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Airbnb Adopts Rules in Effort to Fight Discrimination by Its Hosts

nytimes.com

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Re: Airbnb Adopts Rules in Effort to Fight Discrimination by Its Hosts

#151

Post by saiya-jin »

exelius wrote: post #50
aikah wrote: post #8

well people should have figured out by now : Airbnb's aren't hotels. And people should be free to deny others staying at their place, for whatever reason. Airbnb can't have it both ways, they know it and this effort will be pure PR.

I dunno; I feel Airbnb is really losing control of their product. Most recently, I've noticed a lot of listings of great places for awesome prices... but only if you're willing to rent for 12 months continuously, provide your own furniture and pay a security deposit -- which is just a fucking apartment lease. It makes it hard to find "legit" rentals with so much of this kind of spam filling up the listings. Worse yet…

this doesn't make sense - you were looking for short term rental and the search was filled with 12-month rentals? ie the airbnb search is broken or the owners was falsely advertising short term availability when only yearly was available?

Re: Airbnb Adopts Rules in Effort to Fight Discrimination by Its Hosts

#152

Post by huac »

pooper wrote: post #47
ovis wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What if there was a reputation threshold for a traveller to make an instant booking? Of course it's still not immune to racism or sexism, but it seems that it would provide a decent buffer against it.

Nope. I would not ever rent a room with instant booking unless Airbnb signs a blank check for any damages by the guest (which it of course won't)

Do you think the $1M insurance policy isn't enough?

Re: Airbnb Adopts Rules in Effort to Fight Discrimination by Its Hosts

#153

Post by ch4s3 »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #17
ceejayoz wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably not sharply enough or clearly enough to impact behavior. The thought patterns around this sort of thing can be pretty insidious, too. Some might be thinking stuff along the lines of "I'd be doing better if all these black people weren't tying up my reservations calendar".

I don't think it's a racial thing, I think it's more about preventing damage to your property by going with the ones who are least likely to damage. For example, the types of foods and spices a certain culture cooks with can cause a dwelling to smell for days (just like smoking), and so will cause a problem with future tenants. Certain cultures are known for having lots of kids and not raising them to be quiet or dis…

>Certain cultures are known for having lots of kids and not raising them to be quiet or disciplined

Do you realize that you are literally parroting a racist trope?

Re: Airbnb Adopts Rules in Effort to Fight Discrimination by Its Hosts

#154

Post by saiya-jin »

aikah wrote: post #38
gmarx wrote: post #33

Many other commenters imply that since people would flee the platform if they couldn't discriminate, that AirBnB shouldn't have to deal with the problem. It's the opposite. AirBnB is required to deal with the problem. Their challenge is to make it look like they are dealing with the problem (e.g. hire Eric Holder) while not actually dealing with it in any substantive way. Lots of these new companies have as part of t…

Wow, you're right : http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/21/technology/airbnb-hires-ex... It's like these corporations hiring diversity officers who won't fix anything in their discriminatory hiring process. Pure PR.

actually this doesn't mean anything - hiring a black person for anti-discriminatory position seems exactly like PR. Hey look, we hired him, we cannot possibly be discriminative, right?

and nobody was talking about airbnb's hiring process here, WTF?

Re: Airbnb Adopts Rules in Effort to Fight Discrimination by Its Hosts

#155

Post by oh_sigh »

dilap wrote: post #6

I don't know if this is really a tractable problem. At the end of the day, either airbnb lets hosts decide who stays or doesn't. If they don't let hosts decide, they'll likely lose a ton of hosts, since having someone stay in your home is a very personal thing and a huge risk. If they do, then they're going to have significant discrimination problems as long as people are discriminatory, i.e., basically forever.

You could easily deny racists/sexists/whateverists this information by not forwarding the name or pictures of the person trying to book. You get to see all their reviews, but not what they look like.

Re: Airbnb Adopts Rules in Effort to Fight Discrimination by Its Hosts

#156

Post by vinceguidry »

pascalmemories wrote: post #127
saiya-jin wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

why the attack? the fact that he didn't put in enough safety in complicated apartment is the reason for you to attack him? Well maybe it technically challenging, would make the place ugly or is near impossible given the layout of the place or materials used to build it. You cannot just drill anywhere you want in buildings that are few hundred years old for example. there is a distinction between sharing an apt and go…

My comments are far from an attack; an attack would have been more than summarizing his comments in 2 lines and then pointing out there was a discrepancy. I don't know where you got the idea that I was suggesting anyone should 'just drill anywhere' from ? As an old person or a disabled person, looking on AirBnB, I can see what the apartment has and how it is laid out (provided good pictures and description are provid…

> If there is a legal requirement to have safety rails on stairs (or any other regulation), saying the building is X years old is not an excuse for failure to comply.

Of course it is. Otherwise every time a new building code gets published, the entire city suddenly has to remodel. This might be acceptable for stuff like stair handrails, but is totally ridiculous for stuff like electrical connections. You really gonna make everybody change their electrical service and rip all the wire out of their home?

In theory it would be nice to be able to go into every building and expect certain features to be present. In practice it would be impossible.

Re: Airbnb Adopts Rules in Effort to Fight Discrimination by Its Hosts

#157

Post by jessaustin »

vkou wrote: post #117
guelo wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We're seeing a wide trend in the US where people want rules to prevent people from making choices that they don't agree with, which was basically the opposite of the point of the US. Freedom is a relative thing. Here we have AirBnB's freedom to not want racist hosts vs white supremacist's freedom to use AirBnB. The only freedom the ideal of USA is supposed to grant you is freedom from too much government meddling.

> The only freedom the ideal of USA is supposed to grant you is freedom from too much government meddling. Really? Which amendment is that one? There are a few prominent restrictions on particular kinds of government meddling in the US. This by no means generalizes to the rest of it.

Which amendment is that one?

The Tenth:

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

Of course this is a dead letter because of a misinterpretation of the Commerce Clause, but there it is. If the Constitution didn't literally give the federal government a power, it doesn't have that power.

Re: Airbnb Adopts Rules in Effort to Fight Discrimination by Its Hosts

#158

Post by oh_sigh »

prmph wrote: post #123
simonsarris wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can think of one way AirBNB could attempt to persuade hosts: publish data showing that there is no correlation between any of [race, religion, national origin, disability, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, age] and the likelihood of a guest being a poor guest (ending in an insurance claim, or maybe just a very bad review). If the data shows that there is no correlation, they can prove hosts have no reason t…

The usual arguments against your point have been well argued before, but I will repeat it here, because people all too often trip up on the seeming unassailable logic of your position: Men are statistically more likely to commit violent crimes than women, and 100% of crime is committed by humans. Would you suggest that "men" and "humans" as classes should be discriminated against as a result? What if, statistically,…

> Would you suggest that "men" and "humans" as classes should be discriminated against as a result?

That already happens. Especially with room shares, where the person renting is a female and only wants other females there(or, doesn't want men).

Re: Airbnb Adopts Rules in Effort to Fight Discrimination by Its Hosts

#159

Post by wang_li »

spaceflunky wrote: post #114
st3v3r wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hotels don't get any of that. Why should you?

Because I'm renting out my personal residence. Why should we lump hotels and my apt into the same bucket? They are different types of businesses. I think it's unreasonable to say that all home-sharers must act like hotels.

There are plenty of smaller, older, hotels where the owner lives on site.

Re: Airbnb Adopts Rules in Effort to Fight Discrimination by Its Hosts

#160

Post by djschnei »

6dqh5yapl3 wrote: post #137
djschnei wrote: post #134

How as a society do we decide appropriate discrimination vs. inappropriate discrimination? We discriminate constantly, every single of us - making choice of this person over that person. Is that wrong? when does it become wrong? is it not something that can be hashed out?

We have had this debate in the US. We determined that that you can discriminate against people for most random reasons, but if you run a public accommodation there are several specific reasons you can't use to discriminate.

Those being race, gender, creed, and sexual orientation I suppose? Still seems rather arbitrary, if I'm being honest. Acting for example; how is casting based on race legal? Or maybe it's not... idk. Interesting topic though.
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