Post by High Priestess on Sept 13, 2016 1:21:53 GMT
See the article:
www.nytimes.com/2016/09/13/us/airbnb-uber-twitter-facebook-power.html?_r=0
Airbnb could have stuck to a familiar line of reasoning: That is is merely a passive bystander allowing a renter and landlord to find each other and make a private deal, with each party responsible for obeying the law.
But Airbnb’s report rejected this trope of powerlessness. It committed to put in place “powerful systemic changes to greatly reduce the opportunity for hosts and guests to engage in conscious or unconscious discriminatory conduct.”
This statement about "the trope of powerlessness" is fallacious and disingenuous. Airbnb would not be admitting "powerlessness" if it preserved hosts' freedoms, any more than the US Government is playing "the trope of powerlessness" by preserving the freedoms of the citizens of the United States. Standing back and allowing people to have their freedoms to make their own decisions about their own business, is not feigning powerlessness -- it is taking an active stance to support freedom as a value, freedom as a right. In fact, as so many have argued...the best use of power is precisely to use it to preserve freedom. Many believe that is the primary use to which power should be put.
Equality of opportunity or equality of access to a service (home sharing) is also a value, and Airbnb has chosen to emphasize that value, or tried to balance it with that of freedom of the hosts/homeowners. People will have different approaches to how much they value freedom versus how much they value equality of access or opportunity. I just think it's important to be honest that one cannot take action to try to engineer equality of access to home sharing services, without compromising hosts' freedoms. This decrease in liberty and freedom is not something that news media are mentioning in their articles on this issue.
www.nytimes.com/2016/09/13/us/airbnb-uber-twitter-facebook-power.html?_r=0
Airbnb could have stuck to a familiar line of reasoning: That is is merely a passive bystander allowing a renter and landlord to find each other and make a private deal, with each party responsible for obeying the law.
But Airbnb’s report rejected this trope of powerlessness. It committed to put in place “powerful systemic changes to greatly reduce the opportunity for hosts and guests to engage in conscious or unconscious discriminatory conduct.”
This statement about "the trope of powerlessness" is fallacious and disingenuous. Airbnb would not be admitting "powerlessness" if it preserved hosts' freedoms, any more than the US Government is playing "the trope of powerlessness" by preserving the freedoms of the citizens of the United States. Standing back and allowing people to have their freedoms to make their own decisions about their own business, is not feigning powerlessness -- it is taking an active stance to support freedom as a value, freedom as a right. In fact, as so many have argued...the best use of power is precisely to use it to preserve freedom. Many believe that is the primary use to which power should be put.
Equality of opportunity or equality of access to a service (home sharing) is also a value, and Airbnb has chosen to emphasize that value, or tried to balance it with that of freedom of the hosts/homeowners. People will have different approaches to how much they value freedom versus how much they value equality of access or opportunity. I just think it's important to be honest that one cannot take action to try to engineer equality of access to home sharing services, without compromising hosts' freedoms. This decrease in liberty and freedom is not something that news media are mentioning in their articles on this issue.