Uber’s threat to ban riders points to a bleak future

THE ride-sharing service declared they would axe passengers who fall short of their ratings system. It’s part of a trend that puts more faith in algorithms than people, writes James Morrow.

ONE of the funny things about modern urban living is how we have managed to jettison all of the niceties of small-town life (community, neighbourliness) while amplifying the things that made it stultifying (nosiness and social stigma).

And, even more amazingly, the fact that we are all too willing to pay for the privilege.

Two stories from the week’s papers neatly illustrate this point: Yesterday, it was reported that Uber is introducing a new set of guidelines for drivers regulating how they get on with passengers.

There’s a strict “no sex” policy, which makes sense, but the company is also instituting a no-handshake rule.

Likewise, drivers will be banned from “uncomfortable” conversations about religion and politics — though for this regular user of the service, no ride-share experience has come close to the horror of being stuck in traffic on the Harbour Bridge with a taxi driver whose solution to the Middle East peace process wouldn’t have been out of place in 1930s Berlin.

A further look at the company’s announcements reveal something else: Passengers are also in the frame, with those whose rating drops below four out of five stars to be given a six-month time out from the service.

Uber have banned handshakes and will axe passengers whose ratings drop to below their four star threshold. (Pic: Robyn Beck/AFP)

Meanwhile on Monday, The Daily Telegraph also noted a new study from Lifeline which found that we are increasingly living in isolation from our neighbours (even as we are made to live ever more closely with increasing numbers of them) — and that 55 per cent of much-maligned Millennials feel disconnected from society.

Neighbourliness is a thing of the past, while we pay corporate algorithms to enforce behaviour and play the same role disapproving busybodies once did.

If it’s bad in the real world, it’s even worse online.

There, if the busybodies in the form of trolls don’t get you, corporate censors will.

Ask any conservative who is active on Facebook and you’ll hear stories of people put in “Facebook jail” — having their accounts suspended — for some seemingly innocuous post or other. Many also worry that the company’s efforts to crack down on “fake news” are more a thinly-veiled attempt to silence voices on the right.

Twitter, meanwhile, is home of mobs who will pick through years of someone’s timeline (“offense archaeology” is the term for it) to embarrass them for having a wrong opinion today.

Bryce Dallas Howard (centre) in an episode from the third season of Black Mirror, where citizens are given an Uber-style rating. (Pic: Supplied)

What makes it worse is that there seems to be little rhyme or reason for all this.

Alex Jones, a loopy conspiracy theorist who retails goofy nonsense about chemtrails (look ‘em up) and the “New World Order” has been banned from Twitter.

At the same time Palestinian terror outfit Hamas and America’s Louis Farrakhan, the Nation of Islam leader given to rants about “Satanic Jews”, still have their accounts with their millions of followers.

Where does all this wind up?

Well, one option is that we wind up in the dystopian world of British sci-fi series Black Mirror, where everyone has an Uber-style rating based on every interaction they have — something the Chinese are already experimenting with their social credit system, managed by the government, which affects citizens’ ability to do everything from buying train tickets to getting an apartment to obtaining a passport.

In Western countries, though, we seem to prefer our totalitarianism outsourced, even if it winds up in the same neighbourhood where the trouble first began.

James Morrow is opinion editor of The Daily Telegraph.

@pwafork

Originally published as Uber’s threat to ban riders points to a bleak future