
Man allegedly rapes woman after meeting on CouchSurfing.com - tortilla
http://thenextweb.com/2009/08/12/man-allegedly-rapes-woman-meeting-couchsurfingcom/
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jawngee
Didn't see that coming at all.

Honestly, I'm surprised we haven't seen this story earlier, or maybe stories
about getting robbed, etc.

While I would love a society where trust is perhaps more freely given and
received, we don't live in that kind of world.

A friend of mine was going to use AirBnB for an upcoming trip and I wondered
out loud if your personal security was worth the savings.

I'd love to have faith in humanity, but current conditions don't necessarily
warrant that at all.

~~~
wheels
Such things are only a matter of degree. If you're staying in a hotel you're
just trusting a different set of people with access to where you're sleeping.

~~~
jawngee
You're trusting people who are licensed, bonded and insured versus some schlep
with space in his living room. The matter of degree here is gargantuan.

~~~
wheels
Oh, well, if they're _licensed_ not to be a rapist then it's all good. ;-)

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socratees
Sharing an apartment for a night is not like selling things on ebay or amazon.
People use services like AirBnB, couchsurfing etc at the cost of their
security. That's one hurdle these kind of business may face. Any thoughts?

Also, these kind of violations need to be taken seriously.

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jvdh
Well this was bound to happen sooner or later. Couchsurfing.com is just a way
to come into contact with someone who may share a couch. They do some
background checks with people vouching for others. But even then, there's no
way to prevent something like this happening.

If you use the service, you're taking a risk and you'll have to be aware of
that. It doesn't really seem smart as a woman alone to go sleep on a couch of
some guy you met on the net.

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tjic
I've got far too many things that I wouldn't trust some stranger around: cash,
rare books, tens of thousands of dollars of tools, firearms, dogs.

If it works for some people, great, but I thought the idea of CouchSurfing.com
was insane the first time I heard of it.

~~~
dkersten
I'm pretty active in the Dublin Group of couchsurfing and meet up with people
regularly. Just last night a crowd of maybe 15 of us (most of us knew each
other already, butt heres usually at least one new person there) went out in
town. Its great fun and you meet great people.

I can't anymore, because my apartment is too small, but this time last year, I
lived in a house with 4 other couchsurfers. We hosted people ALL THE TIME. I
think over the 4 months that we hosted, we hosted 40 or so people. One weekend
we hosted TWELVE people at once (there was an event on). Personally, I've
NEVER had any problems and don't personally know anyone whos ever had
problems. By now, I've met HUNDREDS of couchsurfers and have never heard of
any personal bad experiences. Since we were all working too, often we weren't
even at home. Often we gave people a key and let them come and go as they
pleased and then hung out with them in the evenings. Not once did this cause
problems. Never had anything stolen or broken, never had issues with privacy
either (generally, people are quite considerate, if you want time alone).

Of course, I DONT have tens of thousands of dollars of tools and I don't have
any firearms (besides airsoft guns) and I rarely have more than €100 in cash
at home. I DO have computers though and laptops. I imagine the laptops would
be the biggest target. But.. if I worry about something valuable, I lock it
away.

Obviously there are risks and if you host someone or surf someone else's
couch, you must be aware of the risks. Personally, I'm willing to take that
risk - for me, the benefits are worth it. I've made tons of friends through
couchsurfing and I find couchsurfers to be generally more open minded than
others. I guess you have to be to share your home with strangers.

Couchsurfing is also not actually about free accommodation either. Its about a
cultural exchange. About meeting people, making friends, learning something
new. In this respect, I have found it to work exceptionally well.

Its sad when you hear of stories like this, though. It reminds you that there
are bad people out there - and a site with as many members as couchsurfing is
obviously going to have a few of these. I certainly hope theres not many, but
I guess you never know for sure. I guess you need to be careful...

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pavel_lishin
I wonder if CouchSurfing.com has any mechanism in place for removing users
that are convicted of this type of activity.

For that matter, can surfers leave comments about their hosts?

~~~
loginx
Yes, and yes. Guests can write positive/negative reviews about their hosts,
and vice versa. Those reviews will show up on the user's profile. Statistics
are also available to see how often a host has hosted travelers, whether they
have been vouched for by very active members of the community, etc...

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dkersten
Couchsurfing.com's official response:
<http://www.couchsurfing.org/news.html?id=269>

Also, some safety tips: <http://www.couchsurfing.org/news.html?id=200>

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onreact-com
They already use this to incite racist hatred:
[http://thelambethwalk.blogspot.com/2009/08/muslim-raped-
tour...](http://thelambethwalk.blogspot.com/2009/08/muslim-raped-tourist-he-
offered-free.html)

~~~
jacquesm
Naturally, because the media just could not control themselves to mention that
this man is Moroccan, even though that has fairly little to do with what
happened.

There are two possible angles to their motivation to mention this:

\- this happened in Britain, but it involved two foreigners, it has nothing to
do with 'us'

\- Moroccans are all the same, here is the proof

It is interesting to note that some newspapers carefully elided this fact but
published the rest of the story unchanged.

Whether or not he is muslim is cause for debate, nowhere does it say so. But
hey, when you're inciting racial hatred facts are just so inconvenient.

~~~
jongraehl
The demographic of the accused is information I'd want to know.

While I'm sympathetic to the motives of those who want to suppress the race,
nationality, or immigration status of the accused, this suppression itself
inflames xenophobic sentiment in the long term ("we're victims of an anti-
racist liberal media conspiracy!").

If some particularly strong riot-bait happened (e.g. the LAPD chase and
beating of Rodney King), then I'd favor suppression if possible.

~~~
jacquesm
Funny, we're on opposite sides of that !

In the case of police brutality, especially when grounded in racism all the
details should be as public as they can be made.

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ilyak
Это же Саакашвили.

