{"id":96228,"date":"2020-10-23T21:18:27","date_gmt":"2020-10-23T18:18:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/expensify-sends-mass-email-urging-users-to-vote-for-biden\/"},"modified":"2020-10-23T21:18:27","modified_gmt":"2020-10-23T18:18:27","slug":"expensify-sends-mass-email-urging-users-to-vote-for-biden","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/expensify-sends-mass-email-urging-users-to-vote-for-biden\/","title":{"rendered":"#Expensify sends mass email urging users to vote for Biden"},"content":{"rendered":"

“#Expensify sends mass email urging users to vote for Biden<\/strong>”
\n<\/p>\n

\n Expensify urged its millions of users to support Joe Biden in November\u2019s presidential election in a mass email that said voting for President Trump would be \u201ca vote against democracy.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Thursday note from the expense-reporting software company\u2019s founder and CEO David Barrett drew praise and criticism from users, with some questioning whether the company violated their trust by pushing a political endorsement to their inboxes.<\/p>\n

In the message<\/a>, Barrett said he feared the country\u2019s democratic systems wouldn\u2019t survive another four years under Trump and that such a collapse could hurt Expensify as a company. He also accused the president of trying to suppress votes and making overblown claims about voter fraud.<\/p>\n

\u201cExpensify depends on a functioning society and economy; not many expense reports get filed during a civil war,\u201d Barrett wrote. \u201c\u2026 I am confident our democracy (and Expensify) can survive a Biden presidency. I can\u2019t say the same about Trump.\u201d<\/p>\n

Barrett acknowledged that the email \u2014 which went to 10 million people at 100,000 businesses that use Expensify\u2019s software, according to Bloomberg News<\/a> \u2014 would rub some people the wrong way. He wrote that the recipients \u201cdon\u2019t need to listen\u201d and invited those who disagreed with him to share their thoughts on Twitter<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Barrett also said<\/a> Expensify employees had a long discussion about the letter and worked to fact-check the claims within it.<\/p>\n

Plenty of customers took Barrett up on his invitation, with some saying they would take their business elsewhere. Critics also argued it was inapp<\/a>ropriate for the San Francisco-based company to employ its cache of user data for political purposes.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe selected Expensify as a vendor based on trust \u2014 after all, you have financial information for us organizationally as well as the personal information of hundreds of my colleagues,\u201d Daniel Rothschild, the executive director of the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, wrote in a letter<\/a> to Barrett. \u201cYou also have our email addresses. We trusted you with our private information. You have violated that trust.\u201d<\/p>\n

But some Expensify users applauded Barrett for taking a clear position and articulating it at a crucial point in the nation\u2019s history.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf I wasn\u2019t already an [Expensify] customer, I\u2019d want to switch to encourage more leaders to be as bold,\u201d public-relations practitioner Martha Shaughnessy tweeted<\/a>. \u201cIt\u2019s so far beyond typical politics. Everything is at stake.\u201d<\/p>\n

Expensify\u2019s email came amid intense debates in recent months over the role that Silicon Valley\u2019s tech giants, such as Facebook and Twitter, should play in the nation\u2019s political processes.<\/p>\n

Other tech firms have taken a more restrictive stance on politics. Brian Armstrong, CEO of the cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase, published a controversial blog post<\/a> last month saying the company would ban at-work political discussions, drawing criticism from Twitter chief Jack Dorsey<\/a> and Dick Costolo, the social network\u2019s former CEO.\n <\/div>\n