February 15, 2024
Dear Dara Khosrowshahi,
I am writing to you today concerning an Uber ad that has been brought to my attention by the members of the National Federation of the Blind. Considering Uber’s core values and the prior messaging provided to our community about its awareness of concerns from the blind community and its desire to work with the Federation to resolve those issues, the messaging of the advertisement has the opposite effect. We call on you to immediately stop use of this ad. We continue to provide you with clear and honest feedback from our community with the hope that we might make progress in getting our concerns addressed. I share our concerns with you trusting that you will in turn share them with the appropriate teams within Uber. We will also be sharing this communication with our membership so that everyone is aware that we have reached out to Uber about this most recent issue.
The ad in question features a blind woman speaking about how Uber has increased her ability to travel independently. As you know, blind people deeply appreciate the increased freedom of movement that comes from having Uber as an option in their local community. We also recognize that Uber can be a useful tool wherever an individual may be on their journey of coping with changing eyesight. Nonetheless, as an organization focused on raising expectations and empowering blind people, we feel that the ad sends negative messages about blindness and its effect on our lives. These messages encourage the public to pity us and to see Uber as the only means of saving us from lives of constant fear, isolation, and physical harm, rather than as one tool that can enhance our independence. This is particularly problematic considering the unaddressed harmful treatment that blind people have received from many drivers in the Uber community.
The ad begins, as just one example, with the narrator suggesting that people can experience what it is like to be blind by simply closing their eyes. Years of experience have taught us that vicariously experiencing blindness through temporarily blocking one’s eyesight increases people’s fear of blindness without meaningfully enhancing their understanding of how blind people live our lives. Because people who are just closing their eyes and trying to accomplish some tasks do not have the tools, training, and skills that blind people develop and acquire, often over many months or years, the experience tends to suggest to them that blindness is more of a barrier than it is for those of us who are accustomed to dealing with it on a daily basis.
In another example of problematic messaging, the narrator says that “you have to have really good mobility skills to use the white cane, there's cracks in the sidewalk, I can't see the black ice, I've had broken bones just trying to get to my bus stop.” This suggests that the white cane is not an effective mobility tool for blind people. This sends a message to the public that is clearly different than the experience of thousands of blind people who have learned to use the white cane with ease and grace. Furthermore, the specific examples here are flawed: While black ice is a hazard even to people who have perfect eyesight, white canes often detect it without issue, since its slipperiness contrasts with the texture of surrounding surfaces. An effectively used white cane will also usually detect sidewalk cracks. Of course, coping with vision loss is a journey, and it can be particularly difficult for people whose eyesight has changed suddenly. While we respect individual lived experience, exploiting negative incidents in an advertisement sends a message of helplessness and dependence, rather than one of hope and empowerment. It is important for blind and low-vision people, wherever they are on their individual journey, to understand that their lives can still be full of possibility and even joy. Uber missed a significant opportunity to portray blind people living that kind of life. Instead, the ad suggests that blind people’s lives are a series of physical catastrophes unless they have Uber to “save” them from this painful and frightening fate. As I have said, Uber is a valuable and powerful tool, but millions of blind people traveled safely and independently before it existed, and many still get along quite well without it.
It should be possible for Uber to market how it meaningfully addresses a true barrier faced by blind people, access to reliable motor vehicle transportation, without exploiting fear and stereotypes. Uber should treat us not as pitiable recipients of its beneficence, but as people who use the service to participate fully in work, school, and community life. Uber’s failure to portray us as we are is a direct result of its failure to reach out to us and meaningfully collaborate on this marketing campaign. This failure would be regrettable enough in isolation, but given that Uber has already developed a negative reputation in our community because of its handling of the guide dog issue, this misstep compounds the problem. The creation and dissemination of this ad sends the unfortunate signal that Uber is willing to exploit us to obtain the goodwill of the public, while still failing to address the issues we have raised with you over the years. This may not have been the intent, but our community cannot be blamed for interpreting it that way.
I hope that you will take this letter in the spirit of constructive feedback in which it is meant. The marketing campaign that gave birth to this ad can only serve to further alienate many of the same people that Uber claims are its valued passengers. I hope that you will end use of this ad immediately. I also hope that this communication will produce a more positive and constructive approach across the board. We are prepared to inform your work with the authentic experience of blind people if Uber truly desires to have our community as valued customers.
Sincerely,
Mark A. Riccobono, President
National Federation of the Blind