Home United States USA — IT With Uber's misdeeds, Lyft aims to look like the good guy

With Uber's misdeeds, Lyft aims to look like the good guy

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Reeling from scandals, including an alleged incident at a karaoke-escort bar, Uber appears to be back-pedaling while Lyft is on a positive PR campaign.
Lyft rolls out a new feature that lets passengers round up their fare to the nearest whole dollar and donate that remainder to a favorite charity.
As Uber’s scandals mount, Lyft appears to be taking this moment to cast itself as the nice ride-hailing company.
Lyft announced a new program on Sunday called “Round Up & Donate,” which lets riders round up their fare to the nearest whole dollar and donate that remainder to the charity of their choice. This program will be rolling out to passengers within the next few weeks.
“Treating people better along the way is just the way we do it,” Lyft wrote in a blog post Sunday. “Whether you tap in, or just keep doing your bit riding, you’re sitting on a changemaker. All you gotta do is take a seat to take a stand. ”
Lyft also pledged in January to donate $1 million to the American Civil Liberties Union over the next four years for the legal defense of immigrants and signed amicus (friend of the court) briefs protesting both of President Donald Trump’s travel bans.
Uber, on the other hand, has experienced a rocky past few months. It all started with a #DeleteUber movement in January centered on the perception that the company was not doing enough to protest Trump’s travel ban. Uber reportedly lost 200,000 customers and things just got worse from there.
In short: female employees accused the company of sexual discrimination ; investors lambasted Uber for have a culture “plagued by disrespect;” a leaked video showed company CEO Travis Kalanick telling off a driver; Google filed a lawsuit against the ride-hailing company claiming it stole self-driving car technology ; a New York Times expose uncovered Uber’s secretive Greyball tool meant to thwart police; and a long list of top executives have stepped down.

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