Chinese Ride-Sharing Giant Removes Creepy Passenger Attractiveness Ratings After Woman's Murder

Chinese Ride-Sharing Giant Removes Creepy Passenger Attractiveness Ratings After Woman's Murder

China's ride-sharing behemoth Didi is trying to make its platform safer for users after a 21-year-old woman was allegedly murdered by one of its drivers.

For starters, its carpooling service, Hitch, will no longer let drivers and passengers rate and tag the appearances of one another. Drivers have reportedly given female passengers tags like "long legs," "adorable girl," "goddesses," and "beauties."

The Hitch service is currently unavailable between 10pm and 6am as Didi continues to evaluate its new evening safety measures. The company noted that people on trips that start before 10pm but may exceed that time will be sent a safety reminder before they depart.

Perhaps one of the most extreme precautions floated in the post involved recording the audio of every single trip. Didi noted that users would have to consent to being recorded before using the app, and that the recordings wouldn't be stored on their phones, but rather encrypted and stored on the company's servers.

Last month, Didi launched its service in Mexico. The ride-sharing service also just got approval to test autonomous vehicles in California as well as opened a research lab in the U.S. last year.

https://gizmodo.com/chinese-ride-sharing-giant-removes-creepy-passenger-att-1826072843