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Airbnb offers free accommodation for 20k Afghan refugees

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Re: Airbnb offers free accommodation for 20k Afghan refugees

#71

Post by throwawaysea »

matchbok wrote: post #56
throwawaysea wrote: post #45

I find it interesting that Airbnb has banned many conservative people and groups from using their service but readily make room for Afghan refugees. These discriminatory practices are always wrapped in virtuous justifications but are never applied to the other political side. And how does this move make sense when they could be doing the same for homeless people already in America and elsewhere, who are clearly depri…

[flagged]

I am not sure what you mean by 'terrorists'. The dictionary definition of terrorism is using crime for political goals. A number of BLM and antifa affiliated groups engaged in terrorism throughout 2020 and haven't been banned from either social media or services like AirBnb. Some of the people I've seen post about their AirBnb bans did not try to "overthrow" any government and aren't terrorists. To me it seems like clear discrimination based on ideology, an offline version of the same discriminatory moderation we see on platforms like Twitter or Reddit or whatever.

Re: Airbnb offers free accommodation for 20k Afghan refugees

#72

Post by remarkEon »

This is one of those things where lots of people, though judging from the thread maybe not as many as I'd expected here, will applaud. A wealthy, successful, American company is "stepping up" in a humanitarian crisis caused by the United States' misguided (to put it mildly) aspirations for a country that ultimately had little interest in western-style governance. And so it goes, these Afghan refugees will enter into these countries, and have a place to stay and recover from the trauma that they've assuredly experienced in the frantic exit from their home country.

Eventually, though, they'll have to actually live in the countries they reside in as, one has to assume, permanent residents. I helped sponsor my interpreter's visa years ago when I finished my time as an infantry platoon leader in Afghanistan. He landed in [undisclosed location] and has a stable job driving for a trucking company. He hates it here. He wants to go back. Do you want to know why? Because we let our girls go to school, because there aren't enough Muslims around him, and because he misses his home country, warts and all. He left because he was afraid that the Taliban would kill him, and he was probably right. He's probably still right. We rarely talk anymore, which is sad, but that's the reality. There's a wide range of views that interpreters held, and to be sure mine is absolutely not meant to be a representation of everyone coming from there.

I don't really have a point other than to say that resettling refugees isn't as simple as "oh just give them a place to sleep and some cash and the rest will take care of itself", like it's via osmosis or something that they inculcate the values and culture of the new "home" they find themselves in. This isn't software you can install, it's much harder than that.

Re: Airbnb offers free accommodation for 20k Afghan refugees

#73

Post by Sebb767 »

daniel_iversen wrote: post #27
eat_veggies wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who cares? People are getting shelter, if even for a little bit. This is honestly the most boring kind of cynicism because you've offered no real critique and no consideration of the people who have been forcefully displaced and can now have a place to stay.

Agree! Even if AirBnB didn't do it for the right reason (which I have no reason to believe they did - why always so cynical!?) the people in desperate immediate and "short term" need get help! (this is also why it's different to the homelessness issue, which seems more like a systemic issue that the cities and countries should honestly be ashamed of).

What would be a right reason? In my experience, all reasons boil down to either someone getting money or someone feeling good about themselves. It's just that, in this case, interests align - nothing more, but nothing less, either.

Re: Airbnb offers free accommodation for 20k Afghan refugees

#75

Post by remarkEon »

perihelions wrote: post #52
jhallenworld wrote: post #32

Airbnb is available in Kabul, had no idea.. https://www.airbnb.com/s/Kabul--Afghanistan/homes?tab_id=hom... Google reviews also interesting, nice restaurant in Kandahar.. https://www.google.com/maps/place/AFGHAN+SHINWARI+RESTAURANT...

Looks like they have a rich trove of data on westerners and western sympathizers. I don't think Airbnb is thinking enough about protecting these rental records -- I can see the names and faces of previous guests even on public pages (those who left reviews). There must be tons of PII available to anyone who can access the Airbnb hosts' accounts. edit: Also, the photos are full of things that immediately imperil the h…

Upvoted.

If anyone from Airbnb is reading it would be wise to lockdown these pages. Though it's probably too late, the Taliban is quite media savvy.

Edit: someone commented, and deleted, a question about how to escalate this to Airbnb. I don't work for them, so I have no idea. But if Airbnb is going to do something like offer a place to sleep to Afghan refugees, sorry they've just stepped into a geopolitical game they might not be ready to play.

Airbnb: delete these pages. While it's likely Taliban have already taken down this data, it's also possible they're too busy dealing with everything going on at HKIA that they haven't had time or they forgot or the guy who did it is busy doing something else. You are putting folks at risk.

Re: Airbnb offers free accommodation for 20k Afghan refugees

#76

Post by ThinkBeat »

This is nice marketing.

I doubt he has lined up 20.000 properties yet who want to do this. So that will be fun distribution:

1 to Alaska. 3 in Portland, 1 in Colorado Springs.

On a more serious note. this is not a promising idea,

Nobody has any real idea who these people are. What sorts of trauma they may have experienced? What their medical, psychological, or sociological needs are.

There is also the tragic issue that inevitably there will be a few among them who mean to do harm to a country that occupied them for 20 years.

Random AirBnB hosts who probably mean very well have no training or practice to do something like this. And once it gets real they will not want to either.

It is not a hippie utopian meeting of the minds and "all is chill" It is real people, Real trauma, Real culture shock, and quite different means of resolving conflict.

I hope Biden will not just dump the refugees into US cities. However, the camps that Obama, Trump, Biden are using now for refugees on the southern border does not fill me with a lot of confidence that the refugees from Afghanistan will get the help, care they will all need and the reeducation some will need.

The state should be forced to build and staff suitable accommodations that are warm, friendly and safe.

That are set up to help them through a process of adjusting to life outside of Afghanistan and towards a life in the US.

They also need to be screened to help identify those who may have ill intent.

Re: Airbnb offers free accommodation for 20k Afghan refugees

#77

Post by ekianjo »

slickrick216 wrote: post #63
coding123 wrote: post #3

I think there are about 500K Homeless in America, would it make sense to first offer about 20K of them some free housing?

They don’t care about Afghans just scoring brand points. Businesses exist to make money and the fact they thought this might help there branding in effort to make more money says more about society really than it does about this company in particular.

> They don’t care about Afghans just scoring brand points

Two things can be true at the same time. Scoring business points AND caring about Afghans.

Re: Airbnb offers free accommodation for 20k Afghan refugees

#78

Post by [deleted] »

remarkEon wrote: post #75
perihelions wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Looks like they have a rich trove of data on westerners and western sympathizers. I don't think Airbnb is thinking enough about protecting these rental records -- I can see the names and faces of previous guests even on public pages (those who left reviews). There must be tons of PII available to anyone who can access the Airbnb hosts' accounts. edit: Also, the photos are full of things that immediately imperil the h…

Upvoted. If anyone from Airbnb is reading it would be wise to lockdown these pages. Though it's probably too late, the Taliban is quite media savvy. Edit: someone commented, and deleted, a question about how to escalate this to Airbnb. I don't work for them, so I have no idea. But if Airbnb is going to do something like offer a place to sleep to Afghan refugees, sorry they've just stepped into a geopolitical game the…

[deleted]

Re: Airbnb offers free accommodation for 20k Afghan refugees

#79

Post by rank0 »

remarkEon wrote: post #72

This is one of those things where lots of people, though judging from the thread maybe not as many as I'd expected here, will applaud. A wealthy, successful, American company is "stepping up" in a humanitarian crisis caused by the United States' misguided (to put it mildly) aspirations for a country that ultimately had little interest in western-style governance. And so it goes, these Afghan refugees will enter into…

Genuine question:

How did the United States cause the Taliban control of Afghanistan?

The Taliban were in control before the US invasion following the 9/11 attacks. Although the US failed in training the Afghan military, it seems like the Taliban would be in control regardless. The alternative to occupation would be a more complete destruction of the country.

Re: Airbnb offers free accommodation for 20k Afghan refugees

#80

Post by lotsofpulp »

trompetenaccoun wrote: post #41
eat_veggies wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you think this is some gotcha (you can't help with Afghan refugees during a crisis until you've solved homelessness ?) then you never cared about the homeless in the first place, and are using them as a pawn when it's useful to dunk on the middle east.

The covid crisis is affecting marginalized groups like the homeless or people with psychological problems among the hardest, because numbers of beds in clinics and shelters have been reduced, hospitals are busy and access is in cases restricted, everyone is dealing with ever-changing mandates, and many people simply have their own lives to worry about so no one cares for them. At the same time many hotels and airbnbs…

CA/OR/WA are buying motels to house homeless people.
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