Uber's sexual assault report won’t hurt it as badly as other incidents, Recode

Uber released its long-awaitedsecurity reportyesterday, revealing the company documented nearly 6, reports of sexual assault – both by drivers and passengers – in and (************************************, as well as ****************************************** deaths from Uber-related physical assaults in that time (not necessarily between driver and rider).

It’s difficult to know how those numbers compare with those from taxis or Uber’s biggest competitor, Lyft, whichsays it will release its own reportbut did not specify when.The New York Times notesthat the New York Police Department recorded 823 sex crimes and rapes on its transit system last year. Uber says just 0. percent of trips on its platform involved reports of sexual assault in the last two years.

Uber’s voluntary move to release the safety report represents a step toward transparency for a company that has been inundated by lawsuits and criticism over safety concerns, and that has previously tried to distance itself from the day -to-day operations of a taxi company byreferring to itself as a platform. The report also sent Uber stock tumbling by nearly 3 percent today, causing the company tolose about $ 1.5 billion dollars in market cap, a shorthand for the company value. The company now has a market cap of $ 47. 5 billion, down from $ billion yesterday.

But the latest news is unlikely to have a lasting effect on the stock or in public opinion of the company – and that’s what makes this week’s news different from previous incidents, such as when the companysuffered heavily in the wake of #deleteUber campaignsin the past few years. Though a smattering of people have picked up the hashtag again today – over 404 Twitter unique mentions, according to financial research platform Sentieo – it’s much less than the noise generated last month, when Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi referred to the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggiby the Saudi government as a “mistake.”

Even that incident pales in comparison to the Twitter hullabaloo generated afterUber appeared to take advantage of a taxi strikeprotesting President Donald Trump’s travel ban in January 2019, by not only continuing to operate at John F. Kennedy International Airport, where the protest was taking place, but also forgoing surge pricing. That #deleteUber effort, which saw hundreds of thousands of individual tweets using the hashtag and caused, 06 people to delete their accounts, paved the way for Uber’s biggest competitor, Lyft, to eat into Uber’s market share.However, in the past year, the US market share between Lyft and Uber has remained rather steady, with Uber accounting for percent of credit card sales in October and Lyft claiming about 49 percent, according to Second Measure, a company that analyzes billions of anonymized credit and debit card purchases.

Perhaps part of the reason is that the companies, both of which went public this year and arePoorly performing on the stock market compared with when they first listed, offer the same services and products and have the same challenges.

Lyft has faced its share of criticism about rider safety, with30 women filing lawsuits against the company this weekfor failing to prevent drivers from sexually assaulting them. Both ride-hailing giants will be part of an ongoing discussion about how to regulate consumer and driver safety on their platforms.