Uber Canceled A Driver’s Account For Tweeting Negative Things About The Company

"Your account has been permanently deactivated due to hateful statements regarding Uber through Social Media." UPDATE: Uber says it canceled the account because of "an error by the local team" and has reactivated the driver.

If you want to drive for Uber, don't tweet bad things about Uber.

At least that's the message the company is sending based on an email a former driver said he received Thursday.

Christopher Ortiz, who runs a startup in New Mexico called NewsCastic, wanted to start driving for Uber again to supplement his income. So he emailed the company about new documentation that he might need to submit, since there were new forms that weren't required the last time he drove for them back in July.

Here was Uber's response:

Sorry Christopher. Your account has been permanently deactivated due to hateful statements regarding Uber through Social Media. "Driving for Uber, not much safer than driving a taxi"Best of luck.UBER on!-John H.Uber Operations ManagerRefer your friends, earn money!

The emails seems to refer to a tweet Ortiz sent out back in August. He was linking to a PandoDaily article about an Uber driver getting robbed.

Driving for Uber, not much safer than driving a taxi http://t.co/rEJhvYlK4G

Drivers have complained before about getting suspended without warning if a rider gives them a low rating. But this appears to be the first time a driver has been suspended, or come forward publicly about being suspended, purely for social media activity.

Uber emailed BuzzFeed News to say that Ortiz's account was suspended because of "an error" and that they reactivated his account.

"This was an error by the local team and the driver’s account should have never been deactivated," an Uber spokesman said. "We reactivated the account upon discovering the mistake and we apologize to this highly rated driver partner for the inconvenience."

Ortiz took to Twitter to confirm his account had been reactivated.

I've suddenly been approved as a driver.

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