Lyft's stricter safety policy could make it harder to ban bad drivers

A new report says the system takes human judgment out of important safety decisions.

Lyft has implemented a new set of safety guidelines and protocols that current and former employees worry will allow unsafe drivers to return to the platform, according to The Washington Post. In June, Lyft created a new Safety Policy and Community Compliance (SPCC) team that currently makes any final decisions related to the removal of a driver from the platform using a "decision matrix." At the same time, the company effectively demoted its Trust and Safety team, which was previously responsible for banning drivers.

To be clear, Lyft's old safety system was definitely in need of improvement. The company recently became the center of a lawsuit that alleges it didn't do enough to protect its female passengers from predatory drivers. That lawsuit includes almost 100 sexual assault complaints that date between 2014 and 2016. In a separate report from earlier this year. read more »

Jewish Summer Camp Named In New Suit Filed Under Child Victims Act

Allegations of abuse from 1969 at camp suit says was funded by UJA-Federation; charity denies operating camp.

In a new lawsuit, a first-time plaintiff is alleging sexual abuse at the hands of a rabbi who worked at an all-boys Jewish summer camp in the Catskills that he attended as an 8-year-old in 1969. read more »

Survivors rally at Epstein’s mansion for updates to Child Victims Act

Sex-abuse survivors converged on pedophile Jeffrey Epstein’s Upper East Side mansion on Monday to lobby for an expanded Child Victims Act that would allow victims to launch claims outside of New York state.

More than 1,000 civil lawsuits have been filed since the New York law, which temporarily removes the statute of limitations against historical abuse claims, went into effect Aug. 14. read more »