27 ms·

Airbnb Adopts Rules in Effort to Fight Discrimination by Its Hosts

131 points by brentm 10y ago

Sunstar 10y ago
I have happily rented to people of many races, religions, and nationalities, mixed race and same-sex couples, and so forth. However, I do not want anybody telling me who I must have in my home. My nephew did four tours in Iraq and does not care to have Iraqis in his home, I have fire-code-acceptable windows in my apartment but a physically-handicapped person could not reach them. I rent to Orthodox Jews under a privacy plan but I don't want to be told I must make sweeping accommodations due to a guest's religious observances. I won't rent to teens at all so what if they happen to be Muslim? I don't rent to anyone who can't pass a background check so what if they happen to be Hispanic? My husband and I are in our 70s and carefully vet everyone we invite into our home, and no one is going to ever tell me I can't.
marknutter 10y ago
Doesn't discrimination end up hurting the hosts in the end? Having less demand drives the rental costs down.
- ceejayoz 10y ago
  Probably not sharply enough or clearly enough to impact behavior. The thought patterns around this sort of thing can be pretty insidious, too. Some might be thinking stuff along the lines of "I'd be doing better if all these black people weren't tying up my reservations calendar".
  - lotsofpulp 10y ago
    I don't think it's a racial thing, I think it's more about preventing damage to your property by going with the ones who are least likely to damage. For example, the types of foods and spices a certain culture cooks with can cause a dwelling to smell for days (just like smoking), and so will cause a problem with future tenants. Certain cultures are known for having lots of kids and not raising them to be quiet or disciplined, that can cause problems for neighbors. And then of course, certain cultures just have less respect for others and their belongings, and due to the environment they're from, have a sense of "take whatever you can get because you might not get a chance later". Then you have the ideal guest, business guests who you wouldn't even know they're staying or no, don't waste your time haggling about price, are much cleaner than others and yield much more profit. It's just not the same as selling widgets and discriminating against someone for no reason.
    - ch4s3 10y ago
      >Certain cultures are known for having lots of kids and not raising them to be quiet or disciplined Do you realize that you are literally parroting a racist trope?
      - lotsofpulp 10y ago
        No, I specified culture, not race. The way of life is the problem, not someone's skin color or biological features. For example, you wouldn't want gypsies in your residence or hotel, they WILL cause problems and it will negatively effect your other hotel guests. For similar reasons you wouldn't want to live next to them either. Another culture is that of the rich (especially newly rich), where their wealth has allowed them to hire all sorts of servants and baby sitters and in general they treat their hired help as if they are below them. They bring that same attitude and cause problems (as do spoiled Americans and Europeans, but those tend to be much richer and fewer due to labor costing more) wherever they go due to their entitledness. Again, it has nothing to do with race, but the manner in which one conducts themselves, which may have to do with the environment they grew up in. Regardless, you would not want to stay in a hotel that did not screen its guests one way or another, and the same principles apply here. Note, that I'm not advocating blindly discriminating against anyone, but simply stating that any business should be forced to accept anyone is not realistic. They will screen one way or another, either by raising the prices, requiring deposits, or simply by not offering the service anymore.
        ch4s3 10y ago
        Except that the quote "Certain cultures are known for having lots of kids and not raising them to be quiet or disciplined" is literally a racists trope, used historically by racists to disparage other racial/ethnic groups. And they always defend their this baseless assertion by saying its a critique of culture and not about race. But, that's plainly bullshit. Its especially bullshit because you aren't referring to any specific culture, that's called a dog whistle[1], and its literally something racists do. > you wouldn't want gypsies in you ... hotel If they have credit cards I do. And they call themselves Romani, gypsy is a deeply racist term. Why are you still diggin this hole for yourself? You're just throwing around baseless accusations and generalizations about vast swathes of people. [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dog-whistle_politics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dog-whistle_politics
- cozzyd 10y ago
  Not if there's sufficient demand that they are happy with the occupancy level.
- lotsofpulp 10y ago
  Not necessarily. Certain customers are problematic and can case damage, which is especially possible when you let them occupy your property (the host is the one who ends up paying for repairs, good luck getting it out of the customer). Usually, in a hotel this problem is fixed by requiring credit card with a high security deposit it check in, such as needing a few hundred dollars for incidentals plus room and tax. This means anyone without a credit card, and anyone without $500+ of available credit isn't allowed to stay. In effect, this doesn't guarantee the hotel payment for any damages, but it keeps out the type of guest that typically cause problems.
  - ryandrake 10y ago
    > In effect, this doesn't guarantee the hotel payment for any damages, but it keeps out the type of guest that typically cause problems. So, people with credit cards and a $500+ limit are less likely to cause problems? As someone who dabbled in landlording (never again!) I can tell you that people with money are just as capable of trashing your house as people without money.
    - red_blobs 10y ago
      of course not. People with $500+ limit will automatically be charged for the $5000 in damages they caused. It's all about risk and accountability.
    - lotsofpulp 10y ago
      As someone who grew up in the hotel business starting with making beds and has dealt with thousands and thousands of people from worldwide, there is a very clear association with a person's access to credit (aka wealth, what kind of culture they grew up in, their level of education), and the likelihood of them causing issues.
- wccrawford 10y ago
  It might, but how would they know? They're so sure they're protecting themselves that they will never care that they're making less money than they could. You'll not convince them of that, because they'll just argue about the potential money lost to undesirable tenants.
- tinus_hn 10y ago
  Slavery hurts the economy by replacing jobs with free labor. That didn't stop the south from waging war to keep it though.
- Frondo 10y ago
  It didn't hurt businesses in the American south enough to compel them to stop discriminating. I don't get it either, why would I turn down someone's money because they're black, but lots of people did and whatever economic pain they felt from it was apparently outweighed by the joy of being racist assholes.
  - aianus 10y ago
    It was probably because their white customers were racist assholes too so they would lose more money on losing those white customers than they would gain from new black ones.
  - 67726e 10y ago
    I would guess some combination of feeling various minorities were filthy and not wanting to deal with them, and a network effect. Sure, you might make money letting rooms to a handful of blacks but you would likely then lose out on all the other racist white folk who don't want to use the same sheets as "one of those people". One can easily imagine it might have been economically harmful to NOT be a racist in those days.
  - yummyfajitas 10y ago
    Please learn some history. Businesses in the American south were legally required to discriminate. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Crow_laws https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Crow_laws One of the major motivations in keeping Jim Crow laws was to prevent economic competition (a "race to the bottom") between whites and non-whites. See also FDR's pro-union/pro-white policies.
    - rmxt 10y ago
      Linking to Wikipedia without expounding which details you are referring to is a bit of sleight of hand. Specifically, what part of "separate but equal" [1] "legally required" that "separate" facilities for blacks have poorer conditions than the facilities for whites? I speculate that it's embedded cultural beliefs of hatred and superiority/inferiority (or, at a minimum, apathy) that caused those poorer conditions and discrimination to happen much more so than anything that was "legally required" or based on economic concerns. Also, the issue at hand for Airbnb is specifically about hosts discriminating against potential guests. How do hosts that discriminate against guests encourage a "race to the bottom"? There might be parallels between discrimination a la Jim Crow and discrimination a la Airbnb hosts, but they aren't in the form of economic concerns. Your snark about learning history seems misplaced. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plessy_v._Ferguson#Significance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plessy_v._Ferguson#Significanc...
- analyst74 10y ago
  Someone should do a study on this, A/B testing racism!
  - ebfe 10y ago
    Everyone who does produces results that prove they're a racist, and as such their results can't be trusted.
dilap 10y ago
I don't know if this is really a tractable problem. At the end of the day, either airbnb lets hosts decide who stays or doesn't. If they don't let hosts decide, they'll likely lose a ton of hosts, since having someone stay in your home is a very personal thing and a huge risk. If they do, then they're going to have significant discrimination problems as long as people are discriminatory, i.e., basically forever.
- apalmer 10y ago
  I think more or less this is where it is going to have to end up. Its probably bad PR for AirBnB but fundamentally, there is a reason that their is a 'high' barrier to entry for the hospitality business...
- brightball 10y ago
  That was my thought here as well. It's one thing to have very public businesses with anti-discrimination rules, but something like Air BnB where people have to decide in most cases who they are going to let into their homes is a much more complicated problem. We're seeing a wide trend in the US where people want rules to prevent people from making choices that they don't agree with, which was basically the opposite of the point of the US. What if a host wanted to turn away somebody who was an avid white supremacist? This isn't the same thing as giving somebody a key to a hotel room. EDIT: Worth pointing to another comment that cites the law: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12453577 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12453577 > Those anti-discrimination laws don't apply to hosts' private homes or bedrooms.[1] Paraphrase of law: "All persons shall be entitled ..., and accommodations of any place of public accommodation,..., without discrimination ... other than ... a building which contains not more than five rooms for rent ... which is actually occupied by the proprietor ... as his residence"
  - guelo 10y ago
    > We're seeing a wide trend in the US where people want rules to prevent people from making choices that they don't agree with, which was basically the opposite of the point of the US. Freedom is a relative thing. Here we have AirBnB's freedom to not want racist hosts vs white supremacist's freedom to use AirBnB. The only freedom the ideal of USA is supposed to grant you is freedom from too much government meddling.
aikah 10y ago
well people should have figured out by now : Airbnb's aren't hotels. And people should be free to deny others staying at their place, for whatever reason. Airbnb can't have it both ways, they know it and this effort will be pure PR.
- ceejayoz 10y ago
  > And people should be free to deny others staying at their place, for whatever reason. They are. Once they turn it into a public accommodation - which Title II defines as "any inn, hotel, motel, or other establishment which provides lodging to transient guests" - they don't get to do that any more. Don't want to let black people stay in your house? Don't put it on AirBnB.
  - aikah 10y ago
    > They are. Once they turn it into a public accommodation - which Title II defines as "any inn, hotel, motel, or other establishment which provides lodging to transient guests" - they don't get to do that any more. Are all Airbnbs title II rentals ? I don't think so. That's why Airbnb is successful, because it operates at the "edge" of the law, shifting the risk on both clients and hosts.
    - runako 10y ago
      Title II is explicit: "any inn, hotel, motel, or other establishment which provides lodging to transient guests, other than an establishment located within a building which contains not more than five rooms for rent or hire and which is actually occupied by the proprietor of such establishment as his residence. " If the proprietor is not using the rental as his/her residence, it's defined under US law as a "place of public accommodation," in spite of current efforts to pretend that law doesn't exist. So: not all AirBnB rentals fall under this rubric, but certainly many of them do.
- exelius 10y ago
  I dunno; I feel Airbnb is really losing control of their product. Most recently, I've noticed a lot of listings of great places for awesome prices... but only if you're willing to rent for 12 months continuously, provide your own furniture and pay a security deposit -- which is just a fucking apartment lease. It makes it hard to find "legit" rentals with so much of this kind of spam filling up the listings. Worse yet, when I went to report such listings (since I'm pretty sure that's not what Airbnb is designed for), I couldn't figure out how to do it in the app. I get that companies want to operate with minimal overhead, but until their listing systems are run by AI that can outsmart unscrupulous humans, it makes their product shittier.
deleted 10y ago
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marcoperaza 10y ago
Very tricky. Who you allow to stay in your home is a very personal and grave decision and people want as much information about the potential guests as possible. If they were to take this a step further and remove guest pictures altogether, I suspect that you'd see a mass flight to a competing platform. For people who are renting out their primary home (and especially if they'll be there at the same time as the guest), I don't think it's ever right to challenge their decision to accept or deny a guest. But someone running a number of units as full-time rentals should be held to anti-discrimination laws.
bobjordan 10y ago
Yeah, well after having a multi-day house party thrown in my Houston home by a local guy that had the gall to write "God Bless you" several times before the rental, and Airbnb doing nothing about the damages (huge scratches on brand new $5K bedroom suite, a frigging water-logged kitchen ceiling, cabinet doors torn off hinges, etc.) we will no longer rent to any local, of any race. Anyone that rents my house is going to prove they are an out-of-town traveler. At the end of the day, the owner should have the final word on their house.
- untog 10y ago
  That's not really relevant here. The article is specifically about racial discrimination.
  - MaxGabriel 10y ago
    The article says that one way AirBnB is handling racial discrimination is to "accelerate the use of instant bookings, which lets renters book places immediately without host approval." It's not AirBnB's goal, but as a side effect it would affect bobjordan, so it is relevant. (edit: it would depend on how they implement more instant booking. If they just encouraged renters to use it (but could they just encourage and still stop discrimination?), people like bobjordan could just opt out).
    - bduerst 10y ago
      If you don't turn on instant bookings with your property, then you don't have anything to worry about. https://www.airbnb.com/help/article/484/what-is-instant-book https://www.airbnb.com/help/article/484/what-is-instant-book
      - deleted 10y ago
        [deleted]
    - shostack 10y ago
      The skeptic in me says that pushing Instant Bookings is their primary goal as it lets them be closer to how hotels book. The discrimination angle is a great way to roll it out because it solves a another problem for them.
jasode 10y ago
>Airbnb said it would also accelerate the use of instant bookings, which lets renters book places immediately without host approval. Maybe I'm naive but it seems like that policy would be perceived by hosts as extremely hostile. Homeowners have both a financial and emotional vested interest in their homes so letting strangers book it without a cursory check isn't going to work. Having no checks would work for real estate holders who aren't emotionally attached to their homes but not homeowners who live in the same house they rent. Even if it's irrational and discriminatory, homeowners want to maintain some semblance of control over who stays at their home. It's the homeowner who has to pay for damages/misbehavior -- whether directly or by home insurance deductibles and higher premiums. (As I understand it, AirBnb's coverage guarantee only kicks in after the homeowner exhausts his personal insurance.) Does anyone know the bulk of AirBnb's business revenue? Is it homeowners renting out a spare bedroom? Or is it people renting out non-owner occupied beach houses and lofts? EDIT ADD: Every time an AirBnb thread about racism comes up, many commenters are confused or ignorant about what the law actually says. To copypaste a previous comment: Those anti-discrimination laws don't apply to hosts' private homes or bedrooms.[1] Paraphrase of law: "All persons shall be entitled ..., and accommodations of any place of public accommodation,..., without discrimination ... other than ... a building which contains not more than five rooms for rent ... which is actually occupied by the proprietor ... as his residence" In other words, if a homeowner has a spare bedroom across the hall from her 13-year-old son's room, and doesn't want to rent to transgender, black, or 65-year-old guests, it is legal for her to discriminate on those attributes. On the other hand, if the AirBnb host is renting out a non-owner-occupied beach house, the discrimination laws would apply. [1]https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/42/2000a https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/42/2000a:
- ovis 10y ago
  What if there was a reputation threshold for a traveller to make an instant booking? Of course it's still not immune to racism or sexism, but it seems that it would provide a decent buffer against it.
  - pooper 10y ago
    Nope. I would not ever rent a room with instant booking unless Airbnb signs a blank check for any damages by the guest (which it of course won't)
draugadrotten 10y ago
Coming up next: AirBnB adopts rules in effort to fight discrimination OF its hosts. Some guests may avoid to stay with hosts of certain life styles, gender, race or religion. This discrimination must be stopped.
- 3adawi 10y ago
  i feel like airbnb can't win either way
- dragonwriter 10y ago
  > The homeowner's use of Airbnb is more analogous to listing in the "newspaper classifieds" rather than contracting a human broker. Unlike discrimination by hosts against renters, discrimination by renters against hosts doesn't seem to be a violation of the fair housing laws of either the United States or any State, so, at least in the US, is less likely to be a legal compliance issue to which their may be liability attached.
- cloudjacker 10y ago
  that sounds like an awesome money maker, $5 for every host listing/profile they evaluate "to prevent discrimination" I like market inefficiencies
peterkshultz 10y ago
Airbnb's report can be found here: http://blog.airbnb.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/REPORT_Airbnbs-Work-to-Fight-Discrimination-and-Build-Inclusion.pdf http://blog.airbnb.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/REPORT_Air...
mc32 10y ago
One thing I didn't see is AB&B promoting its business model to affected classes of people. Get more affected classes of people on your platform (i.e. as hosts) and have them lead the way.
southphillyman 10y ago
I'm confused by the responses in here so far. How does discriminating based on race, gender, age, etc guarantee that your property will not be damaged? If you want the access and business that using AirBnb's platform provides then you need to adhere to their rules. Pretty simple. If that's a problem use craigslist or some other service so you can use whatever prejudices you have to screen guests.
- aikah 10y ago
  > How does discriminating based on race, gender, age, etc guarantee that your property will not be damaged? It doesn't but depending on where you are on the political spectrum it's either called "trust" or "prejudice". That's how people assess personal risk. While a legal hotel has proper insurance, do you really think that's the case for most airbnb rentals? furthermore an hotel manager doesn't have to sleep in the same room/appartement as his guest. > If you want the access and business that using AirBnb's platform provides then you need to adhere to their rules. Pretty simple The real question is whether these rules are seriously enforced or not. I bet they aren't, because most hosts are biased, like everybody else and airbnb business strategy is based on shifting risk upon hosts (and guests). If it wasn't the case it would only list legal hotels.
- ekianjo 10y ago
  AirBnB places are not hotels. In the end as an Owner you should be free to select whoever you accept, just like you are free to decorate your place the way you wish. It's down to personal preference because it's the Owner's place in the end.
  - dragonwriter 10y ago
    > AirBnB places are not hotels. Often, they are exactly illegal hotels. > In the end as an Owner you should be free to select whoever you accept You generally aren't legally in the US, with very narrow exceptions, especially if you have a commercial service involved with you in arranging the rental. AirBnB doesn't make the laws, but they are bound by them, and are visible enough that simply ignoring them may no longer be tenable.
gmarx 10y ago
Many other commenters imply that since people would flee the platform if they couldn't discriminate, that AirBnB shouldn't have to deal with the problem. It's the opposite. AirBnB is required to deal with the problem. Their challenge is to make it look like they are dealing with the problem (e.g. hire Eric Holder) while not actually dealing with it in any substantive way. Lots of these new companies have as part of their secret sauce the hiding of racial discrimination and avoiding regulations and fees that their old style competitors can't. once/if the govt cracks down a lot of these valuations must be reimagined
- aikah 10y ago
  Wow, you're right : http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/21/technology/airbnb-hires-ex-attorney-general-eric-holder-to-advise-on-anti-bias-policy.html http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/21/technology/airbnb-hires-ex... It's like these corporations hiring diversity officers who won't fix anything in their discriminatory hiring process. Pure PR.
  - saiya-jin 10y ago
    actually this doesn't mean anything - hiring a black person for anti-discriminatory position seems exactly like PR. Hey look, we hired him, we cannot possibly be discriminative, right? and nobody was talking about airbnb's hiring process here, WTF?
kchoudhu 10y ago
I've historically had trouble getting people to respond to my lodging requests on AirBNB. I learned quickly to let my (white) wife do the bookings for our family. When I'm traveling on my own, it's just easier (and frequently cheaper) to just check into a traditional hotel. It's an intractable problem, and I don't see a good way forward for AirBNB.
tedmiston 10y ago
I've always considered it a legitimate request when people want to live with others of the same gender for a shared room in their home. For example, you especially see this on sites like Craigslist when people are seeking roommates. This policy seems to overturn the ability of hosts to do this. If I were a female in an all female home renting out one room, it would make me uncomfortable. Perhaps other do not see this as an issue in short-term renting, but I do.
- drzaiusapelord 10y ago
  Also, they're attacking whites only here. What if blacks wanted a black person. Or a Chinese person who only speaks Chinese and writes only in Mandarin wants the same. The left will give these people exceptions for "cutlural" reasons. They just want to regulate race and commerce on their unquestionable terms. This has nothing to do with equality. Its just a power-grab by political opportunists and misguided idealists. The same way you have campus "safe spaces" where men aren't allowed or affirmative action quotas.
  - ritchiea 10y ago
    Have you considered the fact that whites discriminating against blacks is commonplace in the United States (as well as many other countries) while accounts of whites feeling discriminated against by people of color is much more rare?
    - oh_sigh 10y ago
      Which makes sense, because whites constitute 60+% whereas blacks constitute 13%. Even if everything in the world was exactly equal, including percent of racist whites and blacks, blacks(or really, the group with fewer members) would experience more racism because of the disparity in population numbers.
    - ebfe 10y ago
      The majority of white people believe that discrimination against whites is more common than discrimination against people of color, actually. Ask your average middle class white person about affirmative action, preferential access for minorities to grants/loans, etc.
nicolas_t 10y ago
As an host, I'll never discriminate on the basis of religion, sex orientation, color of skin, national origin or gender identity. When it comes to disability, I might refuse someone whose disability would cause risk in using the apartment and might have an accident because the apartment is not safe for someone who's disabled (the building is 300 years old, there's no elevator, the stair in the duplex apartment doesn't have handrails)... It's a risk if the person then has an accident... Similarly in term of age, I would not rent to couples with young children because it's too risky. So, it's discrimination but it's mostly because this is not an hotel, it's an apartment in which I live part of the year and it's not adapted for disabled people or couples with young children because I'm not in those categories. That said, as someone whose wife is asian, I fully understand the problem. It's annoying and painful when people discriminate based on race. In our case, we show both my face and wife face on our Airbnb profile photo because we prefer to have a host refuse on the basis of wife's nationality than to give money or stay at the house of a racist host. I've had a bad experience before that with a host who was nice to me when I met him and then wasn't as nice 5 minutes later once my wife arrived... The fact that he earned money from our stay galls me...
- pascalmemories 10y ago
  If I understand correctly, you're happy to be the one discriminating against disabled people, old people and people with children. But you're not happy if you're on the receiving end of any discrimination. Don't you see the contradiction there ? Anti-discrimination policies are about ensuring people have equal access to services and facilities (whether it's contentious toilets or hotels or whatever). You seem to indicate in your jurisdiction that renting an apartment without safety rails is OK, but in many others it's not OK and you'd be in violation of safety laws (and also discrimination laws). It doesn't matter that you live there sometime - you're renting it as a facility and should be expected to comply with safety and whatever other laws apply. And if you do it via AirBnB, you also need to comply with their rules regardless of legal requirements. And AirBnB get to change the rules when they want and you either agree or stop using them.
  - saiya-jin 10y ago
andykmaguire 10y ago
Where are the consequences for discriminating hosts? This feels like lip service.
- cloudjacker 10y ago
  lets read the new 'community commitment' agreement on Nov. 1st.
barnassey 10y ago
Going to be honest, they can try but since these are private homes they wont get far.
- djschnei 10y ago
  Why doesn't that logic apply to, say, private coffee shops?
fooker 10y ago
I have had a reservation cancelled in the last moment (in the Bay Area) without a valid reason. Also about half of the hosts do not even reply to the initial queries. It is not hard to speculate that me being a 20-something brown guy has something to do with it.
danielrhodes 10y ago
On the flip side, do you really want to stay with a host who would otherwise be discriminatory towards you. I certainly wouldn't. It might be more interesting if you provided your discriminating characteristics and then you could publicly see a host's bias.
- ritchiea 10y ago
  I'm black and I agree with you. I don't want bigots strong armed into accepting my money. Though I do understand how someone would feel slighted by race based discrimination and want to take action against it.
djschnei 10y ago
How as a society do we decide appropriate discrimination vs. inappropriate discrimination? We discriminate constantly, every single of us - making choice of this person over that person. Is that wrong? when does it become wrong? is it not something that can be hashed out?
- 6dqh5yapl3 10y ago
  We have had this debate in the US. We determined that that you can discriminate against people for most random reasons, but if you run a public accommodation there are several specific reasons you can't use to discriminate.
  - djschnei 10y ago
    Those being race, gender, creed, and sexual orientation I suppose? Still seems rather arbitrary, if I'm being honest. Acting for example; how is casting based on race legal? Or maybe it's not... idk. Interesting topic though.
sergiotapia 10y ago
People giving their homes to Airbnb aren't hotels. They should be entitled to do whatever they want with it. And what's this no picture thing? Pictures are really important and gut feelings are a great thing.
fastball 10y ago
In May, Gregory Selden, who is African-American, filed a class-action discrimination suit against the company, saying that he had been denied a place to stay because of his race. Well that's just ridiculous. AirBnB is a facilitator. They don't make decisions like that. Can they encourage anti-discrimination? Sure. Is it their responsibility? No.
usaphp 10y ago
I've recently used airbnb services for the first time, I stayed in Pasadena, the apartment was nice and everything but the ceiling fan was installed below safety height of 7', when I was taking off my shirt before going to sleep the spinning fan blade hit my arm pretty badly and broke down falling a feet away from my toddler son, host charged me 160$ (for a fan blade) for the damage and I had to pay it even thought I think host should be responsible for the injuries that your unsafe conditions cause. Airbnb was on host's side stating that I am responsible for damage, but think about it, what if host's apartment has some electric or other problems - will I be also responsible for damages that unsafe installation caused to their apartment? I will not use airbnb services anymore because of that one awful experience I had. The overnight stay that was suppose to save me money - turned into a much more expensive and quite painful experience than what a hotel could have offered me.
- grillvogel 10y ago
  i remember reading an article about someone who used an unsafe tire swing at an airbnb and died, but who needs regulations? this is about sharing and disrupting!
fiatjaf 10y ago
With increasing risks that come with the platform growth, this is a move against host safety. We need more discrimination (I mean potential guests should be made to supply more information to give hosts better ways to discriminate), not less. Robbery, rapes and kills are waiting in the corner.
fckyrdumb 10y ago
Will you force women who have been rape victims to accommodate convicted sex offenders? The list of such unappealing pairs isnt small nor knowable, and can really only be determined by the people directly negotiating the room.
- bigiain 10y ago
  Nobody is forcing anybody to do anything - except perhaps suggesting that if you're going to let random strangers stay in your house for money, then perhaps you should be required to abide by the same rules that other commercial providers of similar services have been deemed by society to be required to obey. A hotel who refused a room to someone named Mohammed or who had black or brown skin or who had the same name as a registered sex offender would be rightly penalised for doing so. The argument that "it's my home and it's a special and private place" kinda went out the window once you decided to list that room on Airbnb. Nobody forced anyone to do that. (Ignoring for a moment arguments about the Bay Area tech industry and it's affects on rental prices...)
- dang 10y ago
  We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12453816 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12453816 and marked it off-topic.
fckyrdumb 10y ago
And the truth comes out, Rayiner is one of those smug elites who believes he can make decisions for you better than you can make for yourself. His views lead to fascist dictatorships.
- dang 10y ago
  Obviously, you can't comment like this here. We've banned this account and detached this comment from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12458424 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12458424 and marked it off-topic.
URSpider94 10y ago
It's time to stop and think about where the cyber-Libertarian line of argument is taking us. On the one side, AirBnB's rampant violation of lodging and zoning regulations should be disregarded because it's the will of the people, and because hotels are just abusing their government-granted monopoly on mini soaps and pay-per-view porn. Now people are arguing that, because AirBnB is only serving as a matchmaking service for millions of individual homeowners, not only is it hard to prevent discrimination, but they shouldn't even try. Assuming the free market works as it usually does, we are heading for a future where we replace millions of hotel beds that are guaranteed to serve everyone equally with millions of AirBnB beds hosted by proprietors free to discriminate against anybody and everybody. How is that progress?
nofruitsplease 10y ago
i like airbnb, but it will be a cold day in hell before i let some watemelon nigger stay at my place.
nofruitsplease 10y ago
i like airbnb, but it will be a cold day in hell before i let some watemelon nigger stay at my place.
nofruitsplease 10y ago
i like airbnb, but it will be a cold day in hell before i let some watemelon nigger stay at my place.
jscardella 10y ago
I've read through many of the comments here. People are discussing laws, morality, and how race bias affects our behaviors. All interesting topics. The thing that is most obvious to me is that disrupting technologies and services like $x.sharing challenge existing laws, which are based on past experiences and don't plan for future growth. It's also obvious we're ill-equipped to deal with it in a timeframe that is reasonable. It's a race condition that the law will always lose, because by the time it catches up the new disrupter will be in full effect. I think that AirBnB is doing a good thing by trying to address a real problem, even if it's not 100% effective. And if they determine it is not, I hope they continue to try and make it better.
dahdum 10y ago
So the article has this bit: 'The biases of hosts can be cloaked — for example, one Airbnb listing in Washington states “we cannot accept guests arriving in D.C. by bus or motor coach,” without mentioning race, class or ethnicity — and may be difficult to eradicate.' If you google it, there is only one AirBnb account with it (few listings for the rooms), with 882 total reviews. https://www.airbnb.com/rooms/56977?sug=50 https://www.airbnb.com/rooms/56977?sug=50 This is what they put in their description: "Regrettably,we cannot accept guests arriving in DC by bus or motor coach. If you are travelling in the northeast corridor, especially from New York or Philadelphia, we suggest you take the Amtrak train service." I really wonder if they have a valid reason (late arrival due to bus delays for instance), but I suppose if it's looks discriminatory that's as bad as being so.
- santaclaus 10y ago
  > we cannot accept guests arriving in D.C. by bus or motor coach How would the host even know that? Are they going to ask for a picture of your plane ticket?
  - dahdum 10y ago
    Right, and many of their reviews mention how close the bus and metro lines are, so it's not like they are a transit dead zone.
sonink 10y ago
Airbnb is too hyped up. It needs to learn some lessons from its Indian counterpart Oyo rooms.
kingmanaz 10y ago
Freedom of association is not evil.

131 points by brentm 10y ago

I have happily rented to people of many races, religions, and nationalities, mixed race and same-sex couples, and so forth. However, I do not want anybody telling me who I must have in my home. My nephew did four tours in Iraq and does not care to have Iraqis in his home, I have fire-code-acceptable windows in my apartment but a physically-handicapped person could not reach them. I rent to Orthodox Jews under a privacy plan but I don't want to be told I must make sweeping accommodations due to a guest's religious observances. I won't rent to teens at all so what if they happen to be Muslim? I don't rent to anyone who can't pass a background check so what if they happen to be Hispanic? My husband and I are in our 70s and carefully vet everyone we invite into our home, and no one is going to ever tell me I can't.

marknutter 10y ago

Doesn't discrimination end up hurting the hosts in the end? Having less demand drives the rental costs down.

ceejayoz 10y ago
Probably not sharply enough or clearly enough to impact behavior. The thought patterns around this sort of thing can be pretty insidious, too. Some might be thinking stuff along the lines of "I'd be doing better if all these black people weren't tying up my reservations calendar".
- lotsofpulp 10y ago
  I don't think it's a racial thing, I think it's more about preventing damage to your property by going with the ones who are least likely to damage. For example, the types of foods and spices a certain culture cooks with can cause a dwelling to smell for days (just like smoking), and so will cause a problem with future tenants. Certain cultures are known for having lots of kids and not raising them to be quiet or disciplined, that can cause problems for neighbors. And then of course, certain cultures just have less respect for others and their belongings, and due to the environment they're from, have a sense of "take whatever you can get because you might not get a chance later". Then you have the ideal guest, business guests who you wouldn't even know they're staying or no, don't waste your time haggling about price, are much cleaner than others and yield much more profit. It's just not the same as selling widgets and discriminating against someone for no reason.
  - ch4s3 10y ago
    >Certain cultures are known for having lots of kids and not raising them to be quiet or disciplined Do you realize that you are literally parroting a racist trope?
    - lotsofpulp 10y ago
      No, I specified culture, not race. The way of life is the problem, not someone's skin color or biological features. For example, you wouldn't want gypsies in your residence or hotel, they WILL cause problems and it will negatively effect your other hotel guests. For similar reasons you wouldn't want to live next to them either. Another culture is that of the rich (especially newly rich), where their wealth has allowed them to hire all sorts of servants and baby sitters and in general they treat their hired help as if they are below them. They bring that same attitude and cause problems (as do spoiled Americans and Europeans, but those tend to be much richer and fewer due to labor costing more) wherever they go due to their entitledness. Again, it has nothing to do with race, but the manner in which one conducts themselves, which may have to do with the environment they grew up in. Regardless, you would not want to stay in a hotel that did not screen its guests one way or another, and the same principles apply here. Note, that I'm not advocating blindly discriminating against anyone, but simply stating that any business should be forced to accept anyone is not realistic. They will screen one way or another, either by raising the prices, requiring deposits, or simply by not offering the service anymore.
      - ch4s3 10y ago
        Except that the quote "Certain cultures are known for having lots of kids and not raising them to be quiet or disciplined" is literally a racists trope, used historically by racists to disparage other racial/ethnic groups. And they always defend their this baseless assertion by saying its a critique of culture and not about race. But, that's plainly bullshit. Its especially bullshit because you aren't referring to any specific culture, that's called a dog whistle[1], and its literally something racists do. > you wouldn't want gypsies in you ... hotel If they have credit cards I do. And they call themselves Romani, gypsy is a deeply racist term. Why are you still diggin this hole for yourself? You're just throwing around baseless accusations and generalizations about vast swathes of people. [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dog-whistle_politics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dog-whistle_politics
cozzyd 10y ago
Not if there's sufficient demand that they are happy with the occupancy level.
lotsofpulp 10y ago
Not necessarily. Certain customers are problematic and can case damage, which is especially possible when you let them occupy your property (the host is the one who ends up paying for repairs, good luck getting it out of the customer). Usually, in a hotel this problem is fixed by requiring credit card with a high security deposit it check in, such as needing a few hundred dollars for incidentals plus room and tax. This means anyone without a credit card, and anyone without $500+ of available credit isn't allowed to stay. In effect, this doesn't guarantee the hotel payment for any damages, but it keeps out the type of guest that typically cause problems.
- ryandrake 10y ago
  > In effect, this doesn't guarantee the hotel payment for any damages, but it keeps out the type of guest that typically cause problems. So, people with credit cards and a $500+ limit are less likely to cause problems? As someone who dabbled in landlording (never again!) I can tell you that people with money are just as capable of trashing your house as people without money.
  - red_blobs 10y ago
    of course not. People with $500+ limit will automatically be charged for the $5000 in damages they caused. It's all about risk and accountability.
  - lotsofpulp 10y ago
    As someone who grew up in the hotel business starting with making beds and has dealt with thousands and thousands of people from worldwide, there is a very clear association with a person's access to credit (aka wealth, what kind of culture they grew up in, their level of education), and the likelihood of them causing issues.
wccrawford 10y ago
It might, but how would they know? They're so sure they're protecting themselves that they will never care that they're making less money than they could. You'll not convince them of that, because they'll just argue about the potential money lost to undesirable tenants.
tinus_hn 10y ago
Slavery hurts the economy by replacing jobs with free labor. That didn't stop the south from waging war to keep it though.
Frondo 10y ago
It didn't hurt businesses in the American south enough to compel them to stop discriminating. I don't get it either, why would I turn down someone's money because they're black, but lots of people did and whatever economic pain they felt from it was apparently outweighed by the joy of being racist assholes.
- aianus 10y ago
  It was probably because their white customers were racist assholes too so they would lose more money on losing those white customers than they would gain from new black ones.
- 67726e 10y ago
  I would guess some combination of feeling various minorities were filthy and not wanting to deal with them, and a network effect. Sure, you might make money letting rooms to a handful of blacks but you would likely then lose out on all the other racist white folk who don't want to use the same sheets as "one of those people". One can easily imagine it might have been economically harmful to NOT be a racist in those days.
- yummyfajitas 10y ago
  Please learn some history. Businesses in the American south were legally required to discriminate. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Crow_laws https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Crow_laws One of the major motivations in keeping Jim Crow laws was to prevent economic competition (a "race to the bottom") between whites and non-whites. See also FDR's pro-union/pro-white policies.
  - rmxt 10y ago
    Linking to Wikipedia without expounding which details you are referring to is a bit of sleight of hand. Specifically, what part of "separate but equal" [1] "legally required" that "separate" facilities for blacks have poorer conditions than the facilities for whites? I speculate that it's embedded cultural beliefs of hatred and superiority/inferiority (or, at a minimum, apathy) that caused those poorer conditions and discrimination to happen much more so than anything that was "legally required" or based on economic concerns. Also, the issue at hand for Airbnb is specifically about hosts discriminating against potential guests. How do hosts that discriminate against guests encourage a "race to the bottom"? There might be parallels between discrimination a la Jim Crow and discrimination a la Airbnb hosts, but they aren't in the form of economic concerns. Your snark about learning history seems misplaced. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plessy_v._Ferguson#Significance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plessy_v._Ferguson#Significanc...
analyst74 10y ago
Someone should do a study on this, A/B testing racism!
- ebfe 10y ago
  Everyone who does produces results that prove they're a racist, and as such their results can't be trusted.

dilap 10y ago

I don't know if this is really a tractable problem. At the end of the day, either airbnb lets hosts decide who stays or doesn't. If they don't let hosts decide, they'll likely lose a ton of hosts, since having someone stay in your home is a very personal thing and a huge risk. If they do, then they're going to have significant discrimination problems as long as people are discriminatory, i.e., basically forever.

apalmer 10y ago
I think more or less this is where it is going to have to end up. Its probably bad PR for AirBnB but fundamentally, there is a reason that their is a 'high' barrier to entry for the hospitality business...
brightball 10y ago
That was my thought here as well. It's one thing to have very public businesses with anti-discrimination rules, but something like Air BnB where people have to decide in most cases who they are going to let into their homes is a much more complicated problem. We're seeing a wide trend in the US where people want rules to prevent people from making choices that they don't agree with, which was basically the opposite of the point of the US. What if a host wanted to turn away somebody who was an avid white supremacist? This isn't the same thing as giving somebody a key to a hotel room. EDIT: Worth pointing to another comment that cites the law: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12453577 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12453577 > Those anti-discrimination laws don't apply to hosts' private homes or bedrooms.[1] Paraphrase of law: "All persons shall be entitled ..., and accommodations of any place of public accommodation,..., without discrimination ... other than ... a building which contains not more than five rooms for rent ... which is actually occupied by the proprietor ... as his residence"
- guelo 10y ago
  > We're seeing a wide trend in the US where people want rules to prevent people from making choices that they don't agree with, which was basically the opposite of the point of the US. Freedom is a relative thing. Here we have AirBnB's freedom to not want racist hosts vs white supremacist's freedom to use AirBnB. The only freedom the ideal of USA is supposed to grant you is freedom from too much government meddling.

aikah 10y ago

well people should have figured out by now : Airbnb's aren't hotels. And people should be free to deny others staying at their place, for whatever reason. Airbnb can't have it both ways, they know it and this effort will be pure PR.

ceejayoz 10y ago
> And people should be free to deny others staying at their place, for whatever reason. They are. Once they turn it into a public accommodation - which Title II defines as "any inn, hotel, motel, or other establishment which provides lodging to transient guests" - they don't get to do that any more. Don't want to let black people stay in your house? Don't put it on AirBnB.
- aikah 10y ago
  > They are. Once they turn it into a public accommodation - which Title II defines as "any inn, hotel, motel, or other establishment which provides lodging to transient guests" - they don't get to do that any more. Are all Airbnbs title II rentals ? I don't think so. That's why Airbnb is successful, because it operates at the "edge" of the law, shifting the risk on both clients and hosts.
  - runako 10y ago
    Title II is explicit: "any inn, hotel, motel, or other establishment which provides lodging to transient guests, other than an establishment located within a building which contains not more than five rooms for rent or hire and which is actually occupied by the proprietor of such establishment as his residence. " If the proprietor is not using the rental as his/her residence, it's defined under US law as a "place of public accommodation," in spite of current efforts to pretend that law doesn't exist. So: not all AirBnB rentals fall under this rubric, but certainly many of them do.
exelius 10y ago
I dunno; I feel Airbnb is really losing control of their product. Most recently, I've noticed a lot of listings of great places for awesome prices... but only if you're willing to rent for 12 months continuously, provide your own furniture and pay a security deposit -- which is just a fucking apartment lease. It makes it hard to find "legit" rentals with so much of this kind of spam filling up the listings. Worse yet, when I went to report such listings (since I'm pretty sure that's not what Airbnb is designed for), I couldn't figure out how to do it in the app. I get that companies want to operate with minimal overhead, but until their listing systems are run by AI that can outsmart unscrupulous humans, it makes their product shittier.

deleted 10y ago

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marcoperaza 10y ago

Very tricky. Who you allow to stay in your home is a very personal and grave decision and people want as much information about the potential guests as possible. If they were to take this a step further and remove guest pictures altogether, I suspect that you'd see a mass flight to a competing platform. For people who are renting out their primary home (and especially if they'll be there at the same time as the guest), I don't think it's ever right to challenge their decision to accept or deny a guest. But someone running a number of units as full-time rentals should be held to anti-discrimination laws.

bobjordan 10y ago

Yeah, well after having a multi-day house party thrown in my Houston home by a local guy that had the gall to write "God Bless you" several times before the rental, and Airbnb doing nothing about the damages (huge scratches on brand new $5K bedroom suite, a frigging water-logged kitchen ceiling, cabinet doors torn off hinges, etc.) we will no longer rent to any local, of any race. Anyone that rents my house is going to prove they are an out-of-town traveler. At the end of the day, the owner should have the final word on their house.

untog 10y ago
That's not really relevant here. The article is specifically about racial discrimination.
- MaxGabriel 10y ago
  The article says that one way AirBnB is handling racial discrimination is to "accelerate the use of instant bookings, which lets renters book places immediately without host approval." It's not AirBnB's goal, but as a side effect it would affect bobjordan, so it is relevant. (edit: it would depend on how they implement more instant booking. If they just encouraged renters to use it (but could they just encourage and still stop discrimination?), people like bobjordan could just opt out).
  - bduerst 10y ago
    If you don't turn on instant bookings with your property, then you don't have anything to worry about. https://www.airbnb.com/help/article/484/what-is-instant-book https://www.airbnb.com/help/article/484/what-is-instant-book
    - deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]
  - shostack 10y ago
    The skeptic in me says that pushing Instant Bookings is their primary goal as it lets them be closer to how hotels book. The discrimination angle is a great way to roll it out because it solves a another problem for them.

jasode 10y ago

>Airbnb said it would also accelerate the use of instant bookings, which lets renters book places immediately without host approval. Maybe I'm naive but it seems like that policy would be perceived by hosts as extremely hostile. Homeowners have both a financial and emotional vested interest in their homes so letting strangers book it without a cursory check isn't going to work. Having no checks would work for real estate holders who aren't emotionally attached to their homes but not homeowners who live in the same house they rent. Even if it's irrational and discriminatory, homeowners want to maintain some semblance of control over who stays at their home. It's the homeowner who has to pay for damages/misbehavior -- whether directly or by home insurance deductibles and higher premiums. (As I understand it, AirBnb's coverage guarantee only kicks in after the homeowner exhausts his personal insurance.) Does anyone know the bulk of AirBnb's business revenue? Is it homeowners renting out a spare bedroom? Or is it people renting out non-owner occupied beach houses and lofts? EDIT ADD: Every time an AirBnb thread about racism comes up, many commenters are confused or ignorant about what the law actually says. To copypaste a previous comment: Those anti-discrimination laws don't apply to hosts' private homes or bedrooms.[1] Paraphrase of law: "All persons shall be entitled ..., and accommodations of any place of public accommodation,..., without discrimination ... other than ... a building which contains not more than five rooms for rent ... which is actually occupied by the proprietor ... as his residence" In other words, if a homeowner has a spare bedroom across the hall from her 13-year-old son's room, and doesn't want to rent to transgender, black, or 65-year-old guests, it is legal for her to discriminate on those attributes. On the other hand, if the AirBnb host is renting out a non-owner-occupied beach house, the discrimination laws would apply. [1]https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/42/2000a https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/42/2000a:

ovis 10y ago
What if there was a reputation threshold for a traveller to make an instant booking? Of course it's still not immune to racism or sexism, but it seems that it would provide a decent buffer against it.
- pooper 10y ago
  Nope. I would not ever rent a room with instant booking unless Airbnb signs a blank check for any damages by the guest (which it of course won't)

draugadrotten 10y ago

Coming up next: AirBnB adopts rules in effort to fight discrimination OF its hosts. Some guests may avoid to stay with hosts of certain life styles, gender, race or religion. This discrimination must be stopped.

3adawi 10y ago
i feel like airbnb can't win either way
dragonwriter 10y ago
> The homeowner's use of Airbnb is more analogous to listing in the "newspaper classifieds" rather than contracting a human broker. Unlike discrimination by hosts against renters, discrimination by renters against hosts doesn't seem to be a violation of the fair housing laws of either the United States or any State, so, at least in the US, is less likely to be a legal compliance issue to which their may be liability attached.
cloudjacker 10y ago
that sounds like an awesome money maker, $5 for every host listing/profile they evaluate "to prevent discrimination" I like market inefficiencies

peterkshultz 10y ago

Airbnb's report can be found here: http://blog.airbnb.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/REPORT_Airbnbs-Work-to-Fight-Discrimination-and-Build-Inclusion.pdf http://blog.airbnb.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/REPORT_Air...

mc32 10y ago

One thing I didn't see is AB&B promoting its business model to affected classes of people. Get more affected classes of people on your platform (i.e. as hosts) and have them lead the way.

southphillyman 10y ago

I'm confused by the responses in here so far. How does discriminating based on race, gender, age, etc guarantee that your property will not be damaged? If you want the access and business that using AirBnb's platform provides then you need to adhere to their rules. Pretty simple. If that's a problem use craigslist or some other service so you can use whatever prejudices you have to screen guests.

aikah 10y ago
> How does discriminating based on race, gender, age, etc guarantee that your property will not be damaged? It doesn't but depending on where you are on the political spectrum it's either called "trust" or "prejudice". That's how people assess personal risk. While a legal hotel has proper insurance, do you really think that's the case for most airbnb rentals? furthermore an hotel manager doesn't have to sleep in the same room/appartement as his guest. > If you want the access and business that using AirBnb's platform provides then you need to adhere to their rules. Pretty simple The real question is whether these rules are seriously enforced or not. I bet they aren't, because most hosts are biased, like everybody else and airbnb business strategy is based on shifting risk upon hosts (and guests). If it wasn't the case it would only list legal hotels.
ekianjo 10y ago
AirBnB places are not hotels. In the end as an Owner you should be free to select whoever you accept, just like you are free to decorate your place the way you wish. It's down to personal preference because it's the Owner's place in the end.
- dragonwriter 10y ago
  > AirBnB places are not hotels. Often, they are exactly illegal hotels. > In the end as an Owner you should be free to select whoever you accept You generally aren't legally in the US, with very narrow exceptions, especially if you have a commercial service involved with you in arranging the rental. AirBnB doesn't make the laws, but they are bound by them, and are visible enough that simply ignoring them may no longer be tenable.

gmarx 10y ago

Many other commenters imply that since people would flee the platform if they couldn't discriminate, that AirBnB shouldn't have to deal with the problem. It's the opposite. AirBnB is required to deal with the problem. Their challenge is to make it look like they are dealing with the problem (e.g. hire Eric Holder) while not actually dealing with it in any substantive way. Lots of these new companies have as part of their secret sauce the hiding of racial discrimination and avoiding regulations and fees that their old style competitors can't. once/if the govt cracks down a lot of these valuations must be reimagined

aikah 10y ago
Wow, you're right : http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/21/technology/airbnb-hires-ex-attorney-general-eric-holder-to-advise-on-anti-bias-policy.html http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/21/technology/airbnb-hires-ex... It's like these corporations hiring diversity officers who won't fix anything in their discriminatory hiring process. Pure PR.
- saiya-jin 10y ago
  actually this doesn't mean anything - hiring a black person for anti-discriminatory position seems exactly like PR. Hey look, we hired him, we cannot possibly be discriminative, right? and nobody was talking about airbnb's hiring process here, WTF?

kchoudhu 10y ago

I've historically had trouble getting people to respond to my lodging requests on AirBNB. I learned quickly to let my (white) wife do the bookings for our family. When I'm traveling on my own, it's just easier (and frequently cheaper) to just check into a traditional hotel. It's an intractable problem, and I don't see a good way forward for AirBNB.

tedmiston 10y ago

I've always considered it a legitimate request when people want to live with others of the same gender for a shared room in their home. For example, you especially see this on sites like Craigslist when people are seeking roommates. This policy seems to overturn the ability of hosts to do this. If I were a female in an all female home renting out one room, it would make me uncomfortable. Perhaps other do not see this as an issue in short-term renting, but I do.

drzaiusapelord 10y ago
Also, they're attacking whites only here. What if blacks wanted a black person. Or a Chinese person who only speaks Chinese and writes only in Mandarin wants the same. The left will give these people exceptions for "cutlural" reasons. They just want to regulate race and commerce on their unquestionable terms. This has nothing to do with equality. Its just a power-grab by political opportunists and misguided idealists. The same way you have campus "safe spaces" where men aren't allowed or affirmative action quotas.
- ritchiea 10y ago
  Have you considered the fact that whites discriminating against blacks is commonplace in the United States (as well as many other countries) while accounts of whites feeling discriminated against by people of color is much more rare?
  - oh_sigh 10y ago
    Which makes sense, because whites constitute 60+% whereas blacks constitute 13%. Even if everything in the world was exactly equal, including percent of racist whites and blacks, blacks(or really, the group with fewer members) would experience more racism because of the disparity in population numbers.
  - ebfe 10y ago
    The majority of white people believe that discrimination against whites is more common than discrimination against people of color, actually. Ask your average middle class white person about affirmative action, preferential access for minorities to grants/loans, etc.

nicolas_t 10y ago

As an host, I'll never discriminate on the basis of religion, sex orientation, color of skin, national origin or gender identity. When it comes to disability, I might refuse someone whose disability would cause risk in using the apartment and might have an accident because the apartment is not safe for someone who's disabled (the building is 300 years old, there's no elevator, the stair in the duplex apartment doesn't have handrails)... It's a risk if the person then has an accident... Similarly in term of age, I would not rent to couples with young children because it's too risky. So, it's discrimination but it's mostly because this is not an hotel, it's an apartment in which I live part of the year and it's not adapted for disabled people or couples with young children because I'm not in those categories. That said, as someone whose wife is asian, I fully understand the problem. It's annoying and painful when people discriminate based on race. In our case, we show both my face and wife face on our Airbnb profile photo because we prefer to have a host refuse on the basis of wife's nationality than to give money or stay at the house of a racist host. I've had a bad experience before that with a host who was nice to me when I met him and then wasn't as nice 5 minutes later once my wife arrived... The fact that he earned money from our stay galls me...

pascalmemories 10y ago
If I understand correctly, you're happy to be the one discriminating against disabled people, old people and people with children. But you're not happy if you're on the receiving end of any discrimination. Don't you see the contradiction there ? Anti-discrimination policies are about ensuring people have equal access to services and facilities (whether it's contentious toilets or hotels or whatever). You seem to indicate in your jurisdiction that renting an apartment without safety rails is OK, but in many others it's not OK and you'd be in violation of safety laws (and also discrimination laws). It doesn't matter that you live there sometime - you're renting it as a facility and should be expected to comply with safety and whatever other laws apply. And if you do it via AirBnB, you also need to comply with their rules regardless of legal requirements. And AirBnB get to change the rules when they want and you either agree or stop using them.
- saiya-jin 10y ago

andykmaguire 10y ago

Where are the consequences for discriminating hosts? This feels like lip service.

cloudjacker 10y ago
lets read the new 'community commitment' agreement on Nov. 1st.

barnassey 10y ago

Going to be honest, they can try but since these are private homes they wont get far.

djschnei 10y ago
Why doesn't that logic apply to, say, private coffee shops?

fooker 10y ago

I have had a reservation cancelled in the last moment (in the Bay Area) without a valid reason. Also about half of the hosts do not even reply to the initial queries. It is not hard to speculate that me being a 20-something brown guy has something to do with it.

danielrhodes 10y ago

On the flip side, do you really want to stay with a host who would otherwise be discriminatory towards you. I certainly wouldn't. It might be more interesting if you provided your discriminating characteristics and then you could publicly see a host's bias.

ritchiea 10y ago
I'm black and I agree with you. I don't want bigots strong armed into accepting my money. Though I do understand how someone would feel slighted by race based discrimination and want to take action against it.

djschnei 10y ago

How as a society do we decide appropriate discrimination vs. inappropriate discrimination? We discriminate constantly, every single of us - making choice of this person over that person. Is that wrong? when does it become wrong? is it not something that can be hashed out?

6dqh5yapl3 10y ago
We have had this debate in the US. We determined that that you can discriminate against people for most random reasons, but if you run a public accommodation there are several specific reasons you can't use to discriminate.
- djschnei 10y ago
  Those being race, gender, creed, and sexual orientation I suppose? Still seems rather arbitrary, if I'm being honest. Acting for example; how is casting based on race legal? Or maybe it's not... idk. Interesting topic though.

sergiotapia 10y ago

People giving their homes to Airbnb aren't hotels. They should be entitled to do whatever they want with it. And what's this no picture thing? Pictures are really important and gut feelings are a great thing.

fastball 10y ago

In May, Gregory Selden, who is African-American, filed a class-action discrimination suit against the company, saying that he had been denied a place to stay because of his race. Well that's just ridiculous. AirBnB is a facilitator. They don't make decisions like that. Can they encourage anti-discrimination? Sure. Is it their responsibility? No.

usaphp 10y ago

I've recently used airbnb services for the first time, I stayed in Pasadena, the apartment was nice and everything but the ceiling fan was installed below safety height of 7', when I was taking off my shirt before going to sleep the spinning fan blade hit my arm pretty badly and broke down falling a feet away from my toddler son, host charged me 160$ (for a fan blade) for the damage and I had to pay it even thought I think host should be responsible for the injuries that your unsafe conditions cause. Airbnb was on host's side stating that I am responsible for damage, but think about it, what if host's apartment has some electric or other problems - will I be also responsible for damages that unsafe installation caused to their apartment? I will not use airbnb services anymore because of that one awful experience I had. The overnight stay that was suppose to save me money - turned into a much more expensive and quite painful experience than what a hotel could have offered me.

grillvogel 10y ago
i remember reading an article about someone who used an unsafe tire swing at an airbnb and died, but who needs regulations? this is about sharing and disrupting!

fiatjaf 10y ago

With increasing risks that come with the platform growth, this is a move against host safety. We need more discrimination (I mean potential guests should be made to supply more information to give hosts better ways to discriminate), not less. Robbery, rapes and kills are waiting in the corner.

fckyrdumb 10y ago

Will you force women who have been rape victims to accommodate convicted sex offenders? The list of such unappealing pairs isnt small nor knowable, and can really only be determined by the people directly negotiating the room.

bigiain 10y ago
Nobody is forcing anybody to do anything - except perhaps suggesting that if you're going to let random strangers stay in your house for money, then perhaps you should be required to abide by the same rules that other commercial providers of similar services have been deemed by society to be required to obey. A hotel who refused a room to someone named Mohammed or who had black or brown skin or who had the same name as a registered sex offender would be rightly penalised for doing so. The argument that "it's my home and it's a special and private place" kinda went out the window once you decided to list that room on Airbnb. Nobody forced anyone to do that. (Ignoring for a moment arguments about the Bay Area tech industry and it's affects on rental prices...)
dang 10y ago
We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12453816 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12453816 and marked it off-topic.

fckyrdumb 10y ago

And the truth comes out, Rayiner is one of those smug elites who believes he can make decisions for you better than you can make for yourself. His views lead to fascist dictatorships.

dang 10y ago
Obviously, you can't comment like this here. We've banned this account and detached this comment from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12458424 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12458424 and marked it off-topic.

URSpider94 10y ago

It's time to stop and think about where the cyber-Libertarian line of argument is taking us. On the one side, AirBnB's rampant violation of lodging and zoning regulations should be disregarded because it's the will of the people, and because hotels are just abusing their government-granted monopoly on mini soaps and pay-per-view porn. Now people are arguing that, because AirBnB is only serving as a matchmaking service for millions of individual homeowners, not only is it hard to prevent discrimination, but they shouldn't even try. Assuming the free market works as it usually does, we are heading for a future where we replace millions of hotel beds that are guaranteed to serve everyone equally with millions of AirBnB beds hosted by proprietors free to discriminate against anybody and everybody. How is that progress?

nofruitsplease 10y ago

i like airbnb, but it will be a cold day in hell before i let some watemelon nigger stay at my place.

nofruitsplease 10y ago

i like airbnb, but it will be a cold day in hell before i let some watemelon nigger stay at my place.

nofruitsplease 10y ago

i like airbnb, but it will be a cold day in hell before i let some watemelon nigger stay at my place.

jscardella 10y ago

I've read through many of the comments here. People are discussing laws, morality, and how race bias affects our behaviors. All interesting topics. The thing that is most obvious to me is that disrupting technologies and services like $x.sharing challenge existing laws, which are based on past experiences and don't plan for future growth. It's also obvious we're ill-equipped to deal with it in a timeframe that is reasonable. It's a race condition that the law will always lose, because by the time it catches up the new disrupter will be in full effect. I think that AirBnB is doing a good thing by trying to address a real problem, even if it's not 100% effective. And if they determine it is not, I hope they continue to try and make it better.

dahdum 10y ago

So the article has this bit: 'The biases of hosts can be cloaked — for example, one Airbnb listing in Washington states “we cannot accept guests arriving in D.C. by bus or motor coach,” without mentioning race, class or ethnicity — and may be difficult to eradicate.' If you google it, there is only one AirBnb account with it (few listings for the rooms), with 882 total reviews. https://www.airbnb.com/rooms/56977?sug=50 https://www.airbnb.com/rooms/56977?sug=50 This is what they put in their description: "Regrettably,we cannot accept guests arriving in DC by bus or motor coach. If you are travelling in the northeast corridor, especially from New York or Philadelphia, we suggest you take the Amtrak train service." I really wonder if they have a valid reason (late arrival due to bus delays for instance), but I suppose if it's looks discriminatory that's as bad as being so.

santaclaus 10y ago
> we cannot accept guests arriving in D.C. by bus or motor coach How would the host even know that? Are they going to ask for a picture of your plane ticket?
- dahdum 10y ago
  Right, and many of their reviews mention how close the bus and metro lines are, so it's not like they are a transit dead zone.

sonink 10y ago

Airbnb is too hyped up. It needs to learn some lessons from its Indian counterpart Oyo rooms.

kingmanaz 10y ago

Freedom of association is not evil.