5 ms·

To those saying "that's bad, but what can Airbnb do?", I will repeat my comment: they can definitely end this problem if they wanted to, using the same techniqu

by abalone 10y ago

To those saying "that's bad, but what can Airbnb do?", I will repeat my comment: they can definitely end this problem if they wanted to, using the same techniques that the bloggers have used to uncover it. If Airbnb sees a suspicious rejection of a person of color, Airbnb themselves could try rebooking it under a fake white profile. If it gets accepted, ban the host (or flag for further review, etc.) It could be mostly automated and has no negative impact on good hosts.

Madmallard 10y ago
No people should not be forced to let anyone in their homes. This is unreasonable. Edit: Something else important here. We do not know that the reason he was denied was because he was black. You have reviews of yourself that you cannot see. Who's to say this isn't some race baiting article and this guy is a creep.
- the_ancient 10y ago
  I agree and if the government was attempting to pass a law mandating this I would support you But if AirBNB want to have a racism free site where only non-racists homeowners are allowed to post listing then it is perfectly with in the right to do so and I support AirBNB in banning any racist persons they find trying to use their site. No one has a right to a AirBNB listing, and just as the homeowers can refuse service to anyone, so can airbnb
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  - w4 10y ago
    > I agree and if the government was attempting to pass a law mandating this I would support you The government already passed the law mandating this, way back in 1968: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_Housing_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_Housing_Act Yes, it applies to Airbnb: https://www.airbnb.com/help/article/898/ada-and-fha-compliance-policy https://www.airbnb.com/help/article/898/ada-and-fha-complian...
- koolba 10y ago
  > No people should not be forced to let anyone in their homes. This is unreasonable. That cuts both ways. They're free to reject whoever they want and AirBnB should be free to reject them from listing their properties.
  - Madmallard 10y ago
    If Airbnb forces people to comply with lots of regulation then vastly more airbnb listings will disappear. It is not a good business choice. Rich people like offering their small homes but they will rigorously discriminate for various reasons. And they will avoid the regulatory pitfalls anyway.
- parennoob 10y ago
  Airbnb should not be forced to accept anyone on their platform. That is unreasonable as well. By the way, the above is a great idea which would also not cause anyone to violate the rules of the platform by creating fake profiles, etc. Plus, it has zero effect on people who are not racists.
- dragonwriter 10y ago
  > No people should not be forced to let anyone in their homes. This would be an issue, if people were forced to rent out their homes on AirBnB.
- alistairSH 10y ago
  Shared home? Sure, I agree. Rental property? Nope, there are laws that apply to hotels and normal rentals to avoid these situations. My dad doesn't get to deny access to his beach rental because a tenant is black.
- abalone 10y ago
  They wouldn't be forced to share with anyone. They would merely be restrained from discriminating on the basis of race or other protected categories. This mirrors U.S. housing law. You don't have to rent your place out, but if you do you can't discriminate based on race.
  - x0x0 10y ago
    That's not true at all. You can't advertise that you discriminate but you generally can discriminate if (1) it's fewer than 4 units and the owner lives on premises, (2) it's a single family home owned by a person and rented w/o a broker, or (3) various other exceptions like religious organizations. I suspect legally most airbnb landlords are in the clear. I'm not a lawyer, but I do manage an apartment building. We don't discriminate; we just rent to the applications with the highest income and credit ratings. I also suspect it would be in AirBnB's interest to weed this out, but since as a company they have no ethics, nothing will happen until there's a super embarrassing incident and it becomes news. eg Beyonce gets screwed by AirBnB and tweets it.
    - abalone 10y ago
      I'm not saying Airbnb discrimination is illegal, I'm saying that anti-racist restrictions on landlords are reasonable in principle, and therefore Airbnb should apply them. As for the law, while you note some exceptions to the federal housing laws, states may supplement. For example it is illegal to discriminate in California even if you're renting a small home.
    - w4 10y ago
      > I suspect legally most airbnb landlords are in the clear. Watch it on this - despite the exceptions in the FHA, exceptions never apply to racial discrimination. IANAL, but the discrimination outlined in the article is unlawful, regardless of any exceptions. Plus, state law often supplements the FHA to close off many of the exceptions.
- rahimnathwani 10y ago
  I didn't notice anyone suggest that hosts be forced. Even if you are OK with people filtering occupants based on race, it's really poor UX to allow someone to book, and then have the host cancel with a bogus reason. If there are hosts on AirBnB that aren't willing to rent to brown people, then there's no point showing those listings to me (a brown person).
  - Madmallard 10y ago
    They shouldn't be forced to state their preferences. They should have the power to deny for any reason if it is their private home they are renting out voluntarily.
- onetwotree 10y ago
  > race baiting Knew this would be in here somewhere. You could also just offer black people the same level of trust you do anyone else when they share a negative experience they've had with a product or service...
  - Madmallard 10y ago
    I'm only saying this because it's so absurdly prevalent in the media and the author of the article makes NO mention of reviews.
    - onetwotree 10y ago
      My baser mind really wants to tear into you over this, but I don't think I will. Everyone can see what you're saying, and draw their own conclusions.
      - Madmallard 10y ago
        Assuming they're being racist when we're not given all the details and facts of the situation just that he applied as a black guy and then again as a white (person) and suddenly the owner is racist? Yeah alright. If the person is going to complain and pull the race card on a public forum in an attempt to disparage a largely successful company then they deserve to be scrutinized. If he provided details saying he had similar reviews to his white friend that applied, and didn't message her TWO times without a response (making it seem like he REALLY wants the place for several days) then i'd be more like ok ya she's being racist kind of unreasonably so.
        abalone 10y ago
        > she's being racist kind of unreasonably so As opposed to reasonable racism? I think we're done here.
        someguydave 10y ago
        > As opposed to reasonable racism? It strikes me that both "racism" and "anti-racism" live on an axis that is orthogonal to "reasonableness". Both views seem to commit the believer to strongly-held assumptions that cannot be falsified.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- digler999 10y ago
  you must be really be upset about the Fair Housing Act then. This just happened in my hometown: http://mynews4.com/news/local/36k-settlement-in-carson-city-housing-discrimination-suit http://mynews4.com/news/local/36k-settlement-in-carson-city-... $36k fine because a landlord "preferred to rent to adults".
  - tokensimian 10y ago
    Seems reasonable, seeing as age is a protected class.
    - digler999 10y ago
      I agree 100%. I didn't intend for the quotes to sound like I was against it. Just that it was a cut and dried case of discrimination.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
- w4 10y ago
  > No people should not be forced to let anyone in their homes. This is unreasonable. The Fair Housing Act says otherwise (with respect to race and a few other categories), owner occupied rentals and small time single-family landlords excepted. No one is forcing you to rent out your property for profit, so if you don't want to let certain people in your house, don't rent it out on Airbnb.
yuzi 10y ago
There's a huge flaw in there. When I rent a unit, I will do some client research and to the extent I can I will block the rental based upon my findings. For example if I read their blog and they come across as a risky customer (a profile photo with machine guns, money, and drugs or postings showing a they have a lack of character). Now it could be they also happen to be black, but when they create a fake profile and then get accepted it does not mean I blocked them due to race. At a minimum you would need to make sure you fake both profiles to ensure everything but skin color is the same.
- abalone 10y ago
  > ensure everything but skin color is the same Which would be utterly obvious and ineffective. Instead, they could look for discriminatory rejection patterns.
  - yuzi 10y ago
    > discriminatory rejection patterns. Maybe I'm lacking imagination, but how do you account for the renter and Airbnb having vastly different sets of information to work from? Also your sample size would have to be huge to rule out coincidental outcomes, which I dare say would rarely be found for the average property. For example my property gets about 100 customers per year. I'm guessing in the last 4 years I've had 3 black customers, all accepted by the way, but if I rejected all 3 can an algorithm reasonably rule out coincidence having such a low sample size? It just seems like it would be the kind of algo doomed to fuck it up.
    - abalone 10y ago
      It's like spam filtering. It may be hard to imagine but it can work. Algorithms look at multiple signals and produce a confidence score. Consistently rejecting the one black customer you get every year would probably raise your score enough to prompt an investigation, and the outcome of that (like a fake white test booking) would give more confidence that it's not just coincidence.

by abalone 10y ago

Madmallard 10y ago

No people should not be forced to let anyone in their homes. This is unreasonable. Edit: Something else important here. We do not know that the reason he was denied was because he was black. You have reviews of yourself that you cannot see. Who's to say this isn't some race baiting article and this guy is a creep.

the_ancient 10y ago
I agree and if the government was attempting to pass a law mandating this I would support you But if AirBNB want to have a racism free site where only non-racists homeowners are allowed to post listing then it is perfectly with in the right to do so and I support AirBNB in banning any racist persons they find trying to use their site. No one has a right to a AirBNB listing, and just as the homeowers can refuse service to anyone, so can airbnb
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- w4 10y ago
  > I agree and if the government was attempting to pass a law mandating this I would support you The government already passed the law mandating this, way back in 1968: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_Housing_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_Housing_Act Yes, it applies to Airbnb: https://www.airbnb.com/help/article/898/ada-and-fha-compliance-policy https://www.airbnb.com/help/article/898/ada-and-fha-complian...
koolba 10y ago
> No people should not be forced to let anyone in their homes. This is unreasonable. That cuts both ways. They're free to reject whoever they want and AirBnB should be free to reject them from listing their properties.
- Madmallard 10y ago
  If Airbnb forces people to comply with lots of regulation then vastly more airbnb listings will disappear. It is not a good business choice. Rich people like offering their small homes but they will rigorously discriminate for various reasons. And they will avoid the regulatory pitfalls anyway.
parennoob 10y ago
Airbnb should not be forced to accept anyone on their platform. That is unreasonable as well. By the way, the above is a great idea which would also not cause anyone to violate the rules of the platform by creating fake profiles, etc. Plus, it has zero effect on people who are not racists.
dragonwriter 10y ago
> No people should not be forced to let anyone in their homes. This would be an issue, if people were forced to rent out their homes on AirBnB.
alistairSH 10y ago
Shared home? Sure, I agree. Rental property? Nope, there are laws that apply to hotels and normal rentals to avoid these situations. My dad doesn't get to deny access to his beach rental because a tenant is black.
abalone 10y ago
They wouldn't be forced to share with anyone. They would merely be restrained from discriminating on the basis of race or other protected categories. This mirrors U.S. housing law. You don't have to rent your place out, but if you do you can't discriminate based on race.
- x0x0 10y ago
  That's not true at all. You can't advertise that you discriminate but you generally can discriminate if (1) it's fewer than 4 units and the owner lives on premises, (2) it's a single family home owned by a person and rented w/o a broker, or (3) various other exceptions like religious organizations. I suspect legally most airbnb landlords are in the clear. I'm not a lawyer, but I do manage an apartment building. We don't discriminate; we just rent to the applications with the highest income and credit ratings. I also suspect it would be in AirBnB's interest to weed this out, but since as a company they have no ethics, nothing will happen until there's a super embarrassing incident and it becomes news. eg Beyonce gets screwed by AirBnB and tweets it.
  - abalone 10y ago
    I'm not saying Airbnb discrimination is illegal, I'm saying that anti-racist restrictions on landlords are reasonable in principle, and therefore Airbnb should apply them. As for the law, while you note some exceptions to the federal housing laws, states may supplement. For example it is illegal to discriminate in California even if you're renting a small home.
  - w4 10y ago
    > I suspect legally most airbnb landlords are in the clear. Watch it on this - despite the exceptions in the FHA, exceptions never apply to racial discrimination. IANAL, but the discrimination outlined in the article is unlawful, regardless of any exceptions. Plus, state law often supplements the FHA to close off many of the exceptions.
rahimnathwani 10y ago
I didn't notice anyone suggest that hosts be forced. Even if you are OK with people filtering occupants based on race, it's really poor UX to allow someone to book, and then have the host cancel with a bogus reason. If there are hosts on AirBnB that aren't willing to rent to brown people, then there's no point showing those listings to me (a brown person).
- Madmallard 10y ago
  They shouldn't be forced to state their preferences. They should have the power to deny for any reason if it is their private home they are renting out voluntarily.
onetwotree 10y ago
> race baiting Knew this would be in here somewhere. You could also just offer black people the same level of trust you do anyone else when they share a negative experience they've had with a product or service...
- Madmallard 10y ago
  I'm only saying this because it's so absurdly prevalent in the media and the author of the article makes NO mention of reviews.
  - onetwotree 10y ago
    My baser mind really wants to tear into you over this, but I don't think I will. Everyone can see what you're saying, and draw their own conclusions.
    - Madmallard 10y ago
      Assuming they're being racist when we're not given all the details and facts of the situation just that he applied as a black guy and then again as a white (person) and suddenly the owner is racist? Yeah alright. If the person is going to complain and pull the race card on a public forum in an attempt to disparage a largely successful company then they deserve to be scrutinized. If he provided details saying he had similar reviews to his white friend that applied, and didn't message her TWO times without a response (making it seem like he REALLY wants the place for several days) then i'd be more like ok ya she's being racist kind of unreasonably so.
      - abalone 10y ago
        > she's being racist kind of unreasonably so As opposed to reasonable racism? I think we're done here.
        someguydave 10y ago
        > As opposed to reasonable racism? It strikes me that both "racism" and "anti-racism" live on an axis that is orthogonal to "reasonableness". Both views seem to commit the believer to strongly-held assumptions that cannot be falsified.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
digler999 10y ago
you must be really be upset about the Fair Housing Act then. This just happened in my hometown: http://mynews4.com/news/local/36k-settlement-in-carson-city-housing-discrimination-suit http://mynews4.com/news/local/36k-settlement-in-carson-city-... $36k fine because a landlord "preferred to rent to adults".
- tokensimian 10y ago
  Seems reasonable, seeing as age is a protected class.
  - digler999 10y ago
    I agree 100%. I didn't intend for the quotes to sound like I was against it. Just that it was a cut and dried case of discrimination.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
w4 10y ago
> No people should not be forced to let anyone in their homes. This is unreasonable. The Fair Housing Act says otherwise (with respect to race and a few other categories), owner occupied rentals and small time single-family landlords excepted. No one is forcing you to rent out your property for profit, so if you don't want to let certain people in your house, don't rent it out on Airbnb.

yuzi 10y ago

There's a huge flaw in there. When I rent a unit, I will do some client research and to the extent I can I will block the rental based upon my findings. For example if I read their blog and they come across as a risky customer (a profile photo with machine guns, money, and drugs or postings showing a they have a lack of character). Now it could be they also happen to be black, but when they create a fake profile and then get accepted it does not mean I blocked them due to race. At a minimum you would need to make sure you fake both profiles to ensure everything but skin color is the same.

abalone 10y ago
> ensure everything but skin color is the same Which would be utterly obvious and ineffective. Instead, they could look for discriminatory rejection patterns.
- yuzi 10y ago
  > discriminatory rejection patterns. Maybe I'm lacking imagination, but how do you account for the renter and Airbnb having vastly different sets of information to work from? Also your sample size would have to be huge to rule out coincidental outcomes, which I dare say would rarely be found for the average property. For example my property gets about 100 customers per year. I'm guessing in the last 4 years I've had 3 black customers, all accepted by the way, but if I rejected all 3 can an algorithm reasonably rule out coincidence having such a low sample size? It just seems like it would be the kind of algo doomed to fuck it up.
  - abalone 10y ago
    It's like spam filtering. It may be hard to imagine but it can work. Algorithms look at multiple signals and produce a confidence score. Consistently rejecting the one black customer you get every year would probably raise your score enough to prompt an investigation, and the outcome of that (like a fake white test booking) would give more confidence that it's not just coincidence.