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Airbnb Unveils Changes To Address Racial Discrimination (npr.org)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from NPR: Acknowledging that his company has "been slow on this issue," Airbnb CEO and co-founder Brian Chesky is rolling out changes aimed at addressing discrimination complaints against the home rental service. Among the changes: de-emphasizing the role of user photos in arranging stays. Here are some of the other changes Airbnb announced Thursday: Providing assistance to people who feel they've experienced discrimination; Anti-bias training for all staff; Setting public diversity goals for staff; Partnering with historically black colleges and universities to strengthen their recruitment pipeline. The move comes after longstanding complaints from African-American Airbnb customers who said their booking requests were turned down at a high rate. Black Airbnb users vented their frustration with the phenomenon of being rejected for a booking date -- only to see the same place get listed once again -- spawning the hashtag #AirbnbWhileBlack on Twitter. And those frustrations were borne out in a study that sent 6,400 requests to AirBnb hosts in five large U.S. cities; the requests were identical except for the customer's name. As the Hidden Brain podcast reported, "requests with African-American sounding names were roughly 16 percent less likely to be accepted than their white-sounding counterparts."
This will spur demand for a racist-friendly rental site, they could call it Aryanbnb. This would also help nonwhite renters avoid discrimination by simply avoiding the site!
But seriously, this shit's not gonna stop as long as loopholes exist for short-term online rentals that don't for traditional rentals. See also: Illegal interview questions vs. employer facebook stalking.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
LOL, there are no 50 yr old black couples.
Tell me about it. Every morning, I have to look someone who's fat, looks tired all the time and should really go to the gym instead of playing Starcraft II late at night.
I guess the easiest solution would be to remove all the mirrors in my place, though.
...give them a black sounding name.
Just don't do it. Give them a chance to at least make it to the interview on their qualifications and merits. At least in person a better first impression can be made beyond "Oh, I see you're extremely black."
Come back next week for: "How to tell a parent doesn't give a damn." (spoiler- It's the same lesson), and "How to make yourself look un-black if you're black." and "Cars you really should avoid if you don't want to be pulled over (with any color)."
Sign up for my 5 week seminar and you'll could win a fake pair of glasses and my professionals guide on buying small Japanese cars.
3* for everything good and expected sounds reasonable. Unfortunately the star ratings have become something like this:
5* Everything worked as expected. Clean, owner was there on time etc.
4* Kind of skeezy but whatever there were less than 3 rats visible at any one time.
3* The bed was on fire.
2* Turns out the apartment was floating above hell itself. Would not rent again.
1* WiFi was slow and unreliable.
SJW n. One who posts facts.