Airbnb can do whatever they want in property they own/lease. However since they 'share' (funny word that) people's private homes they will have to live with the fact that those people will refuse guests for whatever reasons they feel like, this is the flip side of the coin of not having a relationship where they are in control (employer, employee, owner of the premises).
Airbnb wants to have its cake and eat it too, on the one hand not to own the premises and the goods stored in there but to pretend that they own it and set the rules about who can and can't come there.
Nobody is going to admit to discrimination, even if they do agree, people will come up with alternative reasons for not allowing the people they do not wish to stay in their private homes, so nothing will change but Airbnb will look good.
After all, what proof will they use to tell a host they are discriminating.
If Airbnb wants to be able to dictate the terms at that level they should build a nice large building with a front desk with people they employ and a bunch of rooms they let out aka a hotel.
I used to work in a camping site in Northern Italy many years ago. We were openly told not to accept people from the south of Italy as they statistically were more noisy. I didn't like it but it actually made sense. It just wasn't viable to mix Germans and Napoleteans in a tight space.
I guess Germans earned that right with politness.
Then one day I let gipsies in and I almost got fired.
What would make sense is to say "we only accept campers that are quiet at night - and we'll throw them out of they don't comply and disturb other people's sleep". What you did is racism.
Now ever if your statistics were true (I doubt you properly measured that) it simply doesn't matter. Even if 90% of people from some region are noisy at night that doesn't justify rejecting the other 10%.
What a sad and pathetic excuse for discrimination based on culture and values. You're not only generalizing you seem to be in denial. Pay a visit to any popular vacation holiday in Spain or Portugal and test for yourself who are the loud, abnocious and ugly Europeans. We are doing our best to avoid any concentration of brits, Germans and Dutch on our holidays for the exact reason. We recently bought a house in Spain in a place we made sure was not popular with either, for this particular reason. Will be happy to share with you photos of ugly drunken Germans in mas lpalomas, loud and voulgar brits in Barcelona and Ibiza, a city which is struggling to contain this problem, which is mostly due to British visitors, or all of them in place like el Garf. You might want to discriminate based on money, but like the Russians are teaching us, no amount of money in the world can help hide voulgarity. Drumpf btw is of German extract. I'm sure you'll enjoy your company and will probably deserve it.
It's sad to see the tech community, which used to be very libertarian, move towards a hard-left progressive view of social issues. It wasn't that long ago that Friedman's arguments against equal pay laws[1] would have held sway here. The idea that the market punishes bigotry and so can be relied upon to advance freedom and equality used to be a core belief of the tech community. Now, it seems companies are falling over themselves to come up with ever more progressive and authoritarian solutions to problems that have only been complained about in the tech media--driven largely by people who care far more about culture wars than they do about tech. It's hard to see these developments and not feel that something important has been lost.
There's nothing unlibertarian about a private business making up its own terms of services and privately enforcing them. That's exactly how the free market self regulates without the use of force.
This is the market punishing bigotry. People are making noise and demanding change, alternative businesses are being created to address these people's needs, and Airbnb is modifying its policies in response.
People discriminate every day. I discriminate against restaurants and babysitters and businesses all the time. Sometimes those discriminations are because of a feeling. Sometimes they are are based on my internal biases. Sometimes I disagree with the choices a business has made and if affects whether or not I do business with them.
Why do we make such a big deal about "discrimination?" It's built into who we are as people.
If some of us weren't constantly trying to get over our base instincts of discrimination we would still be in the times of segregation.
If your subconscious discrimination is constantly being pointed out through various channels, it starts causing you to question it. Obviously it's slow and might take generations, but that's the nature of the process. I will give you a personal example - I grew up in a country where making fun of gay/transgender people is very common. So subconsciously I judged and probably discriminated against gay/transgender people. When I moved to California and I heard and saw the messages of marriage equality I started to question my subconscious. Now I'm at the point where watching movies from my home country makes me cringe every time a crass gay joke gets cracked.
You are obviously not being discriminating against where it matters. Here are a few examples that wouldn't be a big deal to you accordingly:
1) School says they won't accept your daughter, but hey it's not a big deal according to you
2) Neighborhood won't let you buy a house you like because they don't like your wife's skin color, but hey it's not a big deal
3) You are getting paid less at work and skipped for promotion in favor of Elmud because he is one of them and you are not, but hey it's not a big deal
Discrimination IS NOT ok. It IS NOT built into us. It is an acquired taste. Bad taste. First we accept the issue then we work on fixing it.
It says that you fund counter-culture movements as much as possible for them to go completely full-scale. Examples:
Black lives matter (which was a honest one at first) then went full kamikaze.
Let's bring 1M+ syrians, what could go wrong (when Albania was in ~civil-unrest in 1997 all borders closed).
Multiculturalism is ok friend. All cultures are equal (they're not, many suck, like roma example that I gave in another comment).
I think it's about scale. If you as a single individual discriminate, no big deal. If a nation or a large corporation discriminates, it causes serious problems.
Also, it's somewhat OK to discriminate against behavior that can be changed. So businesses are OK to be discriminated against, they are after all human creation. But we shouldn't discriminate on the basis of race or sex or ethnicity, because these are impossible to change.
However, let's say for argument sake I do want to rent my extra bedroom out. What if I don't want rent to some weirdo crust punk? I wouldn't feel like my children are safe. I would probably only rent out to single professionals only.
I guess Airbnb is not a good fit for hypothetical people like me.
> I agree to treat everyone in the Airbnb community—regardless of their race, religion, national origin, ethnicity, disability, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, or age—with respect, and without judgment or bias.
This isn't really "non discrimination", this is a vague non binding statement. The FAQ doesn't even says what happens when that "commitment" is broken. Just that you have to accept it. So the title here is misleading.
Did you just not read two paragraphs below that where it says "What if I decline the commitment?", or do you just think it's pertinent for some reason?
Seems pretty clear: You can't discriminate, if you do we terminate your account at our discretion.
Edit: I read the question only in the narrow sense of "what if you refuse to accept the new policy" v.s. "what if you break the policy once you accept it?".
2. Section 24.C ("Termination for breach, suspension and other measures") refers to section 14 ("User Conduct") which says you can't violate the "Policies and Community Guidelines" which links to https://www.airbnb.com/help/topic/250/terms---policies
They can do that when the host will be protected against abuse of by law as well. Hell, it even wouldn't be needed. If you as a host knew, you would be compensated by any ill means done by the one renting - meaning AirBnb would claim responsibility - this clause wouldn't be such an issue.
Because here's why this happens: people start declining to certain others based on experience. Some hear about others experience and don't want to even go down that road in the first place.
Modern "PC" way of thinking caters to the minorities. Rights, rights, rights and so on. Businesses market on that. Media gets clicks and views based on that. But the modern western societies have forgotten that rights are only one side of the coin, there have to be RESPONSIBILITIES too.
Responsibilities are harder, long term gratification and can cause non happy feelings. But no one can enforce rights without them, or we get to see the extreme effects as we do now.
I a frankly appalled with this new heavy handed "commitment" required. Rules - do not change people! When will we learn this - Anyone can sign this document and continue doing anything they want.. these are people's private homes we are talking about - the whole issue here was to develop a welcoming environment - or was it? One again "big daddy" wants control. I did not let my child just play with anyone or invite just anyone home - is that racist or lacking in inclusiveness? No I was responsible for her safety the environment she grew up in. I had to decide what was in her best interests for her development - all parents do this - race was never a deciding factor in my home but behavior was - if I am hosting an Air B&B guest I want to be able to use my "intuition" and be trusted to welcome people fairly - I need to feel comfortable with these people - not just accept anybody. I personally have never stayed at a B&B with anyone who I thought was racist or discriminatory in any way - why make rules for the minority and the exceptional... we need less rules and more trust - TRUST breeds TRUST - rules do not do that! Suzanna
Somehow Airbnb mostly doesnt work for me. You find a nice/cheap place to stay, message the host and wait for 24 hours for a revert. Fairly often, the host declines for seemingly specious reasons. The bigger problem is the wait than the refusal.
An Indian startup called OyoRooms has a much better solution to this problem.
I just hate Airbnb because of all he stupid rules. I go on vacation to relax and don't want to have to feed your cat or make a curfew. Especially when I can stay in a mid-range hotel for the same price without all the rules and the bs $200 cleaning fee!
The few times I've tried it, the host was either non Internet-savvy or seemed to have regretted the too low a price they set, cancelling and putting the place back in the market for a higher price.
I have personally experienced that many hosts do not like to rent to young males. Some even restrict this in their description i.e "only for females". I hope this discrimination ends now
As a male (who is not actually young) I accept a hosts preference not to rent males (young or old). It would save a lot of time if they clearly stated such (some don't for obvious reasons).
If they have a lot of reviews it's easy to see but if (as is often the case) they don't then you don't know until they reject your booking. And, even then, it isn't so clear cut.
But it's the wrong way to go about it. The right way would be to make the initial negotiation phase blind...no pictures or names, just profile information like star ratings and how long they've been an AirBnB member. Hosts that back out of agreed upon reservations too often could be punished. A vague "I promise not to discriminate" agreement with no details about how discrimination is reported, dealt with and and how disputes are handled could cause more problems than it solves.
At the end of the day, despite the BS line that AirBnB gives about people sharing their homes, the majority of the hosts are operating a small business, and one that's beholden to a single provider for business. There will be hosts that lose 100% of their income stream because of this and not all of them will be the problem hosts that are causing this controversy. Innocent hosts who just happen to have accidentally chosen incorrectly a few times will get caught. Or, more likely, hosts will live in fear of being accused and start discriminating in favor of minorities.
if someone is turning you down on airbnb based upon some arbitrary discriminatory factors, do you think you'd really want to stay with a person like that to begin with?
I think it's ok to require pictures if who will be staying in your house prior to deciding if you want to allow the rental or not. As an owner it's always you choice. If I dint want some who looks dirty , or a drug dealer in my house who I going to make you. Freedom if choice. If they don't like it there are other apps and sited to list vacation rentals on. Such as the big 4
Sad that we have to codify this in 2016 as it seems obvious. I don't think the community commitment goes far enough.
If you’re in the business of providing a service to people you shouldn’t be discriminating against them on any grounds apart from ability to pay, which is not an issue on the Airbnb platform.
By forcing contracts onto the host and removing the ability of the host to edit and negotiate the contract it can be argued in a British court that Airbnb is in fact renting from the host, and that any legal infractions or damages in subsequent sublets of that rented space are AirBnB's responsibility.
I don't have a copy of the hosts contract, but the items to watch out for are:
- anything preventing the host from contacting guests after the let
- anything preventing the host from letting the space elsewhere in between Airbnb lets
- inability of the host to impose legally binding requirements on the guests
- anything preventing the host from pursuing legal action against guests (eg, forcing the use of arbitration)
Without three of the four I would be unlikely to challenge it personally. Though two not including the third might be enough.
I will always discriminate and not allow certain people in my home. I will take the risk that I'll be kicked off the platform. That's better than taking those people into my home.
Airbnb is a essentially "middle man" - a company that facilitates private individuals who wish to rent out their homes to strangers. This is a wonderful and much appreciated way of connecting strangers and building civil society bonds. But dictating to its members exactly on what terms and to whom they should be renting out their own bedrooms and homes seems to be, no matter how well-intentioned, to be self-defeating: it fosters an atmosphere of distrust and removes renters' freedom to exercise discretion about who stays in their home.
It is inevitable that some renters will bring racist or xenophobic or other prejudices to the table when they decide who to rent their homes to. But there will be a whole range of positive and negative preferences about the type of person one wants to stay in one's home, many of which many not be motivated by racism or xenophobia, but by personal judgments about who one is prepared to open one's home to.
Airbnb is trying to micro-manage how people exercise their judgment about who is a good fit for their home. They are trying to force people to trust everyone equally or to feel equally well-disposed toward all potential renters, as a condition for using their service. They may have the LEGAL right to do this, but it will be impossible in many cases to enforce with any reliability.
Besides the notorious difficulty of enforcing this sort of discrimination edict without high levels of inteference and second-guessing of complex judgments, in my view, the new policy is likely to undermine, not promote, greater trust and respect betweeen renters and landlords, by fostering a more adversarial culture in Airbnb homes, where any refusal to rent is met with an air of suspicion and resentment and exclusion, as though opening your home to someone (even for money) was not a delicate matter.
Cultural change and reform comes through education and experience. Airbnb permits people to be exposed to different cultures and values by opening up their home to strangers (and receiving payment in return).
But I see no reason why Airbnd should appoint itself a sort of "moral policeman" to ensure that all renters are equally open to different cultures and communities. That kind of openness can be encouraged but it is quite absurd to think that it can be truly fostered in a positive way by getting people to tick a "community commitment" box before renting out their homes.
In fact, I would argue that this new "community commitment" could be considered ethically dubious at best, since it will provide a strong reason to people who rely on Airbnb but wish to exercise their own judgment about who stays in their home to lie on the website. Furthermore, the effort to get people to formally "commit" to what is essentially an ethical attitude in a quasi-contractual way, as a condition for using this type of renting "middle man" is an extraordinary act of over-reach, it seems to me, insofar as it essentially means that Airbnb feel they can appoint themselves the arbiter and judge of people's private motives and prejudices, whether through some formal declaration on their part, or through a statistical analysis of their behaviour.
Which raises the question, if Airbnb is worried about unjust discrimination in society at large, why does it think that setting itself up as a sort of "thought police" for its customers is a wise move? How can they not anticipat the inevitable resistance and backlash that will unleash, and its almost certain failure in practice to reform people's behaviour and attitudes (tick the box and move on)? And what does this sort of policy tell us about the type of authority that a middle man THINKS he has over his clients and their values, preferences, and lifestyles choices?
Is there some sort of "saviour" complex going on here, where a company thinks they must engage in an aggressive campaign to control their users' mindsets and micromanage their own decisions about who to rent their homes to? Or is the new Airbnb policy, as some have suggested, just a response to some legal or social pressures to "look good and inclusive"?
Whatever the answer to these questions, it strikes me that setting aside the legality of this new policy, the level of micromanagement and control it extends into clients' USE of the service and indeed into their values and attitudes regarding hosting people in their home, suggests a lack of trust in people's goodness and an unwillingness to take risks on people's goodness, to give them reasonable discretion to exercise their own judgments in the sphere of their own home (even if it is being rented out for profit).
Indeed, this sort of campaign, which comes close to being a sort of indirect "mind control," seems to bespeak an impatience with the messiness of human life and human relationships, and of course impatience with idiosyncratic and unstructured nature of the motives of people who rent out their own homes. Sometimes, in order to foster or preserve an atmosphere of trust and respect in general, you have to allow within a system for the possibility that some people will exercise bad or unfair judgments, or treat some people without the full respect they deserve. Making a rule to compel everyone to be respectful is not always the best way to foster a culture of respect.
Turning a modest facilitating service into a crusade for full inclusion and a change in cultural mindsets completely changes the nature of the Airbnb service, bringing it into the zone of a sort of "mind police" whose edicts will frequently be impossible to enforce.
It is an excellent example of the trend in our society to attempt to control from on high, with relatively crude regulations, the delicate flow of human relationships and attitudes between different groups, ethnicities, value identifications, religions, etc.
To be clear, I am not advocating racisms or invidious discrimination, but I am suggesting that (a) some degree of discrimination and profiling is a fact of life especially in the business of renting out one's own home, and it is not necessarily invidious, especially in situations of sparse information; and (b) to the extent that people do engage in invidious forms of discrimination when they rent out their homes, Airbnb is certainly not the appropriate entity to be rooting this out systematically - education and cultural reform must be carried out by winning over people's hearts and minds, and this work is already being done by the mere fact of cultural exchange permitted by the Airbnb network. Why spoil that work by implementing a policy that is likely to foster distrust, suspicion, and resentment among renters and proprietors?
[+] [-] jacquesm|9 years ago|reply
Airbnb wants to have its cake and eat it too, on the one hand not to own the premises and the goods stored in there but to pretend that they own it and set the rules about who can and can't come there.
Nobody is going to admit to discrimination, even if they do agree, people will come up with alternative reasons for not allowing the people they do not wish to stay in their private homes, so nothing will change but Airbnb will look good.
After all, what proof will they use to tell a host they are discriminating.
If Airbnb wants to be able to dictate the terms at that level they should build a nice large building with a front desk with people they employ and a bunch of rooms they let out aka a hotel.
[+] [-] Lucadg|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hannob|9 years ago|reply
Now ever if your statistics were true (I doubt you properly measured that) it simply doesn't matter. Even if 90% of people from some region are noisy at night that doesn't justify rejecting the other 10%.
[+] [-] jrochkind1|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] raverbashing|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] MarkMc|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] boards2x|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] redthrowaway|9 years ago|reply
[1]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hsIpQ7YguGE
[+] [-] dkopi|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Dowwie|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] csallen|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] raverbashing|9 years ago|reply
I'm not saying AirBnB has moved that much, but maybe you mean regressive left, though
[+] [-] nvahalik|9 years ago|reply
Why do we make such a big deal about "discrimination?" It's built into who we are as people.
[+] [-] redditmigrant|9 years ago|reply
If your subconscious discrimination is constantly being pointed out through various channels, it starts causing you to question it. Obviously it's slow and might take generations, but that's the nature of the process. I will give you a personal example - I grew up in a country where making fun of gay/transgender people is very common. So subconsciously I judged and probably discriminated against gay/transgender people. When I moved to California and I heard and saw the messages of marriage equality I started to question my subconscious. Now I'm at the point where watching movies from my home country makes me cringe every time a crass gay joke gets cracked.
[+] [-] rokhayakebe|9 years ago|reply
1) School says they won't accept your daughter, but hey it's not a big deal according to you
2) Neighborhood won't let you buy a house you like because they don't like your wife's skin color, but hey it's not a big deal
3) You are getting paid less at work and skipped for promotion in favor of Elmud because he is one of them and you are not, but hey it's not a big deal
Discrimination IS NOT ok. It IS NOT built into us. It is an acquired taste. Bad taste. First we accept the issue then we work on fixing it.
[+] [-] ddorian43|9 years ago|reply
It says that you fund counter-culture movements as much as possible for them to go completely full-scale. Examples:
Black lives matter (which was a honest one at first) then went full kamikaze. Let's bring 1M+ syrians, what could go wrong (when Albania was in ~civil-unrest in 1997 all borders closed).
Multiculturalism is ok friend. All cultures are equal (they're not, many suck, like roma example that I gave in another comment).
[+] [-] js8|9 years ago|reply
Also, it's somewhat OK to discriminate against behavior that can be changed. So businesses are OK to be discriminated against, they are after all human creation. But we shouldn't discriminate on the basis of race or sex or ethnicity, because these are impossible to change.
[+] [-] meira|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sergiotapia|9 years ago|reply
However, let's say for argument sake I do want to rent my extra bedroom out. What if I don't want rent to some weirdo crust punk? I wouldn't feel like my children are safe. I would probably only rent out to single professionals only.
I guess Airbnb is not a good fit for hypothetical people like me.
[+] [-] aikah|9 years ago|reply
This isn't really "non discrimination", this is a vague non binding statement. The FAQ doesn't even says what happens when that "commitment" is broken. Just that you have to accept it. So the title here is misleading.
[+] [-] netsharc|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|9 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] avar|9 years ago|reply
Seems pretty clear: You can't discriminate, if you do we terminate your account at our discretion.
Edit: I read the question only in the narrow sense of "what if you refuse to accept the new policy" v.s. "what if you break the policy once you accept it?".
The answer to the latter seems to be:
1. You have to agree to Airbnb's TOS to use their site: https://www.airbnb.com/terms
2. Section 24.C ("Termination for breach, suspension and other measures") refers to section 14 ("User Conduct") which says you can't violate the "Policies and Community Guidelines" which links to https://www.airbnb.com/help/topic/250/terms---policies
3. That links to their nondiscrimination policy (https://www.airbnb.com/help/topic/533/nondiscrimination), which seems to be the longer legalese version of what the linked blogpost is a tl;dr of.
[+] [-] tdkl|9 years ago|reply
Because here's why this happens: people start declining to certain others based on experience. Some hear about others experience and don't want to even go down that road in the first place.
Modern "PC" way of thinking caters to the minorities. Rights, rights, rights and so on. Businesses market on that. Media gets clicks and views based on that. But the modern western societies have forgotten that rights are only one side of the coin, there have to be RESPONSIBILITIES too.
Responsibilities are harder, long term gratification and can cause non happy feelings. But no one can enforce rights without them, or we get to see the extreme effects as we do now.
[+] [-] return0|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] suzannast|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sonink|9 years ago|reply
An Indian startup called OyoRooms has a much better solution to this problem.
[+] [-] randycupertino|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] netsharc|9 years ago|reply
The few times I've tried it, the host was either non Internet-savvy or seemed to have regretted the too low a price they set, cancelling and putting the place back in the market for a higher price.
[+] [-] Overtonwindow|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] DINKDINK|9 years ago|reply
Airbnb has an instant book feature that obviates this process
[+] [-] mungoman2|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ryuker16|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] zabeltech|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dazc|9 years ago|reply
If they have a lot of reviews it's easy to see but if (as is often the case) they don't then you don't know until they reject your booking. And, even then, it isn't so clear cut.
[+] [-] unknown|9 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] Overtonwindow|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|9 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] empath75|9 years ago|reply
For some background. http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/23/opinion/how-airbnb-can-fig...
[+] [-] curun1r|9 years ago|reply
At the end of the day, despite the BS line that AirBnB gives about people sharing their homes, the majority of the hosts are operating a small business, and one that's beholden to a single provider for business. There will be hosts that lose 100% of their income stream because of this and not all of them will be the problem hosts that are causing this controversy. Innocent hosts who just happen to have accidentally chosen incorrectly a few times will get caught. Or, more likely, hosts will live in fear of being accused and start discriminating in favor of minorities.
[+] [-] unknown|9 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] gottam|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Normal_gaussian|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jlkass35|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|9 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] hyko|9 years ago|reply
If you’re in the business of providing a service to people you shouldn’t be discriminating against them on any grounds apart from ability to pay, which is not an issue on the Airbnb platform.
[+] [-] bitL|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Normal_gaussian|9 years ago|reply
By forcing contracts onto the host and removing the ability of the host to edit and negotiate the contract it can be argued in a British court that Airbnb is in fact renting from the host, and that any legal infractions or damages in subsequent sublets of that rented space are AirBnB's responsibility.
I don't have a copy of the hosts contract, but the items to watch out for are:
- anything preventing the host from contacting guests after the let
- anything preventing the host from letting the space elsewhere in between Airbnb lets
- inability of the host to impose legally binding requirements on the guests
- anything preventing the host from pursuing legal action against guests (eg, forcing the use of arbitration)
Without three of the four I would be unlikely to challenge it personally. Though two not including the third might be enough.
[+] [-] hellome1|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] davidjthunder|9 years ago|reply
It is inevitable that some renters will bring racist or xenophobic or other prejudices to the table when they decide who to rent their homes to. But there will be a whole range of positive and negative preferences about the type of person one wants to stay in one's home, many of which many not be motivated by racism or xenophobia, but by personal judgments about who one is prepared to open one's home to.
Airbnb is trying to micro-manage how people exercise their judgment about who is a good fit for their home. They are trying to force people to trust everyone equally or to feel equally well-disposed toward all potential renters, as a condition for using their service. They may have the LEGAL right to do this, but it will be impossible in many cases to enforce with any reliability.
Besides the notorious difficulty of enforcing this sort of discrimination edict without high levels of inteference and second-guessing of complex judgments, in my view, the new policy is likely to undermine, not promote, greater trust and respect betweeen renters and landlords, by fostering a more adversarial culture in Airbnb homes, where any refusal to rent is met with an air of suspicion and resentment and exclusion, as though opening your home to someone (even for money) was not a delicate matter.
Cultural change and reform comes through education and experience. Airbnb permits people to be exposed to different cultures and values by opening up their home to strangers (and receiving payment in return).
But I see no reason why Airbnd should appoint itself a sort of "moral policeman" to ensure that all renters are equally open to different cultures and communities. That kind of openness can be encouraged but it is quite absurd to think that it can be truly fostered in a positive way by getting people to tick a "community commitment" box before renting out their homes.
In fact, I would argue that this new "community commitment" could be considered ethically dubious at best, since it will provide a strong reason to people who rely on Airbnb but wish to exercise their own judgment about who stays in their home to lie on the website. Furthermore, the effort to get people to formally "commit" to what is essentially an ethical attitude in a quasi-contractual way, as a condition for using this type of renting "middle man" is an extraordinary act of over-reach, it seems to me, insofar as it essentially means that Airbnb feel they can appoint themselves the arbiter and judge of people's private motives and prejudices, whether through some formal declaration on their part, or through a statistical analysis of their behaviour.
Which raises the question, if Airbnb is worried about unjust discrimination in society at large, why does it think that setting itself up as a sort of "thought police" for its customers is a wise move? How can they not anticipat the inevitable resistance and backlash that will unleash, and its almost certain failure in practice to reform people's behaviour and attitudes (tick the box and move on)? And what does this sort of policy tell us about the type of authority that a middle man THINKS he has over his clients and their values, preferences, and lifestyles choices?
Is there some sort of "saviour" complex going on here, where a company thinks they must engage in an aggressive campaign to control their users' mindsets and micromanage their own decisions about who to rent their homes to? Or is the new Airbnb policy, as some have suggested, just a response to some legal or social pressures to "look good and inclusive"?
Whatever the answer to these questions, it strikes me that setting aside the legality of this new policy, the level of micromanagement and control it extends into clients' USE of the service and indeed into their values and attitudes regarding hosting people in their home, suggests a lack of trust in people's goodness and an unwillingness to take risks on people's goodness, to give them reasonable discretion to exercise their own judgments in the sphere of their own home (even if it is being rented out for profit).
Indeed, this sort of campaign, which comes close to being a sort of indirect "mind control," seems to bespeak an impatience with the messiness of human life and human relationships, and of course impatience with idiosyncratic and unstructured nature of the motives of people who rent out their own homes. Sometimes, in order to foster or preserve an atmosphere of trust and respect in general, you have to allow within a system for the possibility that some people will exercise bad or unfair judgments, or treat some people without the full respect they deserve. Making a rule to compel everyone to be respectful is not always the best way to foster a culture of respect.
Turning a modest facilitating service into a crusade for full inclusion and a change in cultural mindsets completely changes the nature of the Airbnb service, bringing it into the zone of a sort of "mind police" whose edicts will frequently be impossible to enforce.
It is an excellent example of the trend in our society to attempt to control from on high, with relatively crude regulations, the delicate flow of human relationships and attitudes between different groups, ethnicities, value identifications, religions, etc.
To be clear, I am not advocating racisms or invidious discrimination, but I am suggesting that (a) some degree of discrimination and profiling is a fact of life especially in the business of renting out one's own home, and it is not necessarily invidious, especially in situations of sparse information; and (b) to the extent that people do engage in invidious forms of discrimination when they rent out their homes, Airbnb is certainly not the appropriate entity to be rooting this out systematically - education and cultural reform must be carried out by winning over people's hearts and minds, and this work is already being done by the mere fact of cultural exchange permitted by the Airbnb network. Why spoil that work by implementing a policy that is likely to foster distrust, suspicion, and resentment among renters and proprietors?