AirBnbWhileBlack Highlights Discrimination Faced by Black Travelers

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/airbnbwhileblack-discrimination-faced-by-black-travelers_us_572a66d6e4b016f37894a5c4?utm_hp_ref=black-voices&

by jaoued • 10 years ago

47 53 10 years ago

huffingtonpost.com

Kinnard2• 10 years ago

Has AirBnB commented?

shogun21• 10 years ago

David King, AirBnb's new director of "diversity and belonging," says AirBnb is aware of discrimination on their platform and they want to be a leader in addressing it. He says he's talking with Luca and others in finding potential solutions.

One thing that could help is removing people's names and photos or making them less prominent. But this isn't something AirBnb will improve their platform.

"The photos are on the platform for a reason," King said. "It really does help to aid in the trust between the guest and the host . . . You want to make sure that the guest who shows up at your door is the person you've been communicating with."

http://www.npr.org/2016/04/26/475623339/-airbnbwhileblack-ho...

mst• 10 years ago

I wonder if the same effect comes up for white names coded as working class, as well? I seem to recall that for employment stuff, names that coded for "poor redneck white" did pretty much as badly as "poor urban black" in (at least some) studies.

cylinder• 10 years ago

Director of Diversity and Belonging.

Wow.

kenjackson2• 10 years ago

"It really does help to aid in the trust between the guest and the host . . . You want to make sure that the guest who shows up at your door is the person you've been communicating with."

How does a photo do that? The photo just ensures that the person at your door matches the photo. But why is that important? That is, what info are you trying to glean from the photo?

southphillyman5• 10 years ago

Why must there be trust in the transaction, and how is trust built by verifying the identity of a person you still don't know? The guest's credit card information is on hold and AirBnb has insurance policies in place. Of course the host can always bring forth a civil suit in worst case scenarios. There are protections in place for the increased risk of personal property being compromised.

Airbnb bookings are business transactions. I don't see why the host has to trust the guest anymore than a hotel/motel has to trust their guests.

greggman• 10 years ago

I call Bullshit. AirBnb doesn't verify the photos. I know at least one male landlord I rented from that is using a picture of a female model as his picture. AirBnb has don't nothing to fix this.

AirBnB takes the position they are just the middle man (like craigslist) and any issues that come up or lies in the ads are purely a problem between landlord and renter. I've stayed at about 22 places of which 1/3 had lied in their ads. There's zero repercussion for the landlords from AirBnB. You're unlikely to cancel because you just arrived with luggage and have plans. Canceling once you arrive is really a huge PITA trying to find a new place within 24hr most likely at 2x to 4x the cost and waste a day not exploring your destination. After that your only recourse is a bad review but most likely the place has already been booked by several others so your review is guaranteed to be buried. Other renters also may not notice the lies. Examples: Claims it includes parking but doesn't. People that did't bring car won't care. Claims it's heated but it's not. People coming during a hot season won't care. Claims it's in one place (quiet) but it's actually a few blocks away (loud), AFAICT no one has noticed since it was highly rated. Claims it's a 1bd but it's actually a studio with a divider. People that don't need quiet (no frig noises) to sleep won't care.

AirBnb needs to have some kind of way of punishing the lies. As it is they just claim "not our problem".

xenihn• 10 years ago

The Huffington Post comments for this article are...something else.

Analemma_2• 10 years ago

[I've removed this comment since I guess I can't delete it altogether, see my edit below.]

RyanIyengar• 10 years ago

https://medium.com/humane-tech/against-don-t-read-the-commen...

"We’ve made a habit out of telling people not to read the comments online. But what started as a cynical in-joke has become a bad habit, and an excuse for enabling abuse across the web."

Just pointing out that while comments are terrible, it's Huffington Post that enables them to happen unchecked.

emehrkay• 10 years ago

Black Americans have highlighted what and where is safe for them during traveling for a long time now. I'd say there needs to be a 21 century version of the Negro Motorist Green Book

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Negro_Motorist_Green_Book

Kinnard2• 10 years ago

Sounds like a startup idea. Gayville at least appears to be doing well: http://www.gay-ville.com/

jakevoytko• 10 years ago

Technology has advanced well past the printing press, so Airbnb can actually do much better than that.

Technology problems and social problems go hand-in-hand. For an easy example, consider moderation. Online communities are improved (the /r/science subreddit), or torn apart (Twitter users) based on the strength or weaknesses of the available moderation tools.

So what, technologically, could Airbnb do to improve its user experience for marginalized?

It could use inclusiveness as a search signal. This style of tactic (forcing improvements through algorithmic penalties) works extremely well when Google uses it for search rankings. For instance, if users self-reported their race, and listing X systematically fails to rent to people of certain backgrounds, penalize it in the rankings. Make it well-known that this is a factor, but don't tell people when they are violating it.

Something less-likely to work is a report/moderate cycle, to manually review these types of cases. The problem here is that it's almost impossible to review intent; maybe I really DID think my vacation was going to be cancelled, but then a project at work got cancelled so it came back.

Frondo• 10 years ago

"The problem here is that it's almost impossible to review intent; maybe I really DID think my vacation was going to be cancelled, but then a project at work got cancelled so it came back."

Sure, people will lie about intent, not even be aware of their subconscious bias against black people, whatever...

That's why you look at the aggregate totals. It's just not going to be the case that coincidentally black travelers have their rentals rejected at a larger rate because of random external forces like renter projects being canceled.

mikeash• 10 years ago

I hope not. The book was needed because these conditions were part of the landscape and couldn't really be changed, so travelers just had to deal with them. This behavior was known and expected.

Now, it's not expected and not typically tolerated. It survives by being obscure. Far better to draw attention to it and fight it than to just advise people of where to avoid.

sgnelson• 10 years ago

Great minds think alike (or so I want to tell myself) I was going to (sadly) post the same info and suggest the same thing. It's an interesting, but sad, part of American history.

http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/blog/green-book-helped-ke...

jbob20002• 10 years ago

Well, stories like these sure don't help: https://www.thestar.com/news/crime/2016/04/28/police-searchi...

infosample• 10 years ago

Is violence in an Airbnb apartment exclusively by black people? Does violence not happen in hotels? I'm having a hard time finding the relevance.

jbob20002• 10 years ago

Not at all, just that people read these stories and form bad opinions from them.

southphillyman5• 10 years ago

Has happened to me several times. Most blatant was a guy who had multiple open properties in Miami for Art Basel and denied that any of them were available. There should be some kind of agreement where hosts can not book a given slot if they deny a user in good standing that reservation. I'm not a host but I'm curious what are some legitimate reasons for a cancellation if the user agrees to all of the host's terms....

MichaelGG4• 10 years ago

Why? Because the "host" is inviting people to stay in their home. I'd be totally justified in deciding that a user looks difficult to deal with (perhaps they look young and it's near a party time, or perhaps their other reviews indicate they're "difficult").

AirBNB isn't going to make everything right between two unknown parties. Minor hassles can add up into a major headache. Plus there's a lot of social pressure on reviews (both ways), so even that seems like limited recourse.

Edit: To clarify, I'm responding to why they should be able to refuse any guest.

southphillyman5• 10 years ago

Again, most hosts have published rules. If the guest agrees to those rules, is in good standing, and the place is available then how is there a legitimate reason for denying the reservation? "Because it's my house" is not a real reason. If you are that protective then why are you on Airbnb? If you are scared of parties in Miami during <insert holiday/allstar weekend> then why is your unit available at ALL on those dates?

hyperbovine2• 10 years ago

Puh-lease. His multiple homes in one part of Miami? This guy runs a hotel. It is illegal to discriminate on the basis of race in restaurants, hotels, and many other places.

zo1• 10 years ago

"There should be some kind of agreement where hosts can not book a given slot if they deny a user in good standing that reservation."

Short of having someone "Verifying" the reason, this would have the unintended consequence of disallowing the host from using any reason, good or otherwise, to decline guests.

fiatmoney3• 10 years ago

Is it acceptable for women renting single rooms in their apartments to refuse to rent to men?

draw_down3• 10 years ago

Maybe. But to refuse to rent to specific men based on their race? No that is not (or should not be) acceptable.

gedy2• 10 years ago

If you allow refusals for any reason, then someone can always pick an "acceptable" reason and not much you can do about it.

MichaelGG4• 10 years ago

Would you agree that she shouldn't be forced to rent to a man she felt "uncomfortable" with, even if it was just a feeling? Especially talking about hosts that truly are offering their residence, part-time (i.e. not running a small hotel chain).

bunnymancer2• 10 years ago

Are these apples relevant to an issue affecting oranges?

fiatmoney3• 10 years ago

Why do you think they're unrelated?

gedy2• 10 years ago

It seems the root issue is AirBnb is just facilitating, and the actual owners can and do choose who they let in their house (i.e. discriminate). While it's unfortunate and unfair, I'm not sure what regulatory environment could help with individuals. Perhaps allow reviews for people who could not rent a place?

draw_down3• 10 years ago

People who discriminate based on race should at least come out and say who they refuse to rent to. If they're going to be racist pieces of shit they should at least own up to that and not waste the time of people who are trying to find somewhere to stay.

spriggan32• 10 years ago

People who discriminate based on race should at least come out and say who they refuse to rent to.

Except it is illegal to do so in a good number of countries. Racists know that. That's why they make up excuses.

southphillyman5• 10 years ago

not waste the time of people who are trying to find somewhere to stay

This is important as hosts usually have 24 hours to respond. In that time period alternative listings I may be interested in could be booked. This has happened to me multiple times and puts unnecessary pressure/stress on me as a user of the service. If host can reject requests on a whim it lessens the user experience. I know IMMEDIATELY if a hotel has any vacancy, why do I have to hold my breath and pray an AVAILABLE booking goes through just because I'm black?

bunnymancer2• 10 years ago

Yeah, I don't like the idea of forcing people to do things they're uncomfortable with when it's their home.

AirBnb could easily alleviate the situation with rejection updates. Although reviews leave far too much to personal opinion.

For now, at least, a demographic for each place would solve a lot.

"Oh 200 people have requested to be here and 100 were rejected. Out of that 80% of all black men who requested have been rejected and 30% white men and 0% of women, across the board... I think I'm good..."

googletazer2• 10 years ago

Seems me to me that ultimately up to the owners to decide who they want to accept. If they turn down too many people with variation X, its their loss, and someone else will make money on that.

potatolicious• 10 years ago

"The Invisible Hand will right all moral wrongs" is an argument that is unconvincing and historically hasn't been true. As is the idea that market forces will overall select for less discrimination.

After all, it has been a massive market opportunity to include women in the workforce since almost the dawn of civilization, and yet it's taken centuries for the allegedly rational market to realize this (and even then, not fully).

Ditto in the height of the Civil Rights era there was a massive market opportunity for restaurants that were willing to serve people of color - yet this largely didn't happen.

The market - and its participants - are frequently irrational. Or maybe more accurately, sociopolitical forces have the power to skew market behavior in huge ways.

This is also why I'm also often skeptical of attempts to cast equality as an economic good - it frequently is, but basing a worldview around it seems dangerous, precisely because the market often selects against justice.

fiatmoney3• 10 years ago

"Ditto in the height of the Civil Rights era there was a massive market opportunity for restaurants that were willing to serve people of color - yet this largely didn't happen."

That's untrue. Black areas had high density of businesses that catered to blacks, and by large discrimination was legally mandated, not a market outcome. Business groups were in general in favor of dismantling segregation because it increased their potential market.

googletazer2• 10 years ago

I'm not such a huge supporter of the invisible hand deciding "who gets what and why" (funnily enough there is a good book about markets by that name), rather I think freedom of association is important, especially when it comes to hosting someone in your home. However, if you're doing it all the time (running a business), you just won't do as well as the next guy who doesn't discriminate. By the time the next guy has an opportunity to use the capital he made to buy you out, it might be decades away, so imo on a long time scale, the problem is self correcting.

And I do agree with you that sometimes the market does select against justice. At the same time, prices are still the best indicators for a long of things that don't involve life or death situations.

meira2• 10 years ago

QuickFix: show statistics and reviews of denied booking.

55acdda48ab5• 10 years ago

The following is a totally reasonable point that some SJW on this site deleted. I would like to know exactly on what grounds.

----

The one piece of actual research in this is about discrimination against "black sounding" names. In one quoted tweet the guy mentions having to use his middle name.

Has it occurred to anyone that the main issue here might be people with deliberately weird names, and not race per se?

If you are named Rainbow, Adolf, Cletus, or LaQuan, I'm going to conclude (from experience) your mother and you are both probably crazy.

AirBnbWhileBlack Highlights Discrimination Faced by Black Travelers

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