s publicists in order for them to decide to “allow robust debate” about Facebook. They shouldn’t have that much power. https://t.co/yPi57RHozf
Me right now watching Marquees Chris and Serge Ibaka throw punches at each other. https://t.co/7Qh9E5W0ps
Cayleigh Griffin @cayleighgriffin
Here’s a look at the Ibaka-Chriss incident. I’m under that hoop and it was INSANE. Words were exchanged before, but Ibaka came at Chriss with hands around his neck. https://t.co/e2Ll4xrPcy
Sid Seixeiro @Sid_Seixeiro
Serge Ibaka is the only person in the Toronto sports scene to show any fight tonight.
It was at this moment when Marquese Chriss realized that Serge Ibaka is not the one… https://t.co/QT3bwPmS7H
Meredith Minkow @murrminks
When someone at the office eats the snacks i brought in and labeled in all caps https://t.co/RxpU0O9AWQ
Beyonce has an uncle named Larry Beyince. Bruh…. @DragonflyJonez
Ok I was like “Chriss is like 12 and Ibaka is like 46. You don’t get points for that” and I googled Ibaka’s age and how in the hell is that dude not even 30 yet. He was drafted by the Sonics
Me right now watching Marquees Chris and Serge Ibaka throw punches at each other. https://t.co/7Qh9E5W0ps
Cayleigh Griffin @cayleighgriffin
Here’s a look at the Ibaka-Chriss incident. I’m under that hoop and it was INSANE. Words were exchanged before, but Ibaka came at Chriss with hands around his neck. https://t.co/e2Ll4xrPcy
Sid Seixeiro @Sid_Seixeiro
Serge Ibaka is the only person in the Toronto sports scene to show any fight tonight.
It was at this moment when Marquese Chriss realized that Serge Ibaka is not the one… https://t.co/QT3bwPmS7H
Meredith Minkow @murrminks
When someone at the office eats the snacks i brought in and labeled in all caps https://t.co/RxpU0O9AWQ
Beyonce has an uncle named Larry Beyince. Bruh…. @DragonflyJonez
Ok I was like “Chriss is like 12 and Ibaka is like 46. You don’t get points for that” and I googled Ibaka’s age and how in the hell is that dude not even 30 yet. He was drafted by the Sonics
March 12, 1989 was a big day in the annals of digital history.
It was on that day that Tim Berners-Lee proposed the idea of what we’ve come to call the World Wide Web. And so Google has decided to celebrate in classic Google style: with a Doodle.
The Doodle, which at the time of this writing is available to our friends living on the other side of the International Date Line (what up, Mashable Australia), depicts an old-school computer slowly downloading an image of a rotating Earth — dial-up modem and all.
Notably, in a blog post announcing the internet’s 30th anniversary, Google makes an effort to head off any possible pedantic ramblings regarding the web versus the internet.
Image: google
“Not to be confused with the internet, which had been evolving since the 1960s, the World Wide Web is an online application built upon innovations like HTML language, URL ‘addresses,’ and hypertext transfer protocol, or HTTP,” it reads. “The Web has also become a decentralized community, founded on principles of universality, consensus, and bottom-up design.”
For those of you still stuck on March 11, you’ll have to wait until tomorrow to see the Doodle grace your region-specific Google landing page. But hey, it’s been thirty years — you can wait one more day.
By Johnny Lieu
no one attack me 
41-26
Daily Trends Hunter 