Over the course of 2016, Airbnb has been in the spotlight thanks to the ease of which its users could refuse to rent out their rooms based on race, age, gender or other factors. Indeed, the problem was so widespread, Airbnb themselves were sued for this. Today, Airbnb has taken its first step to combat this practice, and it’ll do so with some amendments to its rules, as well as hiring a team of specialist to work on suspected discrimination cases.
According to The New York Times, Airbnb has begun requiring its users to agree to something called “Community Commitment” before allowing them to put their rooms on the website. While this plan isn’t due to go into effect until the 1st of November, all users, be it new or existing, must agree to terms included within before being able to list their rooms on the website. Other actions that will be taken by Airbnb include to reduction of prominence of user photographs, as well as accelerating the use of instant bookings.
Rule changes aside, Airbnb will also be hiring a team of engineers, data scientists and researchers as part of the company’s new full-time anti-discrimination team. Their jobs include discerning patterns of host behavior and move to defuse or settle any issues. Airbnb has also published a 32-page report that will serve as a blueprint for how the company aims to fight discrimination on the website.
“Bias and discrimination have no place on Airbnb, and we have zero tolerance for them. Unfortunately, we have been slow to address these problems, and for this I am sorry,” says Brian Chesky, Chief Executive for Airbnb.
Source: The New York Times