Uber and Lyft had an edge in the Prop 22 fight: their apps

*Uber and Lyft drivers protest Proposition 22 outside City of the Angels City Hall on October 22, 2020.*

Uber and Lyft had an abut in the Prop 22 fight: their apps

The victory of Shore up 22 in California could set a case law for how companies use technology to foyer for political outcomes

Away Nov 4, 2020, 2:30pm EST

The apps told Golden State voters to vote yes on Proposition 22. And the voters listened.

Uber and Lyft fatigued over $200 trillion on the ballot measure to keep their drivers classified as independent contractors, but their most effective bit of lobbying may actually get been antimonopoly few lines of code.

In the weeks leading up to Election Mean solar day, the companies used their individual apps to bombard riders and drivers with messages urging them to vote for Airscrew 22, the ballot bill. Its triumph will set a case law for other states' labor laws around gig work, too as for how vast companies with an unchaste way to communicate to millions of voters can lobby against Laws they don't like.

The outcome on Prop 22 was never certain, with polling in the run-busy the election showing the electorate crisply disunited over whether Uber and Lyft should treat drivers the like employees. Most notably, at least a quarter of voters aforesaid they were undecided only weeks before the vote, according to a UC Berkeley Institute of Studies poll parrot. This gave Uber and Lyft an opportunity to define the issue to voters using their apps, said Arun Sundararajan, a prof at NYU's school of business and author of The Sharing Thriftiness: The End of Employment and the Rise of Gang-Based Capitalism.

"I uncertainty whether the average voter would have weighed the pros and cons of the labor law around AB5 versus the new initiative," Sundararajan said. "They feel positively towards the platforms, they don't want to see a disruption in something that they depend on, and so they right to vote for the platform's position."

Prop up 22 cements gig workers' position in Golden State as independent contractors. The ballot measurement, which won with 58 per centum of the voter turnout, exempts gig economy companies from a state law requiring them to classify their workers as employees. Information technology also mandates that gig workers receive new benefits, such as minimum hourly earnings. Critics tell these benefits declension short of the full protections that come in with employment, as they may have had to under another law, AB5 — which originally took aim at gig work.

The companies splashed out a historic sum that probably influenced the issue. The companies' "Yes on 22" campaign fatigued over $200 million on billboards, digital, publish, and radio ads. They as wel deployed scores of lobbyists, and sent elector mailers that critics said were misleading. Simultaneously, Uber and Lyft's top executives undertook a media tour in which they threatened to leave the state if Airplane propeller 22 failed. And they even sponsored academic explore to support their claims most the benefits of Prop 22. Labor groups, which opposed the law, raised only a tenth A much money.

It's notoriously ambitious to secure a yes vote on a ballot measure in California. Starring companies take in outspent their opponents past tens of millions of dollars and motionless come up short. In 2010, for example, PG&adenylic acid;E spent $43 billion to pass a measure to deter government-run power providers, but the standard was discomfited past a astronomic margin.

But the fizgig companies' integer reach and their use of in-app messages to reach voters was unique, stage setting it obscure from ballot fights of the past. In the weeks major equal to the vote, Uber and Lyft served users with a pop-upfield message threatening yearner wait times and high prices if Prop up 22 failed. They also claimed drivers would lose their livelihoods. In order to request a ride, users had to tap the "corroborate" button on the message.

Uber and Lyft's use of their apps to push on a sentiment message may be legal, but it still felt improper, said Erica Smiley, executive of Jobs with Do, a not-for-profit that opposed Prop 22. "If anyone else self-possessed data from people for incomparable reason, and so used it for another political purpose, they would be in a human beings of trouble," she said.

The fight was certainly asymmetrical. Anti-Property 22 groups were able to investment trust a modest ad campaign arguing against the ballot measure, only lacked direct access to voters through their smartphones.

Uber was also lobbying its drivers through the app. In a lawsuit filed late, Uber drivers accused the ship's company of pressuring them to support Prop 22 through the app. The drivers claimed they were getting messages reading "Shor 22 is march on," as cured as dire warnings about what would occur to their jobs if Prop 22 were to break dow. Like riders, drivers had to click "OK" before they could move assuming in the app. A judge rejected the lawsuit on the dregs that the outcome of Prop 22 would render it "moot." The judge too discharged the drivers' allegations of "political coercion," stating that there was no evidence of any Uber driver organism punished for not supporting Property 22.

This isn't the first time Uber wielded its app to score a political triumph. In 2015, the company was feuding with Sunrise House of York City Mayor Banker's bill Delaware Blasio over his effort to limit the number of new ride-herald vehicles on the road. To summon its user base to react the city manager, Uber added a "DE BLASIO" pick that illustrated how tantalise requests could vanish and vehicles could slow to a crawl if the city manager's proposal was approved.

Other tech companies have embedded political messages in their products before. In 2012, Google blacked out its logo on its search Sri Frederick Handley Page in protest against the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the PROTECT Information science Act as (PIPA) that passed the US House of Representatives.

"Different tech platforms have tried to occupy consumers through their tech in incompatible ways," Sundararajan said. "But Uber is probably among the almost sophisticated at using the app, and it was particularly immodest in this case, given that IT was a ballot first step."

Jobs with Justice's Smiley argues for stricter Pentateuch around companies using apps to press political messages. "They have to create separate political PACs to be able-bodied to talk to consumers or workers," she said, "and build those lists supported that premiss, non based along the need to fulfill a service."

Uber's messages to riders and drivers are not considered political advertisements, though the Yes on 22 campaign hush up included them in a disclosure financial statement as a non-monetary contribution, a spokesperson for the company aforementioned. "Uber's app mutual the voice of tens of thousands of drivers, 72 percent of whom support Prop 22, with millions of riders in California and keeping them informed of the stakes on this issue," the spokesperson aforementioned in a statement. "We throw previously shared videos from drivers with riders and this hebdomad MADD's endorsement of shore up 22 because of ridesharing's impact on reducing drunk driving."

A Lyft spokesperson did not immediately answer to a request for notice.

It's unclear whether states will step in to restrict these types of batch-messaging campaigns. In California, app notifications appeared to be target. In a statement to the Lanthanum Times, the state's Clean Political Practices Commission aforesaid thought advertising only when needs proper disclosure to let the public know who's salaried for it to be in compliance with the law.

The professional-Property 22 notifications happening Uber's app included a decreased line of gray print reading "paid for by Uber."