August 30, 2016
Airbnb, the popular home-sharing startup, has increasingly battled negative headlines about discrimination on its site. Independent research has found that guests with “distinctively African American names” are 16% less likely to be accepted than identical guests with white-sounding names. The San Francisco tech company announced this summer that it has hired former US attorney general Eric Holder to help address racism on the site. The scandal, amplified by the hashtag #AirbnbWhileBlack, has prompted an aggressive PR response, with CEO Brian Chesky claiming that the issue constitutes “the greatest challenge we face as a company”. Researchers, however, say there are relatively simple fixes Airbnb could make, but that the firm may be resistant to adopt – out of fear that it would reduce usage. “They put out a lot of press releases relative to the amount of work they do and relative to the amount of changes they make,” said Ben Edelman, associate professor at Harvard Business School, who has studied Airbnb and discrimination. If Airbnb stopped having users display their names and faces, and instead had them use anonymous screen names, it would go a long way in reducing discrimination, Edelman said. “We know exactly how to fix the problem.”…
Source: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/aug/30/tech-companies-racial-discrimination-nextdoor-airbnb
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