
General questions about the Airbnb Community Commitment - michaelrkn
https://www.airbnb.com/help/article/1523/general-questions-about-the-airbnb-community-commitment?topic=533
======
jacquesm
Airbnb can do whatever they want in property they own/lease. However since
they 'share' (funny word that) people's private homes they will have to live
with the fact that those people will refuse guests for _whatever_ reasons they
feel like, this is the flip side of the coin of not having a relationship
where they are in control (employer, employee, owner of the premises).

Airbnb wants to have its cake and eat it too, on the one hand not to own the
premises and the goods stored in there but to pretend that they own it and set
the rules about who can and can't come there.

Nobody is going to admit to discrimination, even if they do agree, people will
come up with alternative reasons for not allowing the people they do not wish
to stay in their private homes, so nothing will change but Airbnb will look
good.

After all, what proof will they use to tell a host they are discriminating.

If Airbnb wants to be able to dictate the terms at that level they should
build a nice large building with a front desk with people they employ and a
bunch of rooms they let out aka a hotel.

~~~
Vintila
Yes, Airbnb can do what they want with their property, namely their website
and business. If you don't like it then they even outline what you can do in
the linked article.

This knife cuts both ways.

~~~
jacquesm
They are extending 'their website and business' into private property. That's
a direct conflict without resolution, I confidently predict nothing will
change and this is just window-dressing.

Yes indeed, Airbnb can do what they want with their property, namely their
website and business, and their customers property is _not_ their business.

> if you don't like it then they even outline what you can do in the linked
> article.

Yes, you can ignore it, or you can move to a competitor and so on. Airbnb
simply is not in a position to force anybody to accept guests they do not want
to entertain _for whatever reason_ , that's the way they set things up because
that is the easiest for them. To now retro-fit a requirement that you can't
discriminate is there to look good, not for you to stop discriminating. The
only way they could enforce that is by forcing Airbnb hosts to accept _all_
guests without the ability to refuse any of them and that will never happen.

~~~
Vintila
I feel like this in argument which has been had so many times on HN but >They
are extending 'their website and business' into private property.

They offer a service with terms, you either accept those terms or you don't no
one is forcing you to use their service.

On the matter of enforcement, I agree this would be near impossible to enforce
in all but the most obvious of cases of discrimination.

~~~
jacquesm
Those terms and conditions are meaningless without across the board
enforcement.

------
Lucadg
I used to work in a camping site in Northern Italy many years ago. We were
openly told not to accept people from the south of Italy as they statistically
were more noisy. I didn't like it but it actually made sense. It just wasn't
viable to mix Germans and Napoleteans in a tight space. I guess Germans earned
that right with politness. Then one day I let gipsies in and I almost got
fired.

~~~
boards2x
What a sad and pathetic excuse for discrimination based on culture and values.
You're not only generalizing you seem to be in denial. Pay a visit to any
popular vacation holiday in Spain or Portugal and test for yourself who are
the loud, abnocious and ugly Europeans. We are doing our best to avoid any
concentration of brits, Germans and Dutch on our holidays for the exact
reason. We recently bought a house in Spain in a place we made sure was not
popular with either, for this particular reason. Will be happy to share with
you photos of ugly drunken Germans in mas lpalomas, loud and voulgar brits in
Barcelona and Ibiza, a city which is struggling to contain this problem, which
is mostly due to British visitors, or all of them in place like el Garf. You
might want to discriminate based on money, but like the Russians are teaching
us, no amount of money in the world can help hide voulgarity. Drumpf btw is of
German extract. I'm sure you'll enjoy your company and will probably deserve
it.

~~~
tjic
> What a sad and pathetic excuse for discrimination based on culture and
> values

Discrimination based on skin color seems self evidently bad, but
discrimination based on culture and values seems not just not bad, but
actively good!

Why should i associate with someone who regards theft as okay? Why would i
want to hire someone who thinks that disagreements should be solved with
yelling or fistfights?

~~~
foldr
You're essentially saying that the mere existence of a prejudice justifies
discrimination. You think that most Napoleteans are thieves, so in your mind,
this justifies discriminating against Napoleteans. Similarly, a racist may
think that most black people are criminals, and think that this justifies
discriminating against black people.

------
redthrowaway
It's sad to see the tech community, which used to be very libertarian, move
towards a hard-left progressive view of social issues. It wasn't that long ago
that Friedman's arguments against equal pay laws[1] would have held sway here.
The idea that the market punishes bigotry and so can be relied upon to advance
freedom and equality used to be a core belief of the tech community. Now, it
seems companies are falling over themselves to come up with ever more
progressive and authoritarian solutions to problems that have only been
complained about in the tech media--driven largely by people who care far more
about culture wars than they do about tech. It's hard to see these
developments and not feel that something important has been lost.

[1][https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hsIpQ7YguGE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hsIpQ7YguGE)

~~~
empath75
It's sort of surprising how many people on hacker news apparently want the
right to be racist.

~~~
JBReefer
I want the right to be racist. I'm not a bigot- my girlfriend is Hispanic, I'm
from a majority black neighborhood, my parents are gay, etc. But thoughts and
words should never be forbidden.

That's basically the whole point of liberalism. You're free to be someone that
pisses me off.

~~~
paulcole
You're welcome to be racist, but as a business owner, you're not welcome to
discriminate based on your racist beliefs.

~~~
JBReefer
Certainly true, I fully agree

------
nvahalik
People discriminate every day. I discriminate against restaurants and
babysitters and businesses all the time. Sometimes those discriminations are
because of a feeling. Sometimes they are are based on my internal biases.
Sometimes I disagree with the choices a business has made and if affects
whether or not I do business with them.

Why do we make such a big deal about "discrimination?" It's built into who we
are as people.

~~~
rokhayakebe
You are obviously not being discriminating against where it matters. Here are
a few examples that wouldn't be a big deal to you accordingly:

1) School says they won't accept your daughter, but hey it's not a big deal
according to you

2) Neighborhood won't let you buy a house you like because they don't like
your wife's skin color, but hey it's not a big deal

3) You are getting paid less at work and skipped for promotion in favor of
Elmud because he is one of them and you are not, but hey it's not a big deal

Discrimination IS NOT ok. It IS NOT built into us. It is an acquired taste.
Bad taste. First we accept the issue then we work on fixing it.

~~~
dwaltrip
I'm pretty sure the scientific consensus is still out on how much of
discrimination stems from innate tendencies. If you have any reputable sources
that say otherwise, it would be interesting to see them. My hunch is that the
dynamics are far too complex amorphous for us to definitively pin down the
causes any time soon.

Nonetheless, I don't think this is important for your main point. We have been
working around our suboptimal innate tendencies for millennia.

~~~
rokhayakebe
Hmmm no my friend. If it were innate than you would have to conclude that
babies already know their skin color and that there are others who are of
different color. What makes it even more wrong is that fact that many
discriminate not based on color but based on culture. Again then this would
assume that we are born knowing our cultural differences. If we are born with
this knowledge I wonder what other knowledge we were blessed with prior to
birth.

It is acquired. My theory is that all discrimination stems from sexual fear,
but I cannot prove this so I'll leave the argument for another day.

I went to kindergarten in a super mixed school: whites, asians, blacks in a
country where 99% of the population is black. My attitude towards whites
(asians were considered white as well) was always different from my friends
who never dealt with whites let alone have white friends.

I went to Christian schools from kindergarten all the way to high school in a
country where 95% of the population is Muslim. My point of view towards
Christians was different to some extent.

I dated Whites, Middle Easterns, Blacks, lived with Chinese, Middle Eastern
and a White person at some point in my life. My attitude towards people of
different color is different from some of my friends who never spent much time
with similar folks.

What creates discrimination is just the world view we create for ourselves
based on our surrounding.

~~~
dwaltrip
I suppose the trickiest part is defining what we means by discrimination. My
understanding is that in-group out-group dynamics are extremely prevalent in
almost all cultures and societies in human history. I haven't done extensive
research on this, but it seems like most "discrimination" is an extension of
those dynamics. Of course, broad cultural trends can radically alter the
dynamics, but I wonder if our tendency to construct them in the first place is
somewhat innate.

------
sergiotapia
I don't use Airbnb and most likely never will.

However, let's say for argument sake I do want to rent my extra bedroom out.
What if I don't want rent to some weirdo crust punk? I wouldn't feel like my
children are safe. I would probably only rent out to single professionals
only.

I guess Airbnb is not a good fit for hypothetical people like me.

~~~
angrow
What makes you think this would be against the agreement? Is crust a religion?
An disability? "Dirty" isn't a protected class.

I've personally experienced that some hosts refuse to rent to unmarried
couples. It was inconvenient and silly, but perfectly legal and nearly
harmless (unless their actual problem was that only one of us was white, but
who can say).

~~~
toomuchtodo
The problem is this "sharing economy" facade.

You have a right to pick and choose who you want in your home, even if you
don't like LGBT folks, African Americans, caucassions, whatever.

But the sharing economy isn't about sharing. It's about business platforms
that monetize slack capacity of different resources.

So you're operating a business now (yes, really). And a business can't
discriminate against a protected class. And AirBnB wants to portray an aura of
community, so instead of saying "you can't legally discriminate; don't or
we'll kick you off the platform" it's the proverbial "can we not all get
along?; you must to continue on the platform"

Everyone will agree to this except a few folks who want to make a point, and
those people who were discriminating before will continue to do so.

Silicon Valley needs to learn that scolding, lynching, patronizing people
online isn't going to fix systemic socioeconomic issues. Those take _decades_
to show positive change, and require far more effort than the community
outreach resources of a few companies in the tech industry.

Edit:

My comment should've been more specific. In a non-business setting, you can
pick and choose who is in your home. Not when renting the entire premises out
to someone. AirBnB tries to portray its transactions as community when it's
really just a business, with the rules and regs that go with that (anti-
discrimination).

~~~
mahyarm
You can legally discriminate in some categories in shared living situations in
many places although. You can legally say you want only female or male
roommates, or no couples and so on. And you can do it for money, it doesn't
matter if your renting or own the place.

If you are renting a place outright, then you cannot.

So in that aspect you are allowed to do that.

~~~
Pinckney
Right, but how many people actually rent their own residence on Airbnb?

~~~
jacquesm
_Everybody_ , and only for a few days per year ;)

------
aikah
> I agree to treat everyone in the Airbnb community—regardless of their race,
> religion, national origin, ethnicity, disability, sex, gender identity,
> sexual orientation, or age—with respect, and without judgment or bias.

This isn't really "non discrimination", this is a vague non binding statement.
The FAQ doesn't even says what happens when that "commitment" is broken. Just
that you have to accept it. So the title here is misleading.

~~~
avar
Did you just not read two paragraphs below that where it says "What if I
decline the commitment?", or do you just think it's pertinent for some reason?

Seems pretty clear: You can't discriminate, if you do we terminate your
account at our discretion.

Edit: I read the question only in the narrow sense of "what if you refuse to
accept the new policy" v.s. "what if you break the policy once you accept
it?".

The answer to the latter seems to be:

1\. You have to agree to Airbnb's TOS to use their site:
[https://www.airbnb.com/terms](https://www.airbnb.com/terms)

2\. Section 24.C ("Termination for breach, suspension and other measures")
refers to section 14 ("User Conduct") which says you can't violate the
"Policies and Community Guidelines" which links to
[https://www.airbnb.com/help/topic/250/terms---
policies](https://www.airbnb.com/help/topic/250/terms---policies)

3\. That links to their nondiscrimination policy
([https://www.airbnb.com/help/topic/533/nondiscrimination](https://www.airbnb.com/help/topic/533/nondiscrimination)),
which seems to be the longer legalese version of what the linked blogpost is a
tl;dr of.

~~~
aikah
> "What if I decline the commitment?",

It doesn't explain what happens if one accepts the commitment and still
discriminates.

> Seems pretty clear: You can't discriminate, if you do we terminate your
> account at our discretion.

That's not what the text says. The text basically says :

"If you don't answer Yes to the commitment, we will terminates your account".

It doesn't say

"if you actually do discriminate we will terminates your account"

Seems pretty clear what that FAQ doesn't say. It says nothing about what
Airbnb will do if an host or guest discriminates.

~~~
jacquesm
It would be quite nice to see how they intend to prove that a host
discriminated.

~~~
Kliment
Since they can unilaterally suspend accounts for any or no reason already, I
don't expect they think they need to prove anything.

~~~
welly
Sure they can, but do they though? Possibly on rare occasions but no
noteworthy cases spring to mind.

------
tdkl
They can do that when the host will be protected against abuse of by law as
well. Hell, it even wouldn't be needed. If you as a host knew, you would be
compensated by any ill means done by the one renting - meaning AirBnb would
claim responsibility - this clause wouldn't be such an issue.

Because here's why this happens: people start declining to certain others
based on experience. Some hear about others experience and don't want to even
go down that road in the first place.

Modern "PC" way of thinking caters to the minorities. Rights, rights, rights
and so on. Businesses market on that. Media gets clicks and views based on
that. But the modern western societies have forgotten that rights are only one
side of the coin, there have to be RESPONSIBILITIES too.

Responsibilities are harder, long term gratification and can cause non happy
feelings. But no one can enforce rights without them, or we get to see the
extreme effects as we do now.

------
return0
This opens up a hole for a competitor - there are legitimate reasons to
discriminate guests, e.g. religious tourism, gay tourism etc.

------
suzannast
I a frankly appalled with this new heavy handed "commitment" required. Rules -
do not change people! When will we learn this - Anyone can sign this document
and continue doing anything they want.. these are people's private homes we
are talking about - the whole issue here was to develop a welcoming
environment - or was it? One again "big daddy" wants control. I did not let my
child just play with anyone or invite just anyone home - is that racist or
lacking in inclusiveness? No I was responsible for her safety the environment
she grew up in. I had to decide what was in her best interests for her
development - all parents do this - race was never a deciding factor in my
home but behavior was - if I am hosting an Air B&B guest I want to be able to
use my "intuition" and be trusted to welcome people fairly - I need to feel
comfortable with these people - not just accept anybody. I personally have
never stayed at a B&B with anyone who I thought was racist or discriminatory
in any way - why make rules for the minority and the exceptional... we need
less rules and more trust - TRUST breeds TRUST - rules do not do that! Suzanna

------
sonink
Somehow Airbnb mostly doesnt work for me. You find a nice/cheap place to stay,
message the host and wait for 24 hours for a revert. Fairly often, the host
declines for seemingly specious reasons. The bigger problem is the wait than
the refusal.

An Indian startup called OyoRooms has a much better solution to this problem.

~~~
randycupertino
I just hate Airbnb because of all he stupid rules. I go on vacation to relax
and don't want to have to feed your cat or make a curfew. Especially when I
can stay in a mid-range hotel for the same price without all the rules and the
bs $200 cleaning fee!

~~~
tdkl
But the community feelings ! /s

As someone who lived in socialism it's hilarious to see how socialist values
are now being marketed and sold as a business, without wanting to be
responsible for it by the company who sells the idea.

~~~
dominotw
I don't think its socialism though. Modern life has isolated us eg: I am a
single guy and I can't go to the park and hang out there and hope to talk to
people because I am scared to be branded a weirdo/pedophile. I don't like
going to bars which are usually the spot 'for adults'.

I use airbnb to see how locals live, when they wake up, how they get to work,
what kind of breakfast they eat ect.

------
zabeltech
I have personally experienced that many hosts do not like to rent to young
males. Some even restrict this in their description i.e "only for females". I
hope this discrimination ends now

~~~
dazc
As a male (who is not actually young) I accept a hosts preference not to rent
males (young or old). It would save a lot of time if they clearly stated such
(some don't for obvious reasons).

If they have a lot of reviews it's easy to see but if (as is often the case)
they don't then you don't know until they reject your booking. And, even then,
it isn't so clear cut.

~~~
ryuker16
Usually the reason I reject is to jack up the price...

------
empath75
I think this is long past due.

For some background. [http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/23/opinion/how-airbnb-
can-fig...](http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/23/opinion/how-airbnb-can-fight-
racial-discrimination.html)

~~~
curun1r
But it's the wrong way to go about it. The right way would be to make the
initial negotiation phase blind...no pictures or names, just profile
information like star ratings and how long they've been an AirBnB member.
Hosts that back out of agreed upon reservations too often could be punished. A
vague "I promise not to discriminate" agreement with no details about how
discrimination is reported, dealt with and and how disputes are handled could
cause more problems than it solves.

At the end of the day, despite the BS line that AirBnB gives about people
sharing their homes, the majority of the hosts are operating a small business,
and one that's beholden to a single provider for business. There will be hosts
that lose 100% of their income stream because of this and not all of them will
be the problem hosts that are causing this controversy. Innocent hosts who
just happen to have accidentally chosen incorrectly a few times will get
caught. Or, more likely, hosts will live in fear of being accused and start
discriminating in favor of minorities.

~~~
jacquesm
Yes, but then many people would no longer use Airbnb to host their property.
See, the _ability_ to discriminate is what is built right into the platform,
and Airbnb knowingly enables this because they will make more money that way.
They don't really care if you discriminate or not, they _do_ really care that
they are seen as being non-discriminating themselves.

That's why this is worded the way it is.

------
gottam
if someone is turning you down on airbnb based upon some arbitrary
discriminatory factors, do you think you'd really want to stay with a person
like that to begin with?

~~~
Normal_gaussian
Probably. Most I have seen are entire apartments wgere you see the host for a
few minutes at the beginning and a few at the end.

------
jlkass35
I think it's ok to require pictures if who will be staying in your house prior
to deciding if you want to allow the rental or not. As an owner it's always
you choice. If I dint want some who looks dirty , or a drug dealer in my house
who I going to make you. Freedom if choice. If they don't like it there are
other apps and sited to list vacation rentals on. Such as the big 4

------
hyko
Sad that we have to codify this in 2016 as it seems obvious. I don't think the
community commitment goes far enough.

If you’re in the business of providing a service to people you shouldn’t be
discriminating against them on any grounds apart from ability to pay, which is
not an issue on the Airbnb platform.

------
bitL
So renters are now AirBnB employees as well? /sUber

~~~
Normal_gaussian
You jest but it's an interesting proposition.

By forcing contracts onto the host and removing the ability of the host to
edit and negotiate the contract it can be argued in a British court that
Airbnb is in fact renting from the host, and that any legal infractions or
damages in subsequent sublets of that rented space are AirBnB's
responsibility.

I don't have a copy of the hosts contract, but the items to watch out for are:

\- anything preventing the host from contacting guests after the let

\- anything preventing the host from letting the space elsewhere in between
Airbnb lets

\- inability of the host to impose legally binding requirements on the guests

\- anything preventing the host from pursuing legal action against guests (eg,
forcing the use of arbitration)

Without three of the four I would be unlikely to challenge it personally.
Though two not including the third might be enough.

------
hellome1
I will always discriminate and not allow certain people in my home. I will
take the risk that I'll be kicked off the platform. That's better than taking
those people into my home.

------
davidjthunder
Airbnb is a essentially "middle man" \- a company that facilitates private
individuals who wish to rent out their homes to strangers. This is a wonderful
and much appreciated way of connecting strangers and building civil society
bonds. But dictating to its members exactly on what terms and to whom they
should be renting out their own bedrooms and homes seems to be, no matter how
well-intentioned, to be self-defeating: it fosters an atmosphere of distrust
and removes renters' freedom to exercise discretion about who stays in their
home.

It is inevitable that some renters will bring racist or xenophobic or other
prejudices to the table when they decide who to rent their homes to. But there
will be a whole range of positive and negative preferences about the type of
person one wants to stay in one's home, many of which many not be motivated by
racism or xenophobia, but by personal judgments about who one is prepared to
open one's home to.

Airbnb is trying to micro-manage how people exercise their judgment about who
is a good fit for their home. They are trying to force people to trust
everyone equally or to feel equally well-disposed toward all potential
renters, as a condition for using their service. They may have the LEGAL right
to do this, but it will be impossible in many cases to enforce with any
reliability.

Besides the notorious difficulty of enforcing this sort of discrimination
edict without high levels of inteference and second-guessing of complex
judgments, in my view, the new policy is likely to undermine, not promote,
greater trust and respect betweeen renters and landlords, by fostering a more
adversarial culture in Airbnb homes, where any refusal to rent is met with an
air of suspicion and resentment and exclusion, as though opening your home to
someone (even for money) was not a delicate matter.

Cultural change and reform comes through education and experience. Airbnb
permits people to be exposed to different cultures and values by opening up
their home to strangers (and receiving payment in return).

But I see no reason why Airbnd should appoint itself a sort of "moral
policeman" to ensure that all renters are equally open to different cultures
and communities. That kind of openness can be encouraged but it is quite
absurd to think that it can be truly fostered in a positive way by getting
people to tick a "community commitment" box before renting out their homes.

In fact, I would argue that this new "community commitment" could be
considered ethically dubious at best, since it will provide a strong reason to
people who rely on Airbnb but wish to exercise their own judgment about who
stays in their home to lie on the website. Furthermore, the effort to get
people to formally "commit" to what is essentially an ethical attitude in a
quasi-contractual way, as a condition for using this type of renting "middle
man" is an extraordinary act of over-reach, it seems to me, insofar as it
essentially means that Airbnb feel they can appoint themselves the arbiter and
judge of people's private motives and prejudices, whether through some formal
declaration on their part, or through a statistical analysis of their
behaviour.

Which raises the question, if Airbnb is worried about unjust discrimination in
society at large, why does it think that setting itself up as a sort of
"thought police" for its customers is a wise move? How can they not anticipat
the inevitable resistance and backlash that will unleash, and its almost
certain failure in practice to reform people's behaviour and attitudes (tick
the box and move on)? And what does this sort of policy tell us about the type
of authority that a middle man THINKS he has over his clients and their
values, preferences, and lifestyles choices?

Is there some sort of "saviour" complex going on here, where a company thinks
they must engage in an aggressive campaign to control their users' mindsets
and micromanage their own decisions about who to rent their homes to? Or is
the new Airbnb policy, as some have suggested, just a response to some legal
or social pressures to "look good and inclusive"?

Whatever the answer to these questions, it strikes me that setting aside the
legality of this new policy, the level of micromanagement and control it
extends into clients' USE of the service and indeed into their values and
attitudes regarding hosting people in their home, suggests a lack of trust in
people's goodness and an unwillingness to take risks on people's goodness, to
give them reasonable discretion to exercise their own judgments in the sphere
of their own home (even if it is being rented out for profit).

Indeed, this sort of campaign, which comes close to being a sort of indirect
"mind control," seems to bespeak an impatience with the messiness of human
life and human relationships, and of course impatience with idiosyncratic and
unstructured nature of the motives of people who rent out their own homes.
Sometimes, in order to foster or preserve an atmosphere of trust and respect
in general, you have to allow within a system for the possibility that some
people will exercise bad or unfair judgments, or treat some people without the
full respect they deserve. Making a rule to compel everyone to be respectful
is not always the best way to foster a culture of respect.

Turning a modest facilitating service into a crusade for full inclusion and a
change in cultural mindsets completely changes the nature of the Airbnb
service, bringing it into the zone of a sort of "mind police" whose edicts
will frequently be impossible to enforce.

It is an excellent example of the trend in our society to attempt to control
from on high, with relatively crude regulations, the delicate flow of human
relationships and attitudes between different groups, ethnicities, value
identifications, religions, etc.

To be clear, I am not advocating racisms or invidious discrimination, but I am
suggesting that (a) some degree of discrimination and profiling is a fact of
life especially in the business of renting out one's own home, and it is not
necessarily invidious, especially in situations of sparse information; and (b)
to the extent that people do engage in invidious forms of discrimination when
they rent out their homes, Airbnb is certainly not the appropriate entity to
be rooting this out systematically - education and cultural reform must be
carried out by winning over people's hearts and minds, and this work is
already being done by the mere fact of cultural exchange permitted by the
Airbnb network. Why spoil that work by implementing a policy that is likely to
foster distrust, suspicion, and resentment among renters and proprietors?

------
arabGuy
Throwaway for obvious reasons.

I discriminate against people based on their national origin AMA.

~~~
zeroer
Uh, OK, which nations and why?

~~~
arabGuy
Let's say there is three levels:

0 - I look at your profile with positive a priori (USA, China, Russia - best
of the best are Japanese and Koreans)

1 - I look at your profile with a prejudiced view, I will default on declining
your request (Algeria, Tunisia, Maroc and the whole of North-Africa; Germans
accessarily)

2 - There is no way. I auto-decline. (France but ancestry from North-Africa)
(unless you got stellar reviews and don't look like you're muslim anymore).

\- Why?: I replied to that in another comment but basically a mix of past bad
experience, of knowing the culture and mainstream mindset of the people of
those countries and growing tired of getting asked intrusive questions about
if I practice islam.

------
MarkMc
Despite this, I feel Airbnb isn't doing enough to fight discrimination.

They need to ensure that the host cannot see anything that can identify a
user's race, ethnicity, age, etc. No photos, no names, and a moderated
comments and rating system. Until they do that they are placing their profits
above principle.

~~~
ryuker16
They actually pick the shittist jpeg image filter/cropping I've seen.

Also, many guest like to pick super obscured photos or mixed group photos. I
understand why hosts do it but not why customers.

I barely have an idea what many of my guests look like. Some don't even have
headshots

------
eruditely
White people continue trying to speak for minorities, there's more to us than
just black people you know, you can be skeptical for your safety if that's all
the information you have.

~~~
infosample
Airbnb provides a lot more information about a guest than a picture.

You can be skeptical for your safety on Airbnb but it wouldn't be empirical.

------
ddorian43
In a recent thread (too lazy to link), many users agreed that roma people
~suck in ~europe (because they keep to themselfes and their own culture, which
sucks, and they don't integrate). I probably would discriminate against one if
I was renting my "thing". It's time for airbnb(github/twitter too) to start
dying I think.

Edit: I welcome you to show your counter examples.

