Uber Eats is facing backlash after incorrectly listing a Palestinian restaurant as Israeli.
Over the weekend, Palestinian restaurant Levant Pizza, located in Toronto, Canada, posted on its Instagram saying that Uber Eats recategorized the restaurant as “Israeli” on the app. Levant’s post states that the restaurant isn’t alone in being miscategorized; Lebanese and Iraqi restaurants have also been categorized as Israeli.
“Palestinian restaurants, including ours, have been abruptly shifted from the ‘Palestinian’ cuisine category to ‘Israeli’ on their platform,” Levant’s post says. “This move attempts to erase Palestinian identity by actively contributing to the suppression of Palestinian cuisine on a global scale.”
Uber Eats’ official Instagram account commented on Levant’s post saying that it “escalated” the restaurant’s complaint “to a specialized team to investigate.” Levant, however, said yesterday that the explanation that Uber Eats gave them was “not clear,” as Uber Eats attributes “the problem to crossover results, where search results may include other cuisines when searching for a specific region.”
“However, the broader crossover results only surfaced when searching for ‘Israeli’ cuisine,” Levant said in an Instagram post. “This indicates the existence of engineered anti-Palestinian and anti-Arab bias.”
In a statement made to the Daily Dot, a spokesperson for Uber Eats Canada said that the company is “deeply sorry” for the “unintentional issue.”
“We do not tolerate discrimination of any kind,” they expressed in a statement to CityNews, a local Toronto news outlet.
The incident has caused some on TikTok to call for a boycott of Uber Eats. Pro-Palestine individuals have been boycotting companies like Starbucks, Disney, and Mcdonald’s that have supported Israel since the escalation of the Israeli-Hamas war in October.
In a TikTok posted over the weekend, Imani Black (@whoisimaniblack) says that Uber Eats is “trying their best to erase Palestine and its culture.”
“Uber Eats is another company we must boycott,” Black wrote in their video’s overlay text.
@whoisimaniblack ♬ FREE PALESTINE – Imani Black
TikToker Jocelyn Alice posted a similar sentiment, saying that Uber Eats “can’t just erase Palestinian food from [the] app and think it’s gonna be okay.”
“Free Palestine,” Alice says in her video. “Boycott.”
