Airbnb is taking the recent criticism, that started with a Harvard study, seriously and making some changes to fight discrimination of its hosts. Airbnb has hired some well known consultants to assist in their fight against bias and discrimination. One of the first things it plans to do is use less pictures on the website. They have also hired a team of engineers and other professionals to look for trends in their hosts behaviors that could show bias.
Key Takeaways:
- For much of this year Airbnb has been under fire over the ease with which it’s hosts can reject potential renters based on race, age, gender or other factors.
- Airbnb has moved quickly to tamp down the controversy.
- It told it’s rental hosts that they needed to agree to a “community commitment” starting on November 1’st.
““There have been too many unacceptable instances of people being discriminated against on the Airbnb platform because of who they are or what they look like,” wrote Laura W. Murphy, a former director of the American Civil Liberties””