Dan O’Sullivan admits that he had a “lame-ass excuse” for skipping the protests on January 28 at O’Hare International Airport over President Trump’s executive order on immigration: household chores. But as he quietly folded laundry at his Chicago apartment, the journalist and self-described “idiot with a keyboard” sparked a viral #DeleteUber campaign on social media that doubled as a possible blueprint to those who want to resist Trump by putting pressure on corporations that associate with the president and his administration. (Uber CEO Travis Kalanick is on Trump’s economic advisory board.)
The response earned thousands of retweets, and he followed up the initial post with a series of tweets using the hashtag #DeleteUber that called for conscientious consumers to boycott Uber because of its “exploitative anti-labor policies, Trump collaboration, and now profiting off xenophobia.”
congrats to @Uber_NYC on breaking a strike to profit off of refugees being consigned to Hell. eat shit and die https://t.co/19gbpIc9m9
— HUNTER S. FAILSON (@Bro_Pair) January 29, 2017
usta uber a lot , not no moeeee
— TOKYO ✘ (@madeintyo) January 29, 2017
After Lyft took advantage of its chief rival’s bad PR, decrying Trump’s order and pledging to donate $1 million to the ACLU, Uber leaped to its own defense on Saturday night with a tweet denying the company had intended to break the taxi strike. Uber also linked to a statement by CEO Travis Kalanick, in which he said his company was supporting drivers impacted by Trump’s “unjust immigration ban” and announced Uber was creating a $3 million legal fund to help drivers with immigration and translation services. Kalanick also attempted to deflect criticism of his position on Trump’s economic advisory board, saying he would broach the subject of the ban with the president during a scheduled board meeting on Friday. “We’ve taken the view that in order to serve cities you need to give their citizens a voice, a seat at the table,” he wrote.
