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.
> 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.
Correct. That's the whole point.
It's basically just a political/marketing move the were probably forced to take.
Nothing will change.
"What proof?" you ask? Housing antidiscrimination enforcement teams have been highly skilled at gathering this proof for well over a generation and making charges stick. Not sure about this? Ask your favorite search engine to look up "housing discrimination enforcement NYC" for example.
If Airbnb were a local chamber of commerce making bookings for bed and breakfast places, it might be valid that they're just a booking office.
But they're a major source of accommodations in large cities. As such they have to at least pretend to abide by those cities' antidiscrimination regulations. This policy is a way to do that without customizing the rules for each jurisdiction.
People are free to use less controversial ways to offer their property for short term rent. I do that, and not because I discriminate (I don't), but because I want to keep a little bit more wealth in my community rather than sending it all to Sand Hill Road.
Generally went renting a room, you are allowed to discriminate. A post of three girls looking for a forth girl to share is generally legal.
So it seems like this commitment is actually going past what the law says.
I would never rent our my place so maybe I am not the target audience. But this would lower my odds even more. If I own the place, I want to discriminate on who stays there.
If AirBnB is able to dictate what it's landlords can and can't do that makes them disguised employees no? Something else the government is good at sniffing out!
In the Airbnb case that would be a very thin bit of ice to skate on but these cases usually hinge on a large number of things that can be tested and this would be one of those things. Other such items are your ability to set your own schedule, your own prices and so on.
Yeah, I don't disagree with you. Just disagree with the parent who implied that Airbnb's new rules are sufficient for classifying landlords as employees. ("If AirBnB is able to dictate what it's landlords can and can't do that makes them disguised employees") They're not even close to sufficient.
> Just disagree with the parent who implied that Airbnb's new rules are sufficient for classifying landlords as employees. ("If AirBnB is able to dictate what it's landlords can and can't do that makes them disguised employees")
"The general rule is that an individual is an independent contractor if the payer has the right to control or direct only the result of the work and not what will be done and how it will be done." IRS[1]
To your point, it is somewhat more complicated than that, and the IRS used to have a 20 factor test (now an 11 factor test) but it can basically be boiled down to: if AirBNB can specify HOW the services shall be rendered in detail, instead of simply the results or when they will be delivered, then the IRS can re-classify those contractors as employees.
In practice, and even though I think AirBNB is not in the moral right place here, I can't imagine IRS rules being applied in circumstances like this (i.e., where a contractor is actually the one doing the selling in someone else's marketplace.) In other words, AirBNB, Amazon, or Ebay vendors can sell things according to the marketplace's strict rules (which specify HOW) without being re-classified. If I was AirBNB, I'd argue that I was the marketplace and not the merchant of record for the items (e.g. insert the seller name into the credit card receipt). This is a tricky thing, though.. who is liable for a harmful item sold at Walmart -- Walmart, the manufacturer, or both? We all know the answer to that.
IANAL and I'd appreciate correction or expansion from tax/employment law lawyers.
Good point. That seems to put them on the line, but I think they've been fighting that they are not liable for their sellers' actions.. it's hard to have it both ways.
Having it both ways is exactly what these companies are all about. Being a taxi company without actually being a taxi company, being a hotel company without actually running a hotel and so on.
Flaunt the law, then hide behind it when it suits them.
The protected class citizens have a line drawn somewhere. The federal courts agree for roommates, you can discriminate because a roommate is a more intimate relationship than selling a house or renting out a house.
Since AirBnB is supposedly sharing...I don't see how that's different from getting roommates. They would have to reclassify their whole stance on being about "sharing economy" and admit they are more for renting homes than sharing homes, and not allow of renting out a hoise while the owner also lives there.
While they are at it, they can get Uber to reclassify themselves as a taxi company too.
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.
"If you cancel your account as a guest, any future reservations you have will be refunded according to the hosts' cancellation policy."
So, if you don't agree to this demand by AirBnB that wasn't on the table when you agreed to your booking, then you just lose your money.
If AirBnB was fair about this then it would let the user off the hook and pay out any cancellation fees/compensation out of its own funds. It's not like many people aren't going to agree anyway.
It looks like you can "decline the commitment" but not exercise "the option to cancel your account" according to the language on the announcement. So I think they will let you honour existing bookings without agreeing to the new commitment.
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.
No, it means they will ban a couple of hosts to 'set an example' and then move on because there is no money in getting rid of hosts short of the most horrible (and probably press-worthy) cases.
This is not the problem. The problem is that Airbnb is making demands on what people do or don't do with their own homes far beyond providing bed and/or breakfast. They're making demands about how people think. My head is not their property. My home is not their property.
It's improper and intolerant of them to make these kinds of demands. In fact, it's a form of totalitarianism to not do business with anyone who doesn't think exactly like us.
As an airbnb guest, I'm respectful of the fact that I'm a guest in someone's home. Their home, their rules. It seems like airbnb is trying to change that dynamic. Now, anyone who wants to be a rude guest can complain about unspecified group think violations. Sad.
It's easy to close your ears and say "racist". Here's what AirBnB's new policy says:
> 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 requirement cuts both ways. A woman who fears rape cannot prevent a young man from staying in her apartment. A Jew or black must accept someone into their home who looks like a skinhead. Someone from the Ukraine must allow a Russian to stay with them, even in spite of the ongoing conflicts. A host living in a 3rd floor walk-up must allow a guest in a wheelchair.
I would never have a reason to refuse someone for these reasons, but that in itself is a privileged position to be in. This policy doesn't only protect the vulnerable; it also puts the vulnerable at risk.
Airbnb is a guest in all the homes they're invited into. Now, they're acting the rude guest, bringing up politics and making demands on how people think. They can certainly do that, but it's pretty dumb. It's taking advantage. It's bullying.
I don't see the problem with a company just being tolerant.
Accusations like "racist" mainly flow towards pre-approved victim categories and are commonly used as a blunt weapon in oppression olympics. In those cases, there is no acceptable defense against it, because the reply will be along the lines of "omg, this racist is trying to excuse their racism". Guilty until proven super-guilty.
That's why this gets people's bristles up, because it reeks of the "reverse racism isn't real" and "racism requires structural oppression" dogma that has jumped the gap from post modern academia to tech by way of HR departments, always enforced by carefully worded but unmistakably our-way-or-the-highway totalism. If someone wants to be an arbiter of what is right without considering what happens when they are wrong, it's not justice they're after.
Outside of the Anglo Saxon sphere, this isn't such a big issue... Yet.
I think racism is a big deal outside of the Anglo Saxon sphere. I mean, it's the non-whites that are in a position to point it out and complain about it.
Similarly, here you are speaking about your disdain for calling someone racist, and no one's saying you're trying to excuse your own racism for it. Where is this sentiment coming from?
I literally don't see people's bristles up because of "dogma". It's mostly you using his very strong language and then throwing up very significant claims without evidence, such as that post modern academia has invaded tech with totalism circulated around the supposedly untrue ideation that reverse racism isn't a thing and that racism involves structural discrimination. A large chunk of this thread is talking about how Airbnb is toeing the line between ownership of property (i.e. deciding what can be done with it) and business decision (i.e. refusing to allow your services to be used by those who discriminate).
What's it called when people are so hyper-vigilant about "reverse racism" that they are angered by virtually any claim of racism, and feel resentment towards the "categories" of people that have historically been frequent victims of racism?
It's pretty easy. Airbnb have all the data they need. Infer the race/gender/sexuality of each guest using standard techniques and then look at relative acceptance/decline rates among hosts for those groups you wish to measure discrimination for. It's a few days work with a db/excel/python.
Sure they couldn't reliably prove it, but sample based testing + public consequences for those found to be in breach of ToS (e.g. some form of financial penalty) would likely make people who intended to discriminate less likely to use the AirBnB platform.
Maybe. But the more likely outcome is that people will simply continue to do what they do until they get kicked off and that every wanna-be renter of some Airbnb listed property is going to claim 'discrimination' from now on when they are refused.
Well that's a possible outcome of course, another possibility is that people who wish to discriminate realise that AirBnB probably isn't the platform for them and move on to other approaches.
Sample auditing and enforcement with financial penalties isn't exactly an unknown approach for policies, so it seems like its a valid possible approach here.
without any attempt at enforcement, it would see that the policy would have limited impact. If people get the idea that it might be enforced, they may well be more inclined to take it seriously.
A careful reading of your phrasing suggests that you're saying that the only people who are refused service from an Airbnb host are also in the category of people whom discrimination laws protect.
The categories that discrimination laws protect do include all people. The race category includes anyone with a race, the gender category includes everyone with a gender, etc. The protected categories are not the minorities. A guest can claim "the host seems to not like men" when both the host and the guest are men, and discrimination laws are invoked. It sounds silly in this context, but in a hiring context where a male manager prefers a female for an open position, a male applicant is being discriminated against.
Yes, if it happens immediately. But most likely they'll be doing it for a long time, possibly years before something will be done about it and more often than not those cases will involve Airbnb getting bad press (which is what gave rise to this whole thing in the first place):
No-one expects this policy to be enforced completely successfully, but no law or rule against discrimination ever is. I see no reason why it could not make a positive difference.
As to your final question, why so cynical? I imagine Airbnb came up with this when they recognized that discriminatory behavior by hosts was a serious problem. I doubt that Airbnb are secretly in favor of racism and doing this for some other reason.
Past and present Airbnb behavior is - to use light terms - less than ethical.
> I imagine Airbnb came up with this when they recognized that discriminatory behavior by hosts was a serious problem.
But they only chose to act when it became a matter of negative press.
> I doubt that Airbnb are secretly in favor of racism and doing this for some other reason.
They don't have to be 'secretly in favor of it' for them to condone it because it affects their bottom line one way or the other, presumably they've done the math and they now figure that further run-ins with the press and the law would work against them.
Really, when it comes to the likes of Airbnb, Uber, Facebook and so on I've over time come to realize that they are deeply un-ethical companies that couldn't care less about what the 'right' thing to do is, they just want to maintain their leadership position and to make as much money as possible. Ethics mean nothing to them.
> Really, when it comes to the likes of Airbnb, Uber, Facebook and so on I've over time come to realize that they are deeply un-ethical companies that couldn't care less about what the 'right' thing to do is, they just want to maintain their leadership position and to make as much money as possible. Ethics mean nothing to them.
Right, so you have no specific knowledge of what is going on here. You just have a general policy of assuming the worst. Aka cynicism.
> Right, so you have no specific knowledge of what is going on here. You just have a general policy of assuming the worst. Aka cynicism.
It's cynicism when applied to companies about which you have no datapoints, we have plenty of datapoints about those three mentioned above.
Airbnb would have to significantly change their ways before I would be ready to see them as an ethical operator, I've outlined two things they could do to really combat racism, but I'll bet you they will never do this because it would cut into their bottom line.
See, being an ethical company always cuts into the bottom line, there is almost always more money to be made by being unethical.
We don’t have any data points about why they made this decision. I’m sorry, but your argument basically amounts to saying “Airbnb is a big evil corporation, therefore everything it does is evil”. We simply don’t know what motivations the individuals who made this decision had.
I looked through your recent comments but couldn’t see any practical suggestions. Forcing hosts to accept all bookings would prevent legitimate instances of discrimination. (There are plenty of legitimate reasons why you may not want to rent your room to a particular person. Reasons based on their gender, nationality, race, etc. are of course not among these.)
It's pretty common for women not to want to rent out their room to men, the new policy would make that impossible.
People make their decisions about who to leave their private property, their home and the bed they sleep in based on their own personal criteria, being allowed to do so is a plus, not a minus. If that also enables racism then you could argue the model is broken but not that 'racism is such a large problem that we will now also stop people from having control over who gets to stay in their property'.
So when it comes down to it, you’d actually like Airbnb to be doing less than they are currently doing to combat racial discrimination!
If you are upset with Airbnb because you’re in favor of hosts being allowed to racially discriminate, you could have saved a lot of confusion by just saying so.
For my part, I think that you very obviously can argue that racism is such a large problem that it’s appropriate for Airbnb to exercise some element of control over the host’s decision making process. That is the argument that many people have been making, and Airbnb appears to have accepted the argument.
By the way, it is very unclear from your range of posts what you actually want Airbnb to do. In some places you appear to be suggesting that Airbnb should exercise more control over hosts that they are at present (e.g. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12824223). But here you seem to be complaining that they are attempting to exert any degree of control whatsoever.
Either Airbnb should leave the decision of who to accept in the hands of their hosts or Airbnb should force their hosts to accept everybody so that hosts know exactly where they stand with respect to control over who is allowed to stay in their houses and sleep in their beds.
A 'middle ground' is nothing but a fig-leaf.
See, no inconsistency, both solutions are going to be clear for all users and hosts. In the first case some discrimination may happen and that will likely get Airbnb in trouble with the authorities in some places and may give them bad press in others, or they can take the moral high ground and really accept everybody without making any illusions about who is in control of the premises.
Anything in between is simply window dressing and will not change the situation in a significant way.
Anyway, I feel like I'm repeating myself so I'll leave it at that.
Hosts already know where they stand, the policy is pretty clear.
I don't really understand your reasons for objecting to a middle ground, or why you are so convinced that you know Airbnb's precise motivations for going this route, so I guess we'll leave it at that.
But I'd also like to point out that if the middle ground is just "window dressing" and "won't change anything", and if you were ok with the previous situation where hosts could discriminate for any reason (possibly limited by the law in some instances), then there is really no reason to object, since your own position is that everything will continue on exactly as it did before this policy was put in place!
Wrong logic. This is the VERY reason we have societies so that we can agree to certain standards (laws). Laws cannot stop anyone from doing anything, they just exist so you understand there are consequences to certain actions. If we follow your logic everything will be left as is and we'll have anarchy.
No, Airbnb is flouting the law left right and center but will hide behind it when it suits their purpose.
This whole affair is simply to avoid some bad press, not to make any sweeing changes in Airbnb policies. Now they can point to their TOS and say 'see, it wasn't us', kick out the occasional host that makes them a target for bad press and continue business as usual.
A real change would be to:
(1) force hosts to accept all guests, without any kind of ability on the part of the host to decline guests
and
(2) to not show the guest details until the person shows up to receive the key.
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.
What would make sense is to say "we only accept campers that are quiet at night - and we'll throw them out of they don't comply and disturb other people's sleep". What you did is racism.
Now ever if your statistics were true (I doubt you properly measured that) it simply doesn't matter. Even if 90% of people from some region are noisy at night that doesn't justify rejecting the other 10%.
I think the decision to pre-filter was based on the fact that kicking someone out was extremely difficult. Police had to be involved or some really bad thing had to happen.
So the approach "ok we let anyone in, these are the rules, if you don't respect them you are out" is for sure more fair but it just wouldn't work.
Theory vs Reality.
And when you have 2000 people in a tight space you kind of want to avoid these situations.
I have no statistics but we can safely assume that 30 years of experience have taught the camping managers what works and what doesn't.
I think it was in their right to decide who comes in and who doesn't.
I'm Italian and if you won't let me into your crystal shop because I wave too much my hands when I talk and you're afraid I'll break something (I personally don't wave hands), I'll understand. I will be angry sure, but not with you: with the other hand waving italians.
>I'm Italian and if you won't let me into your crystal shop because I wave too much my hands when I talk and you're afraid I'll break something (I personally don't wave hands), I'll understand. I will be angry sure, but not with you: with the other hand waving italians.
Are you sure you wouldn't be annoyed if this actually happened? I find that a bit difficult to believe. Say, you walk into a cafe and politely order an espresso, and then the owner kicks you out because you're Italian.
yes, I'd be annoyed for sure. Imagine that it's a well known fact that italians in the US always complain about the espresso because it's too watery (this is pretty likely actually).
The owner kicks me out saying "I've got enough of you italians, you always complain! Get the espresso in your own country!".
I'd be upset with the owner at first but then realize the fault is mostly with those bloody italians...
I am on your side, but to play the devil's advocate, this is a case in which a way to predict loudness before they get loud is required. Is there a way to do this effectively without dipping into protected categories? Nobody wears 2am loudness on their forehead when checking in at 4pm.
That's what the racists think too, here in the U.S. anyway. They think they are just not okay with the "culture" of the people they are racist against.
And what about the people who have distanced themselves from that culture (if they even experienced it at all) but are still that race? You can differentiate based on the actions and ideas because those are under the person's control for the most part, and not by protected categories because those are not. Despise the people who treat women that way, which might happen to be statistically applicable to a race, but not the race wholesale.
I can appreciate your logical reasoning, but people will continue to make snap judgements based on the knowledge and past experiences available to them.
I wonder which right should prevail in general:
a) the right to host people I like and don't host people I dislike in my home
b) the right to be what I want and be accepted everywhere.
Again, I guess A should probably prevail and the Internet should take care of matching who I am with the hosts happy to have me.
"regardless of their race, religion, national origin, ethnicity, disability, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, or age"
We also manage bookings for apartments on the beach and openly write "Apartment for families. Groups of young people up to 30 years are not accepted." in Airbnb and other portals.
So, is Airbnb saying we'll be forced to accept noisy and unruly drunk groups who will probably bring drugs and extra friends in the middle of the night damaging the newly build apartments?
This just makes no sense.
So it will be either:
- This is not real, just some facade for political correctness
- We'll get customers from other portals
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.
> 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?
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.
A few years later I worked in Benidorm and I know what you mean :)
Only it turns out those Germans in the camping were a different sort: zero problems, ever.
I'm sure we would have been told to refuse Germans if they had been noisy/impolite.
I'm also pretty sure 90% of the south italians we refused would have been nice and polite and more friendly that the average German.
That's why I said I didn't like it.
But it's the other 10% they were trying to avoid.
10% bad guys can easily spoil the holiday to 90% good ones.
Not an easy business to be in, but sometimes you don't have a choice.
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.
There's nothing unlibertarian about a private business making up its own terms of services and privately enforcing them. That's exactly how the free market self regulates without the use of force.
When a single business dominates an entire industry in such a way, it's not just a "private business" anymore - it's an institution and should be treated as such.
I must admit that it's amusing to see libertarians complaining about the decisions made by a private business and implying that the government should step in.
This reminds me of an op-ed in my private college's newspaper written by a self-described libertarian that using a portion of tuition to create a scholarship fund was a socialist redistribution of wealth.
This is the market punishing bigotry. People are making noise and demanding change, alternative businesses are being created to address these people's needs, and Airbnb is modifying its policies in response.
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.
They have the right to be as racist as one likes, of course, limited to hate crimes. Airbnb is making a business decision that it doesn't want to service these people. That's Airbnb's right as a business, in a classical libertarian view.
No, not limited to hate crimes. You don't have the right to be racist in hiring practices, or who you serve in a business that's open to the public, etc.
We became leftists because libertarianism is harsh and unrealistic.
Most people are not smart enough for a libertarian world they get swayed by propaganda too easily and are unable to judge risk correctly. It's more efficient to have technocrats guide the public and protect them from short sighted mistakes and evil corporations. Most people don't even understand the difference between a percentage point and a percent and these same people, if left to their own devices, create hellish cities and countries. If we were all intelligent technocrats libertarianism (in the minarchist sense) would still be wrong, but it wouldn't fail so hilariously since we'd all have contracts for nearly everything, but as it stands now it's completely unrealistic to imagine a Gary Johnson United States.
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.
If some of us weren't constantly trying to get over our base instincts of discrimination we would still be in the times of segregation.
If your subconscious discrimination is constantly being pointed out through various channels, it starts causing you to question it. Obviously it's slow and might take generations, but that's the nature of the process. I will give you a personal example - I grew up in a country where making fun of gay/transgender people is very common. So subconsciously I judged and probably discriminated against gay/transgender people. When I moved to California and I heard and saw the messages of marriage equality I started to question my subconscious. Now I'm at the point where watching movies from my home country makes me cringe every time a crass gay joke gets cracked.
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.
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.
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.
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.
It says that you fund counter-culture movements as much as possible for them to go completely full-scale. Examples:
Black lives matter (which was a honest one at first) then went full kamikaze.
Let's bring 1M+ syrians, what could go wrong (when Albania was in ~civil-unrest in 1997 all borders closed).
Multiculturalism is ok friend. All cultures are equal (they're not, many suck, like roma example that I gave in another comment).
I think it's about scale. If you as a single individual discriminate, no big deal. If a nation or a large corporation discriminates, it causes serious problems.
Also, it's somewhat OK to discriminate against behavior that can be changed. So businesses are OK to be discriminated against, they are after all human creation. But we shouldn't discriminate on the basis of race or sex or ethnicity, because these are impossible to change.
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.
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).
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).
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.
> You have a right to pick and choose who you want in your home
You don't if you are renting your home. Whether Airbnb hosts legally classify as renters is something that each state is dealing with. Airbnb is choosing to get ahead of the issue by adding this requirement.
What if I don't want rent to some weirdo crust punk?
The actual answer is, it depends entirely on their membership of protected classes - and if they are a member of such a class, then that fact that your discrimination against them was on grounds of weirdness, crustiness, or punkiness, won't protect you from accusations of racism or whatever.
> 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.
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?".
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
That's what happens if you decline the commitment. But what if you break the commitment? (That is, accept the commitment but discriminate anyway). I'll bet nothing at all, unless an egregious incident starts trending on social media.
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.
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
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.
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!
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.
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.
The few times I've tried it, the host was either non Internet-savvy or seemed to have regretted the too low a price they set, cancelling and putting the place back in the market for a higher price.
When hosts cancel on you, their calendar gets blocked for those dates and a notice is automatically posted to their reviews that they cancelled on a guest. These are there to prevent this sort of behavior you are describing. Hosts that violate these rules frequently will get banned.
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
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.
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.
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.
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?
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
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
I rent two studios in Paris. And I always decline requests coming from people that come from my country or neighboring ones (Tunisia, Morroco) unless they have stellar reviews. That includes people who were born in France but have ancestry from those countries (which is pretty easy to guess).
That's because a) past history w. poor experiences b) I know too well they become overconfident when they see you are from there too c) generally speaking, they left my property in pretty bad state, with stuff that are broken or very dirty.
Oh and they always ask you if you do the ramadan and stuff like that. I will continue to do so and Airbnb has no way to prevent me from doing that.
Basically you feast all day and eat big at night and in the morning. And best case they look at you funny and take a moralistic tone about your haram behavior and worst case, well there is a lot of different worst case scenario when it comes to those folks. I don't want them to leave me a bad review because they are bitter about my "haram" behavior
>Does AirBnB have recourse against guests who leave the apartment trashed?
They do but I would rather not go through that, plus it is a hassle and I don't want to invest more time than I already do
>Does AirBnB have any way to detect that?
I don't know... but Paris is Paris. AirBnb is convenient but I won't have trouble finding an alternative if I have to
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.
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.
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.
I think it you are not from the U.S. You realize racists in the U.S. consider black people _the exact same_ way you consider Roma? You believe the distinction is that the racists in the U.S. are incorrect in their beliefs, but you are correct in your beliefs? Okay...
I did, and I'm telling you racists in the U.S. think the same way, but perhaps for "I wouldn't even know they were black if they acted right." They say "I'm not racist, I just see how trashy black people behave, I'm fine with black people that behave right, it's just that most of them don't." I could find examples if you really want, but I don't particularly want to do that research.
Everyone that's racist thinks it's because they are justified by the behavior of the ethnic group they are racist again. It's always been that way.
What belief? For the non-Roma citizens, literally every interaction they have with a Roma is either a) adolescents trying to scam (or pickpocket) you in the street or b) women begging in the street.
I have had nothing but negative experiences with blacks and Roma. So I avoid both. And I would rather pay fines for discriminating than have anything to do with them.
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.