It has been recently reported all over the media that Laura Loomer, an investigative reporter sent of a massive attack, a full tweet blitzkrieg after the New York attack by Sayfullo Habibullaevic Saipov, a 29-year-old Uzbekistan immigrant living in NJ, killed 8 people. Loomer is a known right-wing activist, so her attack is not to be a surprise, it was the vehemence and quantity of the tweets that caught the rideshare companies attention as well as them being named in the tweets as well. In fact, Loomer accused ride-share companies of knowingly employing Muslim extremists, here are some of her tweets:
https://twitter.com/LauraLoomer/status/925745407145205760
https://twitter.com/LauraLoomer/status/925749405994635265
she wrote in a Twitter post, that referred to a Wednesday news conference regarding the attack in New York.
"Ms. Loomer was banned for violating our Community Guidelines," Uber spokesman Matt Kallman said in an email.
In response Loomer tweeted:
https://twitter.com/LauraLoomer/status/925866544822923264
Loomer has stated she will seek legal action against the two ride share companies.
She tweeted:
https://twitter.com/LauraLoomer/status/926205329586708481
A quick review of the facts as we know them:
The terrorist drove a Home Depot truck and used it on Halloween knowing that it would inflict the most damage, both physically and emotionally due to the number of pedestrians. The attack was already being formulated a year before it happened and FBI officials suggested that found on one of Siapov's mobile devices were over 90 ISIS related videos. He had been an Uber driver for over one year when the attack occurred, although he was not driving for Uber at the time of the attack.
My personal take on this issue. Loomer was venting her rage at the attack; she is a right-wing activist, so her generalization fo calling an all Muslims terrorist is not uncommon for those kinds of people. They do not know how to differentiate between the good and the bad. It would basically be a civil war if all Afro Americans would claim all white Police shootings of unarmed black kids was because all white people are evil.
The only real outcome of this story is that there are over 8 mourning families and a right-wing activist that gets free publicity with help from the media. If Uber and Lyft would have ignored the situation and not banned her the effect would have been better, ignoring someone is always more damaging then publicizing them. After all, what is better for Loomer? Being known or being ignored and forgotten?