Imagine if you had a lawyer, an accountant or a doctor whom you had hired and with whom you trusted your private information.
Then imagine he used the information you had given him for his private help, to send you a political solicitation telling you who to vote for, saying if you voted for President Donald Trump, you would get a civil war.
You would likely feel very violated and not have a lot of trust in that person any more.
That’s what the company Expensify just did to all of its clients.
The founder and CEO of Expensify, an expense reporting software company, sent out a letter to their 10 million clients telling them to support Joe Biden in the presidential election because voting for Trump was a “vote against democracy.” David Barrett claimed that Trump was trying to suppress votes.
From NY Post:
“Expensify depends on a functioning society and economy; not many expense reports get filed during a civil war,” Barrett wrote. “… I am confident our democracy (and Expensify) can survive a Biden presidency. I can’t say the same about Trump.”
Barrett acknowledged that the email — which went to 10 million people at 100,000 businesses that use Expensify’s software, according to Bloomberg News — would rub some people the wrong way. He wrote that the recipients “don’t need to listen” and invited those who disagreed with him to share their thoughts on Twitter.
So @expensify CEO literally emailed every single registered user/customer with a plea to vote for Joe Biden
Completely insane for a 100M+ financial services company and the logical end point of woke capital https://t.co/0wQhyP0GZL
— Saagar Enjeti (@esaagar) October 23, 2020
He’s basically trying to stoke fear in them. But who would be creating “civil war” or getting violent if Trump won? It wouldn’t be folks on the right. As the left has shown time and again, it’s the far left that has no problem being violent if they don’t get what they want. But the last thing you would ever want to do is give such people what they want. Then you are rewarding fear and threats, and inviting still more.
Barrett claimed he and employees worked to “fact check” the claims he made in the letter. Apparently they didn’t check for any sense. Imagine anyone thinking this was a good idea, that they’re going to violate the trust of their clients so.
People let Barrett have it in response, with many saying they would take their business elsewhere, that it was inappropriate to use their user data for political purposes.
I can’t explain how proud I am right now…
The owner of the company I’m at just sent this staff message
Glad there’s leaders with the coconuts to stand up for their values no matter what.
If all conservative companies did this, we’d be much better off
BAD MOVE @expensify! pic.twitter.com/0sq4YrubY2
— Ashley StClair 🇺🇸 (@stclairashley) October 23, 2020
I do have to give my sincere thanks to @dbarrett. He and his company @expensify’s misuse of my personal data to send me a pro-Biden spam email prompted me to do some thinking. Turns out we have the capacity to add users to our QuickBooks and dump his product thus saving money.
— Joe Pilot, MD (@JoeSilverman7) October 23, 2020
Friend of mine who runs a biotech company canceled his @expensify account. He emailed a few of us about it: “If I wanted to pay someone to tell me to vote Democrat I’d enroll in a university” https://t.co/6vpFCmLlNj
— Noah Pollak (@NoahPollak) October 23, 2020
Daniel Rothschild spoke for many in his response to Barrett and Rothschild isn’t even a Trump supporter. He, like most Americans, basically aghast that this company would think to use their data this way to preach at him or tell him what to do.
Excellent response, from a non-Trump supporter, to @expensify’s overpoliticization and violation of trust by sending out unsolicited demand to customers that they vote for Biden, CEO’s preferred candidate. This response view undoubtedly shared by most Americans. https://t.co/7VRU0UKgQn
— Mollie (@MZHemingway) October 23, 2020
“We selected Expensify as a vendor based on trust — after all, you have financial information for us organizationally as well as the personal information of hundreds of my colleagues,” Daniel Rothschild, the executive director of the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, wrote in a letter to Barrett. “You also have our email addresses. We trusted you with our private information. You have violated that trust.”
HT: Twitchy
