• @iforgotmyinstance@lemmy.world
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    7410 months ago

    So what I dislike about this is that the driver is the one choosing. If the customer was placing their preference, and then Lyft agrees to attempt to place them with their preference (for a surcharge of course, priority service shouldn’t be free) that would be something I could get behind. Letting drivers flat refuse service to someone based solely on their gender sounds like opening the doors to discrimination suits.

    • @philodendron@lemdro.id
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      1110 months ago

      Conceptually, sure. But I imagine it’d be a potential lawsuit over workplace discrimination. Especially if the female drivers are being paid more for the same service.

    • Nix
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      1510 months ago

      Did you even read the article? How would women drivers deciding they want more women and nb passengers cause male drivers to lose income…

      How is this the most upvoted comment

    • FlumPHP
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      210 months ago

      Your comment makes no sense given the details provided in the article. The toggle runs a gender-based sort on available passengers when a driver indicates they’re ready to pick up a new passenger.

      • Male driver, without this toggle, indicates they’re ready for a passenger? All waiting passengers are sorted by current algorithms.
      • Female+ driver, with this toggle off, indicates they’re ready for a passenger? All waiting passengers are sorted by current algorithms.
      • Female+ driver, with this toggle on, indicates they’re ready for a passenger? All waiting passengers are sorted by gender then current algorithms.

      At no point does the pool of available passengers for male drivers decrease.

        • FlumPHP
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          110 months ago

          You’ve changed the perspective to potential wait time for male passengers. That may be true but it doesn’t have an adverse impact on male drivers, which is what was stated in the comment I replied to.

          It is objectively always better to be in the women+ group than outside of it.

          Based on Ubers data, women+ are raped five times as often in ride shares. “Objectively” I bet a lot of women+ would choose “maybe a longer wait” over “5x chance of being raped”.

    • Otter
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      2010 months ago

      They’d need a toggle for the feature on the rider side as well. Like “hide my gender”

      • @db2@sopuli.xyz
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        2610 months ago

        There are plenty of sexually aggressive riders too. It’s not one sided. We can summarize it thus: people suck.

        • @bionicjoey@lemmy.ca
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          1210 months ago

          Perhaps this whole “random people using their regular car to give rides to total strangers” thing was a bad idea…

          What if instead the rides were given in specially modified cars that can include some security features for both parties? And in order to pay for this, perhaps there could be some kind of central company that owned the cars and simply hired the drivers?

          • @db2@sopuli.xyz
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            910 months ago

            That’s just crazy talk. Next you’ll tell us there should be really big municipally-run cars that a whole bunch of people can ride at once which makes multiple stops. Insanity!

        • FlumPHP
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          310 months ago

          riders were the accused party 43% of the time in sexual assault incident reports

    • AnonTwo
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      110 months ago

      I’d assume if you get legal action thrown at you though, it’d be a lot harder to deny if you also were picking a gender to get specific drivers.

        • AnonTwo
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          110 months ago

          I’m pretty sure the nefarious purpose one isn’t actually dealt with by this and is an extreme outlier

    • FlumPHP
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      -410 months ago

      Explain how sorting the list of available passengers by gender is discrimination? It’s being rolled out in huge metropolitan markets so there will be enough drivers for everyone to get one.

      • bou
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        410 months ago

        @flumph if they allowed sorting the list by race, instead of by gender… would you understand how it’s discrimination, then?

        • FlumPHP
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          110 months ago

          The protected category doesn’t matter, I don’t see how anyone is getting a leg up or being held back by the feature.

          • bou
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            210 months ago

            @flumph so, if there was a button that allowed drivers to prioritize white passengers, but there wasn’t one to prioritize black passengers, that wouldn’t be discriminatory to you?

        • FlumPHP
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          210 months ago

          The option allows customers to prioritize drivers…

          Nope, it doesn’t. The feature is for drivers, not passengers.

    • GhostalmediaOP
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      210 months ago

      I assume they’ll probably check with the gender people put on their drivers licenses or something.

        • @KoboldCoterie@pawb.social
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          510 months ago

          On the rider side, women and nonbinary riders will see an option to “count me in” in their Lyft app. Choosing this will “increase their chances of matching with women and nonbinary drivers,” according to this blog post from Lyft.

          For drivers, the feature is based on the gender marker on their license on file, and for riders, on their gender setting within the app, explained CJ Macklin, senior communications manager at Lyft, in an email to The Verge. “Both riders and drivers will have the option to update their gender settings at any time to ensure it is reflective of their personal gender identity,” said Macklin.

          It’s opt-in on both sides.

    • @NumerousGeorg@geddit.social
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      10 months ago

      Would be better if driver meant rider here. Or if either rider or driver could disallow matching with male binary people (or whoever they find offensive)

    • @5BC2E7@lemmy.world
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      1010 months ago

      I guess that if I ever use lyft I would describe myself as whichever classification gives you more privilege. In this case I would go with non binary woman

  • snooggums
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    1210 months ago

    Wow, this thread is a bunch of people spouting an updated version of the “men in women’s bathrooms is gonna lead to rape” bullshit.

  • @pixxelkick@lemmy.world
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    10 months ago

    Step 0: Be the sort of scum that would assault a lyft driver
    Step 1: Set your identity to non binary as a rider
    Step 2: Dress in a way to appear non-binary, even a little bit. Honestly just painting your nails purple and wearing thick glasses is probably enough to not raise suspicion. Most people wont try and question this and interrogate you over it. If they do, filter them off and be a normal rider.
    Step 3: If they don’t question it, congrats, Lyft has no just done the work of assisting you with finding your next victim, great job Lyft!

    Bonus round~!

    1. Be a nazi
    2. Do steps 1-3 above
    3. Set your destination to be somewhere vaguely secluded where your fellow nazi friends are lying in wait.
    4. Congrats, Lyft has now successfully routed a non-binary identifying person directly into you and your nazi friend’s clutches, great job lyft!
    • snooggums
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      -210 months ago

      So people who haven’t been doing that already are going to suddenly go out of their way using steps that will show obvious intent during future prosecution?

        • snooggums
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          210 months ago

          They haven’t been abusing drivers already.

          Yes, targeting could conceivably make it easier but it was already possible.

          • @pixxelkick@lemmy.world
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            310 months ago

            targeting could conceivably make it easier but it was already possible.

            I agree…

            You understand this is the entire point of what I wrote though, right? That in an effort to try and make lyft safer, they have effectively done the exact opposite and literally made it easier for abusers to target victims.

  • AutoTL;DRB
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    310 months ago

    This is the best summary I could come up with:


    Choosing this will “increase their chances of matching with women and nonbinary drivers,” according to this blog post from Lyft.

    If someone goes through the steps to change their gender in the app, we are going to assume that is how they identify,” Audrey Liu, Executive Vice President/Head of Design at Lyft, said in a statement.

    “Inclusivity is a core value at Lyft and we are committed to creating a community in which riders and drivers feel as though they are included and belong.”

    Lyft says this feature has been highly requested and will give women and nonbinary people more control over both the driving and riding experience.

    Currently, that demographic accounts for less than a quarter of Lyft drivers, which is comparable with the rest of the rideshare industry, according to a report by Gridwise.

    Those in launch cities can download the latest version of the Lyft app starting tomorrow, Sept. 13th to access the feature.


    The original article contains 478 words, the summary contains 157 words. Saved 67%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!

  • GhostalmediaOP
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    -1210 months ago

    I look forward to seeing the same people suing over bathroom access doing the mental gymnastics to sue over this.