Figuring out the Tech Solutions to Airbnb’s Racial Discrimination Problem
Photo Credit: A marketing image from Airbnb's website. CEO Brian Chesky recently vowed to address problems relating to discrimination and bias among users of his platform. Airbnb
Skift Take
Discrimination isn’t a problem limited to peer-to-peer platforms like Airbnb, and it’s not a problem with the sharing economy itself. It’s a problem that has to do with human behavior — how we interact with one another, whether online or in real life — and one that travel brands need to offer more than lip service to improve.
Airbnb is facing a lot of challenges these days, whether they be regulatory clampdowns in major cities like New York City and Berlin to the growing awareness of the potentially discriminatory pitfalls of its peer-to-peer platform.
The latter has spawned an entire movement (just search for the hashtag #AirbnbWhileBlack on Twitter), given birth to a class-action lawsuit, and has spurred other entrepreneurs to launch their own versions of Airbnb that cater more to specific communities.
Recent concerns about racist, discriminatory behavior from Airbnb's hosts were also serious enough to prompt Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky to address them directly at Airbnb's annual OpenAir tech conference in San Francisco on June 8.
Opening the conference, Chesky said, "There's been a lot of news about prejudice and bias on our platform, and this is a huge issue for us." He added, "We have zero tolerance for it and we will take swift action." Chesky also pledged to work on resolving these issues, and a
