Delhi rape case: Social media users scream foul over Uber ban

BENGALURU: The Delhi administration’s decision to ban Uber and other cab hailing services met with harsh criticism on social media. Madhu Kishwar@madhukishwar 4 hrs4 hours ago: Help police build capacity to effectively combat crimes incldg monitor taxis. Why ban Uber when others don’t do better at compliance?

When the rape of a passenger by an Uber taxi driver came to light on Saturday, social media users raged against the taxi hailing company’s ‘reckless’ expansion that led to lax security checks.

Tinu Cherian, head of digital media at a multinational corporation, who has over 150,000 followers on Twitter told ET that the way Uber handled the situation on social media after the news broke was not adequate. “From a social media point of view, Uber failed to address the snowballing reputation crisis,” said Cherian.

He tweeted: “Uber suspended in Delhi halting 6,000+ jobs. Delhi Police DCP had issued character certificate to driver. By that logic Delhi Police must be banned.”

Karthik Srinivasan, National Lead- Social, Ogilvy said: “Not actively engaging on social media, to questions being posed, may actually be a better strategy because the sheer number of questions that could come up may not be easy to handle at all.”

In the first 24 hours, the issue got more than 15,000 mentions and started trending on Twitter. It was a hot topic on Facebook and various forums, shows a quick social media analysis by Simplify360, a social media analytics company.

“Social media has escalated the issue to the highest level, now it’s time for authorities to bring the real culprit forward and do justice,” said Bhupendra Khanal, CEO of Simplify360. Many users termed the official response as “knee jerk reaction”.