Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2019/12/19/lyft-said-their-real-names-are.html
“I can’t change my birth name for you?!” said one user.
21 Likes
Does Lyft not require you to send them a picture of your Driver’s License to work for them? If the state recognizes their name then what’s Lyft’s problem? It should be easy to verify the user name against their Driver’s License photo in cases like this.
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Okay, I’ll get this started:
I think Mike Hunt is already suing them. Dick Fallis and I. P. Daily too.
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I.P. Daily? Didn’t they write the international bestseller The Yellow River ? Or was that I.P. Freely?
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I assume this also works against riders who have accounts? (But if the system is sufficiently dumb, it rejects drivers before a human being matches the license to the name on the account, too.)
Your company name is now “Candice Oflyft”. Here’s the company anthem – learn it by heart.
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Ha. I got booted from Next Door for using the name Jaques Haas. I didn’t bother appealing the decision.
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[SIGH]
Looks like it is time to refresh the programmers’ social intelligence again with Falsehoods Programmers Believe About Names.
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The “stupid corporation LOL” aspect was worth the click, but giggling like a 9-year-old at these names is the real value added.
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The same company that refused to follow the law in Austin, Texas and instead got the corrupt state government to overturn our local ordinance requiring them to fingerprint drivers now has the gall to tell people their names are offensive. I will never use Lyft or Uber especially since we have a much better not for profit ride sharing service called Ride Austin which pays the drivers more and isn’t a bunch of lawless thugs like Greg Abbott, Uber, and Lyft.
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While I definitely don’t love either Lyft or Uber, this seems pretty mild, considering their fast and apologetic response. Let them lash their coders a bit and move on.
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Lyft would explode if Dick Butkis started trying to supplement his income
I always felt sorry for the guy- I’m sure he was the eternal butt of every joke
Not related- but I always thought Wolf Blitzer was a seriously badass name, but I have the appreciation of names an 8 year old does 
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Surely some game out there includes a round of blitzing wolves.
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If only I could invent that, and use the farcical machismo angle to lure conservatives and alt right assholes to actively play it.
With raw meat strapped to their necks, while wearing Trump merch and his shitty ties.
If only. A guy can dream…
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I don’t think that this instance is covered. I mean yeah, you could argue* that Poon is a mere approximation of 潘, and thus reflects the limitations of ASCII and Romanization, but prurient pareidolia is not a software engineering problem.
(*unsuccessfully)
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It’s the colonizing mindset of the Lyft algorithm’s implementation: one that is directly confronted by the linked article.
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Oh Crap. It’s right there in the list.
- I can safely assume that this dictionary of bad words contains no people’s names in it.
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BT dubs: a cookie for “prurient pareidolia.” 
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My friend had a VHS copy of The Temple of Poon. (NSFW, no linky)
My very wholesome eye doctor is Dr. Poon.
My Autocorrect wants “Poon” to be “Point”.
//Language is a moving target
///You didn’t bring enough ammo.
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