Nobody is. She could be lying. She could even be providing the demographic information of a coworker who had none of these experiences. She might be a space alien for all we know.
So you just have to weigh the evidence and get comfortable with uncertainty. Is there someone who would make all this stuff up? Sure. No doubt there's someone out there who likes internet adulation enough to cook up a story. Is this an instance of that happening? Not very likely, I think, since it corroborates what we're hearing from a lot of other people about Uber's culture, and Ms. Fowler's story. I judge that there is a high likelihood this story is true or mostly true.
That's all you can do really. You're never going to get first-hand, attributed corroboration in a case like this. This is because anyone in a position to do that would be outing the anonymous whistle-blower by corroborating, especially if more than two people did. If they care about the victim, they will respect her choice to remain anonymous. So demanding more before assigning credibility is tantamount to deciding to always disbelieve anonymous accounts. That is an option available to you, but I don't think that option is the most useful for developing true beliefs about the world around me, so I don't choose it.
Nobody is. She could be lying. She could even be providing the demographic information of a coworker who had none of these experiences. She might be a space alien for all we know.
So you just have to weigh the evidence and get comfortable with uncertainty. Is there someone who would make all this stuff up? Sure. No doubt there's someone out there who likes internet adulation enough to cook up a story. Is this an instance of that happening? Not very likely, I think, since it corroborates what we're hearing from a lot of other people about Uber's culture, and Ms. Fowler's story. I judge that there is a high likelihood this story is true or mostly true.
That's all you can do really. You're never going to get first-hand, attributed corroboration in a case like this. This is because anyone in a position to do that would be outing the anonymous whistle-blower by corroborating, especially if more than two people did. If they care about the victim, they will respect her choice to remain anonymous. So demanding more before assigning credibility is tantamount to deciding to always disbelieve anonymous accounts. That is an option available to you, but I don't think that option is the most useful for developing true beliefs about the world around me, so I don't choose it.