Post by High Priestess on Sept 13, 2016 4:10:43 GMT
Harvard Researcher's recommendations to "prevent discrimination on Airbnb"
The Harvard researcher who did the Harvard study purportedly on Race and Airbnb (actually it was about User Names and Airbnb) has made these suggestions on preventing discrimination.
www.benedelman.org/news/062316-1.html
I strongly oppose all his recommendations as I find them offensive and intrusive -- again, one of the recommendations, and the one I find most offensive, is not to allow sharing of names and photos. I also oppose his suggestion that users be permitted to "do testing" (eg to "test" any random host to see if they are discriminating!) and create fake profiles to do so. I would call that "trolling." I find it incredible he would seriously think that Airbnb should allow users to submit insincere inquiries solely to "test" hosts. The idea is offensive and appalling. It's enough that we have a snooping government and now a snooping Airbnb...and Edelman would like to recruit still more snoops and spies, every guest could be a little spy, "testing" hosts.
I also disagree that courts, not arbitration, are the way to resolve user disputes with Airbnb on discrimination issues. I don't believe that Airbnb has any legal obligation for discrimination by its hosts. I would view hosts as solely liable in such cases, and their liability would only be as described under US law...which allows discriminatory decision making in most situations in private homes. Even if Airbnb did have legal liability for discrimination on its platform, it would seem mean-spirited to me for guests to try to sue Airbnb on this matter when Airbnb is clearly trying to address this issue.
One thing I found interesting that he mentioned in that article and this one:
www.technologyreview.com/s/602355/airbnb-isnt-really-confronting-its-racism-problem/
was that he DID get into trouble for creating a great number of "fake profiles" for use in his Harvard study. I was wondering how that went, because it seemed very obvious to me that when Airbnb prohibits users to create "fake profiles" that means you CANNOT do a study using 6400 "fake profiles", as Edelman did, without running afoul of the TOS and risking getting kicked off the platform. In fact his Airbnb account was suspended for one year for creating all these fake profiles. I am surprised he wasn't permanently banned for so egregiously violating the TOS with that many fake profiles. I think it's important that Airbnb prohibit users doing this if they want to have a "trustworthy" platform.
The Harvard researcher who did the Harvard study purportedly on Race and Airbnb (actually it was about User Names and Airbnb) has made these suggestions on preventing discrimination.
www.benedelman.org/news/062316-1.html
I strongly oppose all his recommendations as I find them offensive and intrusive -- again, one of the recommendations, and the one I find most offensive, is not to allow sharing of names and photos. I also oppose his suggestion that users be permitted to "do testing" (eg to "test" any random host to see if they are discriminating!) and create fake profiles to do so. I would call that "trolling." I find it incredible he would seriously think that Airbnb should allow users to submit insincere inquiries solely to "test" hosts. The idea is offensive and appalling. It's enough that we have a snooping government and now a snooping Airbnb...and Edelman would like to recruit still more snoops and spies, every guest could be a little spy, "testing" hosts.
I also disagree that courts, not arbitration, are the way to resolve user disputes with Airbnb on discrimination issues. I don't believe that Airbnb has any legal obligation for discrimination by its hosts. I would view hosts as solely liable in such cases, and their liability would only be as described under US law...which allows discriminatory decision making in most situations in private homes. Even if Airbnb did have legal liability for discrimination on its platform, it would seem mean-spirited to me for guests to try to sue Airbnb on this matter when Airbnb is clearly trying to address this issue.
One thing I found interesting that he mentioned in that article and this one:
www.technologyreview.com/s/602355/airbnb-isnt-really-confronting-its-racism-problem/
was that he DID get into trouble for creating a great number of "fake profiles" for use in his Harvard study. I was wondering how that went, because it seemed very obvious to me that when Airbnb prohibits users to create "fake profiles" that means you CANNOT do a study using 6400 "fake profiles", as Edelman did, without running afoul of the TOS and risking getting kicked off the platform. In fact his Airbnb account was suspended for one year for creating all these fake profiles. I am surprised he wasn't permanently banned for so egregiously violating the TOS with that many fake profiles. I think it's important that Airbnb prohibit users doing this if they want to have a "trustworthy" platform.
