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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

#291

Post by sokoloff »

tptacek wrote: post #231
Unklejoe wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see. I honestly didn't know much about the specifics of protected classes before today. So, currently, political affiliation is not a protected class, but it is considered a gray area by many. Many may feel that political affiliation should be considered a protected class, however, if it becomes one, would that mean that Nazism is now protected? Or coming at it from the other angle, as it stands, a religious extrem…

Nazism is in many ways protected. Cities cannot deny permits to neo-Nazi groups to assemble, for instance. The comparison between Nazism and discrimination against black people is pretty creepy, though. The experience of black people on Airbnb is: "Here is an amazing looking listing. I'm psyched to see if it's available for my trip. Click. Oh! It is available! How excellent. I'll plan accordingly." Then, a few hours…

> Nazism is in many ways protected. Cities cannot deny permits to neo-Nazi groups to assemble, for instance.

That's a straightforward First Amendment issue.

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."

You can't prohibit neo-Nazis from peaceably assembling. You can't prohibit people wearing purple shirts from peaceably assembling. In neither case does that make neo-Nazis nor purple-shirt-wearers a protected class.

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

#292

Post by dublinclontarf »

rayiner wrote: post #285
hackuser wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree with how the question is framed, around whether someone can do these things: People can do all sorts of bad things; they can mentally abuse their children, they can gamble away all their family's assets, cheat their co-workers and customers, they can hate and do many other things to ruin their lives, their family's, their neighbor's, their country's and the world's. People have the right to turn the U.S. i…

I'll put a sharper point on it: People must be governed.[1] People have an enormous capacity to be violent, racist, sexist, small minded, paranoid, greedy, and dishonest, and the whole point of government is to collectively overcome these failings. Obviously government cannot stop discrimination just as it cannot stop murder, theft, etc. But it can dramatically reduce it by imposing the proper social norms. [1] https…

No, the point of government is to protect your rights from violation by others.

Those unalienable rights you are born with as outlined in the bill of rights.

It's not to overcome the failings of humanity (an impossible task if ever there was one).

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

#293

Post by ixacto »

criddell wrote: post #175
ndarilek wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm blind. Would you not rent this property to me because you fear for my safety therein? Would it make a difference if I've said I've skied, biked solo, rock-climbed? If so, why should I have to do so when others don't, and are trusted to make up their own minds as to whether your property works for them? Do you feel more confident than I am in determining my own limits? Disclosure: I've been denied many opportuniti…

Do you see any problem with home owners saying no to those that require the assistance of a service animal?

No. I have seen this system abused many times. There are misbehaved pets in the store all the time now.

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

#294

Post by jasode »

dragonwriter wrote: post #169
jasode wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I'm interested in enforcing the _existing law_ [...] I understand but your opinion is predicated on your particular reading of the "brokering services"[0] law you cited previously. That extensive enumeration of brokers/agents/salesman/employee is a person that does the matching work on behalf of the client. If other reasonable people don't think Airbnb's "self-service" approach is brokering , then the word "existing…

> I understand but your opinion is predicated on your particular reading of "brokering services" law you cited previously. Well, yes, obviously. I was responding to your claim, which was about the utility of the position as a tool to convincing people about whether they ought to discriminate, and pointing out that that wasn't the point. > That extensive enumeration of brokers/agents/salesman/employee is a person that…

>Well, yes, obviously.

It wasn't obvious and your previous statement had to be dissected to clarify it. Upthread, you stated the following without any disclaimers of "in my opinion" or "in my interpretation":

>But its not legal to use a brokering service to arrange the rental if you discriminate, so there goes AirBnB for that use.

It certainly sounded definitive but if left alone without further commentary, it's misleading. That statement depends on how expansively one defines "brokering services". Not everyone agrees with your definition and I further would claim that the majority do not.

>the utility of the position as a tool to convincing people [...], and pointing out that that wasn't the point.

But that is the point. If you want to use an authoritative phrase like "existing law", people have to agree with your intepretation of Airbnb's utility as a "brokering service". If they don't, they believe they still have a legal basis to discriminate.

>I think your idea of what a broker/agent/salesman or any person in the business of selling or renting dwellings does is excessively and unjustifiably narrow.

On the contrary, I think it is your classification of Airbnb as a "brokering service" that is idiosyncratic.

Based on my informal survey of Airbnb renters and landlords, it doesn't seem like the majority agree with you. I ask them "What is Airbnb?" and they say "rental listings" and not "rental brokers".

For people to believe they are breaking the antidiscrimination law because they use brokering services, they need signals from the world such as the states requiring Airbnb to acquire brokerage licenses. (Maybe also add to the process that an Airbnb representative must join the transaction via chat or email to "close" the deal between renter & landlord.) Reading your interpretation of what "brokering service" is not enough.

To recap, the factors you believe Airbnb a brokerage:

  - commissions payment
  - payment collection, refunds
The factor that Airbnb is not a brokerage:

  - self-service listings
The "self-service" is a huge mental block and overrides the commissions payment factor in many minds. The sentiment is: "If I do the work to create the listing, why would Airbnb be the broker? That makes no sense."

The self-service aspect is why some people think of Christie's and Sotheby's as auction house brokers and they "broker a deal" to sell a piece of art ... but nobody thinks of do-it-yourself Ebay as an auction broker. Ebay is auction listings.

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

#295

Post by clock_tower »

dublinclontarf wrote: post #292
rayiner wrote: post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll put a sharper point on it: People must be governed.[1] People have an enormous capacity to be violent, racist, sexist, small minded, paranoid, greedy, and dishonest, and the whole point of government is to collectively overcome these failings. Obviously government cannot stop discrimination just as it cannot stop murder, theft, etc. But it can dramatically reduce it by imposing the proper social norms. [1] https…

No, the point of government is to protect your rights from violation by others. Those unalienable rights you are born with as outlined in the bill of rights. It's not to overcome the failings of humanity (an impossible task if ever there was one).

Have you read _Albion's Seed: Four British Folkways in America_ yet? I think Rayiner would find it interesting as well.

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

#296

Post by thescribe »

wyager wrote: post #214
tptacek wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, that is generally the principle involved with business transactions like these. We tried it the other way, and all the black people ended up cordoned into North Lawndale. http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2014/06/the-case... As a society, we decided to amend the social contract to remedy this. You can choose who to have in your house based on any criteria you like. You cannot choose who to rent to on t…

>we decided to amend the social contract to remedy this Where in the social contract is this clause? I can't find it. "It's in the social contract" is the ultimate weasel appeal. You're citing the authority of an imaginary document that, miraculously, contains whatever arbitrary moral edicts the person who invokes it happens to agree with. Transactions should be voluntary. People should not be forced to do business a…

This is one of my meany reasons for rejecting the concept of a social contract.

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

#297

Post by thescribe »

bitL wrote: post #223
runako wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Does this really seem fine to you? You're attributing to me emotions I did not express. Obviously, because I didn't offer an opinion on anything in my question. >There are now many women-only places/clubs but the same is denied to men in the US. This is demonstrably false, and can be disproved with Google in seconds. But I'll surmise you aren't all that concerned with the existence of women's social clubs as a coun…

I am not an American, so it's only tangentially related to my life (in a way that my part of the world is going to experience it 10 years later), or that I have to be more careful not to accidentally trigger anyone on my next Hawaiian vacation (like last time I visited Old Lahaina Luau and some black woman from NYC wanted to kick me out of the place I paid for because she wanted to sit there - is being a "black woman…

I feel like you've brought up some really good points, but I don't know how I'd go about validating them.

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

#298

Post by [deleted] »

bitL wrote: post #223
runako wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Does this really seem fine to you? You're attributing to me emotions I did not express. Obviously, because I didn't offer an opinion on anything in my question. >There are now many women-only places/clubs but the same is denied to men in the US. This is demonstrably false, and can be disproved with Google in seconds. But I'll surmise you aren't all that concerned with the existence of women's social clubs as a coun…

I am not an American, so it's only tangentially related to my life (in a way that my part of the world is going to experience it 10 years later), or that I have to be more careful not to accidentally trigger anyone on my next Hawaiian vacation (like last time I visited Old Lahaina Luau and some black woman from NYC wanted to kick me out of the place I paid for because she wanted to sit there - is being a "black woman…

[deleted]

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

#300

Post by tptacek »

arielb1 wrote: post #287
tptacek wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because we tried that and it didn't work. It wasn't a single decision that resulted in redlining that forced all the black people in cities to under-served slums. It was an aggregation of millions of personal decisions, many of them by otherwise reasonable people who were simply responding to the very powerful human cognitive bias of loss aversion. So, as a society, we decided to do what can to foreclose on that path…

Why loss aversion? People don't want a black person in their home because they believe that black people are more likely to mess up their home than white people. They would rather not rent out their home at all.

Yes, that is what loss aversion means.
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