Uber, Lyft ban far-right activist Laura Loomer after anti-Muslim tweets

Ride-hailing services Uber and Lyft have banned a far-right activist after she took to Twitter to complain about not being able to find a driver who wasn't Muslim. Loomer, who is known for her far-right, inflammatory tweets, wrote on Wednesday (1 November) morning that she was late to the NYPD press conference because she wasn't able to find an Uber or Lyft that wasn't driven by a person who looked like they were Muslim.

"I'm late to the NYPD press conference because I couldn't find a non Muslim cab or @Uber @lyft driver for over 30 mins! This is insanity," she tweeted. She continued posting a number of anti-Muslim tweets to her more than 100,000 followers.

Loomer's posts come after 29-year-old Sayfullo Saipov drove a truck onto a pedestrian and bike path in Lower Manhattan killing eight people and injuring 12 others. Saipov, who entered the United States legally in 2010, is a former Uber and Lyft driver.

"Someone needs to create a non Islamic form of @uber or @lyft because I never want to support another Islamic immigrant driver," Loomer tweeted earlier. "Nearly every cab @uber @lyft driver in NYC is Muslim. It's extremely unfortunate and this is a conversation we need to have for our safety."

Uber banned Loomer from the app following her remarks on Twitter, Business Insider reported. Lyft later deactivated her account as well, CNET reported.

An Uber spokesperson told Gizmodo that Loomer violated its community guidelines. It noted that riders could also potentially be banned from Uber for making "comments or gestures that are aggressive, sexual, discriminatory or disrespectful".

This isn't the first time Uber has banned users for controversial race-related comments and incidents. In August, Uber permanently banned white supremacist James Allsup and alt-right leader Tim Gionet, also known as Baked Alaska on Twitter, after a driver kicked them out of her cab in Washington DC for allegedly making racist remarks.

Following the deadly protests in Charlottesville, Virginia, both Uber and Lyft vowed to take a strict stance on users who were discriminatory, racist or hateful.

"There is simply no place for this type of bigotry, discrimination, and hate," Uber's regional general manager Meghan Verena Joyce said at the time. The company noted that it will "act swiftly and decisively to uphold our Community Guidelines, including our policy against discrimination of any kind — that includes banning people from the app."