Racist hosts, not hotels, are the greatest threat to Airbnb's business
qz.com
qz.com
As a black man in Boston, catching at taxi was an exercise in humiliation/frustration. Either they did not stop, or they did and were incredibly rude/racist. When Uber became available in Boston I immediately joined. It was an incredible experience. No more having to deal with rude/racist cab drivers, no more having to worry whether I’d actually ever be able to catch a taxi to get somewhere. I have not used Uber in SF since I’ve found no problem catching a cab when I need to (and I’ve become disturbed by their business model)
Airbnb is the exact opposite. It is essentially renting without the benefits of the Fair Housing Act or anti-discrimination laws. I’ve faced housing discrimination even with those laws in place (a good program on this is This American Life’s “House Rules” episode) so I’m under no illusion that things would magically be better on Airbnb’s platform. here are things they could do to fix this
- Not require photos - Have metrics to track rejection by race (track when a host says no to one person and then yes to someone else for the same time period) - Have a streamlined complaint policy
It’s not enough to ban one host cause he was so outright racist/egregious that it came to the attention of Social Media and finally their CEO.
I've come to find out that older folks — somewhere around 50+ — have been the worst possible guests, with no exceptions so far. They tend to be stingy with their star ratings and leave poor reviews even if they had a perfect experience. They also tend to be much more high-maintenance and not self-sufficient, acting as if they think the Airbnb is a hotel and the host is their concierge or room service.
The cost-benefit ratio doesn't work for me in these cases, so I've been intentionally passing on older people recently and trying to fill my Airbnb with younger folks. I never see age mentioned as a factor for discrimination in articles like these, and it seems that it may not be legislated in the same way that the other factors are.
But it feels like it's the exact same issue, and I'm willingly becoming more and more guilty of it.
It should be easy for hosts to say they only want people with X reviews where most of them are 4-5 stars. Or a better score that weights it based on the host rating (i.e. if a user's hosts generally get 5 stars, but this user rates them all 3 stars, then it's probably a problem with the user, so avoid.) Perhaps AirBnB doesn't want do to this to avoid putting pressure on renters.
I did reject a guest through this method, though. Their reviews from hosts were actually all very good, but when I read their reviews of their hosts, they contained things like "he was nice enough to give me a ride to the airport when I asked, though the car was a bit cramped."
After the trip, I wasn't expecting a glowing review. But when I got a super negative review, I was pretty bummed.
This is the example the article is holding up as the example of racism and it isn't even racist.
The trans example: I'm 100% for property owners deciding what they will and won't use their private property for. Get over it. You can't go through life getting offended at every opinion different from yours, even if you think it's irrational.
Every person has the right to life, liberty, and property.
42 U.S. Code § 2000a - Prohibition against discrimination or segregation in places of public accommodation
> All persons shall be entitled to the full and equal enjoyment of the goods, services, facilities, privileges, advantages, and accommodations of any place of public accommodation, as defined in this section, without discrimination or segregation on the ground of race, color, religion, or national origin.
> Each of the following establishments which serves the public is a place of public accommodation within the meaning of this subchapter if its operations affect commerce, or if discrimination or segregation by it is supported by State action:
> (1) any inn, hotel, motel, or other establishment which provides lodging to transient guests, other than an establishment located within a building which contains not more than five rooms for rent or hire and which is actually occupied by the proprietor of such establishment as his residence;
https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/42/2000a
Feel free to read up on Green Books -- Up until the 1960's, black Americans had to plan their trips out far in advance to avoid service refusals, discrimination, or outright violence at hotels throughout the country.
Off topic...at what point do we stop calling them "minorities" when they are the majority in many regions??
The second they start having to obey zoning regulations, building codes, taxation & insurance the way hotels do, their valuation drops precipitously.
If they are your guests. Not if they are your customers.
> Off topic...at what point do we stop calling them "minorities" when they are the majority in many regions??
We stop calling them minorities when they are no longer so heavily outnumbered by the dominant ethnic group.
AirBnB does not provide lodging which is the cause of a lot of problems.
Don't like it? Call the Best Western.
We also see exemptions to non-discrimintary laws for churchs, mosques, temples, etc. Its clear that society is not a "one size fits all" thing and exemptions are morally and socially justifiable. The same way I can't get funding and entitlements like affirmative action and other race-based policies, that are 100% racist and accepted by liberals as normal.
It's your hotel, not your home. No one is shoving people into you home; they are saying you can't invite the public and then keep certain protected classes out.
Don't like it? Don't run a public hotel from your residence.
> he has Facebook postings criticizing the US and cheering on ISIS then I don't want him in my home
Neither of these are a legally protected class under US discrimination law.
Except you are renting your home out. It's a business and you should absolutely be subject to the laws regarding non-discrimination that apply to a business.
If you don't like it then quit acting like a sketchy pseudo-hotel.
You believe that your property is being searched and/or seized when the government regulates your cottage business?
There are lots of explanations for their actions that are completely reasonable. But when there is otherwise no evidence of racism, let's shout racism as loud as we can because the "movement" is more important than the facts.
This problem is NOT Airbnb's to solve. In fact, I don't see this as a problem at all. If I don't want somebody staying at my place, I'm going to reject you, period. That's it...you can't sue me, nor Airbnb, stop crying discrimination, move on.
AirBnB is sort of stuck though, since they want to maintain this "sharing economy" fiction, where it's just friendly homeowners sharing their places. They don't want to admit they are encouraging unlicensed hotels that don't follow the law.
Many fiscally liberal/progressive ideas are centered around hypocrisy. Everyone likes to talk the talk, but they don't act upon it.
Others call this human nature...
What if I was traveling a lot and would let my friends use my car and/or stay at my house and all of them happened to be white? What if I was selective and refuse my best friend? Would it change anything if I asked for some kind of compensation? Compensation larger than to cover my direct costs? Is it business yet?
I am selling a used item and cancel the transaction if the buyer is black. Does it change anything if I resell items for a living and do the same?
I am not asking if this is racism. All I am asking is whether there is any difference between displaying discrimination in human to human interactions and human to society interactions.
I personally hate this hypocrisy of treating sharing economy as business when it is convenient and sharing between individuals when it is not. Very similar to general opinion I happen to read about Uber: since it is "ride sharing", therefore most regulations are excessive, yet drivers sharing full time is somehow a norm.
Ironically it isnt to far off ether. Where i live the majority of black youth have a bigger criminal history than their white peers. Sure this again fully depends on how the society treats them.
That's absurd. The USA is full of business running on platforms that are forbidden to discriminate against protected classes.
From reading this article, it sounds like they actually can't. Ultimately, they have to be willing to banish hosts who discriminate, which diminishes their platform.
Very easy to enforce: if airbnb investigates and finds you discriminate, you are out of the platform.
And even if i am wrong, there is still a huge difference between private selling and commercial selling.
But Airbnb hosts seem to be taking advantage of legal grey areas. Airbnb is directly competing with the hotel industry, but they are claiming those industry regulations don't apply to them. I'm not saying that they are necessarily doing anything illegal or definitely acting unethically. But I do think that they are operating in some legal grey areas, so it's not overreaching to try to increase or change how regulations apply to them.
But if it's more subtle and no explicit reason, it's going to be way harder to detect and adds a lot of judgement calls to the mix.. which puts it up the whims of whoever is doing support at that moment.
I wrote on this last year on how it could be totally transparent and devastating as a result: http://caseysoftware.com/blog/social-apis-for-social-evil
And if you expect that of AirBnB do you expect the same for private apartment sharing arrangements?
Single [ethnicity undisclosed] [gender undisclosed] seeks whoever the law says I have to live with?
If a homeowner has a spare bedroom across the hall from her 13-year-old son's room, and doesn't want to rent to transgender, black, or 65-year-old guests, it is legal for her to discriminate on those attributes.
On the other hand, if the AirBnb host is renting out a non-owner-occupied beach house, the discrimination laws would apply.
Well, they should, and if airbnb is not willing to comply, the lawmaker should force them to.
Airbnb is not responsible for this, nor is doing anything wrong. If I do not want somebody in my private home, they will not step a foot in my private home. In fact, if they do, I have the right to take defensive action, including the use of lethal force when necessary. Don't like it? Leave.
Please don't use flamewar tropes on HN.
You seem to be confused. The cite I provided (42 U.S. Code § 2000a) is the actual anti-discrimination law and the law's text is explicitly written to exclude residences such as personal homes. You can't make AirBnB "comply" with a law that doesn't exist for homeowners and their spare bedrooms.
That law screams for reform, however.
http://harvardcrcl.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Reaching-M...
If you create a site where the intended demographic is "anyone with a room that is pro-inclusivity", then surely you could create a community around people who self-select as not perpetuating racism/transphobia/general bigotry.
We have two properties on Airbnb and instead of my white and shaved ugly head, my wife is on profile picture (she's asian). We get far more requests from minorities than is normal.
Basically, we've cornered the market on asian people visiting Cape Cod. It's not our doing, but there is clearly a selection bias by renters, which I think is human nature.
If there is alleged discrimination, some wronged party will eventually file suit, and the courts will decide whose rights are more pertinent.
If there is alleged skirting of regulations, some wronged party will eventually file suit, etc. Until these threads play out, they're growing, but after, they could crumble overnight. This uncertainty is the biggest threat to their business.
It's also no surprise that neighbours of those hosts also sometimes discriminate against guests who stay in their neighbourhood.
AirBnB can definitely work towards educating hosts and guests to try to reduce the chances of this happening, but I'm not sure that it's their job to try and fix what is really a societal problem that is reflected in how people use their service.
(Not coming from USA if that matters)
Which is what they are, incidents.
I know I can't bring my dog to certain places, I should know whether I can't invite my black friend.
Terrible example for whatever point you wanted to make. Here is the original quote:
>When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best. They’re not sending you. They’re not sending you. They’re sending people that have lots of problems, and they’re bringing those problems with us. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people.
So, what kind of mental gymnastics do you have to perform to conclude that he meant "undocumented immigrants are rapists and murderers"?
Can I use this same logic for your typical Stanford, white male student? I'm pretty sure if I did I'd be considered the racist.
So who is the Donald referring to doing all the raping? Mexican based smugglers or US based undocumented migrants?
Back to the renting act. They are two parents and four kids. All black.
Well, I'm white. So I tried to do the renting.
Soon or later the topic will come up who will come.and fRom where etc.
Told them, they are from Nigeria and have American passports.
End of story. No one replied.
Ever.
People are still resists. Like it or not. Or they hate children.
Make out of it what you want.
Blackernews anyone . . .
HN wanna ring in?
* That's something we often do: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11939165
Also, it would be trivial to use this brand of multiculturalism to justify open racism. Why should a Chinese person in Chinatown who doesn't speak English allow a white family to stay in their property? Or allowing a Russian to deny a Ukranian? Or allowing a black family who have been victimized by the police to allow a family containing police officers.
I imagine most SJW's would agree for "special exemptions" for these cases. The idea that no one should be turned down is asinine. These are people's homes and by the 4th Amendment the government can't shove people in them. Want to stay somewhere where they don't have these issues? Then call a hotel.
Not to mention the whole socially pertinent(Trump???) legacy of entrenched discrimination in the U.S.
I'm not sure if the original story is racism. If I (white) am staying in a Chinese apartment house that otherwise only has Chinese tenants then the likelihood that someone recognizes me as a non-tenant is 100%.
Therefore, the likelihood that someone reports me as a stranger is far greater than if I were Chinese.
In other words, I'd not be surprised if someone reported me (white) while staying in a (hypothetical) Chinese AirBnB.
As far as "recognizing the problem" goes: You pretty much have to acknowledge a "problem" if something like this comes up or you'll be harassed on the Internet.
Also, if my neighbor saw a bunch of strangers in my house when I was away, I would want them to call the police. The problem in that particular case is not that they called the police but that the neighbours were not notified about unexpected strangers staying in the neighborhood.
If someone doesn't want me (a brown male) to stay in their house, I would absolutely like to know and would prefer to have a filter to easily find only the places that accept someone like me. The problem is not discrimination. The problem is anti-discrimination bullshit the company has to go through if they provided such a filter to make lives easy for everyone.
This breaks the HN guidelines, which ask you not to call names in arguments. Please (re-)read them and post civilly and substantively, or not at all.
Proof: out of 6,000+ availability request made (without checking actual availability which is known, but sending a request anyway) 50% of "white sounding names" were accepted, while only 42% of "black sounding names" where accepted.
That's like 8%!!! That means people are racist!
Or it means that the randomness of actually available houses was skewed where "black sounding names" were assigned more unavailable houses.
I wonder how many times they tried this experiment to get the result they were looking for.