Curation of Guests' Political Views

[Kurt239]

Did I read the news right?  Is Aribnb now vetting our guests for us based their political views and using  information from the Southern Poverty Law Center to do it?  

[John5987]

Deleting airbnb from my phone due to their ridiculous treatment of Michelle Malkin.  There are plenty of other ways to find places to stay. 

[Beverly100]

Michelle Malkin is not a racist or a “white supremacist” this is so laughable!  To say this shows your ignorance!  Show me one thing to prove this!  Not what a liberal news wrote about her but one thing that she actually said that proves this. BTW how can a Filipino be a white nationalist?  Liberals are the most intolerant people I’ve ever met. Why can’t you just love everyone like your bumper stickers claim?!

I am a conservative and have never had a problem hosting a liberal, someone of a different race or nationality, sexual orientation, social background or anything else you can come up with!  I have enjoyed all my kind, respectful and clean guest!  I’m just like you!  Please stop falling for the media’s hate speech. Conservatives are not racist!  We believe in bringing everyone up not down!  I have friends that are liberal, don’t agree politically but I certainly don’t hate them or want to cancel them!!  Open your minds and learn the truth❤️

[Helen3]

Oh dear - so sad to see this level of ignorance from you and others hosts liking your post @Beverley

Have you read her racist books? Have you seen her open support for white supremacists who are holocaust deniers and anti-black and Muslim bigots who she has been strengthening her ties with including speaking at their rallies. 

In 2002, she wrote her first book, Invasion: How America Still Welcomes Terrorists, Criminals, and Other Foreign Menaces to Our Shores, which painted immigrants as unwelcome enemies and criminals. In her 2004 book, In Defense of Internment: The Case for 'Racial Profiling' in World War II and the War on Terror, she defends both the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II and racial profiling of Arab and Muslim Americans after 9/11. Have you actually read them?

The fact that you support this bigoted Asian-American commentator who is using her position to spread racist and religious hatred is deeply sad  

If you support this openly race hate rhetoric I feel sorry for you. Even conservatives to the far right of your party are cutting ties with this overt racist. 

[Beverly100]

@Helen3 

Just had our friends from England leave yesterday, it was hard to say good bye, I love the Brits and your country!

There is something you have to know about our country right now.  We are super divided politically.  The right believes in freedom of speech, legal immigration, the right to bear arms, freedom of religion and school choice (just to name a few).  The left likes to call conservatives racist and twist the truth.  We are for immigration if it's legal (like every other country in this world).  The left twist that into us being racist because we want to protect our boarders.  The left want to eliminate us and have actually said so on the news (yes I heard them say it).  They are trying to shut down ALL voices except their own.  It's not the American way at all and is a very scary trend, very 1939ish!   

The number one liberal news CNN have had two pedophilia executives caught,  retracted stories for lying, executives cheating to get ahead and their ratings are dropping due to credibility issues. Please research this!  ALL true. 

I've have read Michelle's writings and have listened to her numerous times.  I've NEVER heard a racist remark and if I thought she was a racist I would dislike her as much as you do.  Now with that said.....Do you really believe a Pilipino women would be a White Supremes?  Think about that one!!!  She would be against herself!  Calling her a White Supremes is so blatantly ridiculous!  However, if you do have proof and can share me a direct quote from her I would be very happy to look into it and apologize to you if it's true!  

I find all of my guest to be fun and interesting, it's the reason I Airbnb, I do not need the money!  As I wrote above I do not discriminate and the only bad review I got was from a liberal because of the signs in our neighborhood (supporting conservative candidates).  I gave her a good review, and would still give her one only I wouldn't want her to come back (she gave me 3s and took away my Superhost).

I have no doubt you are a super person and we would have a great time together.  Like me you care about people and don't approve of haters... a step further we both like kind, respectful and clean guest too!  We have a lot more in common than you realize  🙂  

[Sarah977]

@Beverly100  "Michelle Malkin is not a racist or a “white supremacist” this is so laughable!  To say this shows your ignorance!  Show me one thing to prove this!  Not what a liberal news wrote about her but one thing that she actually said that proves this."

I can find many direct quotes of hers online which are racist and antisemitic. I suggest that you can do the same. 

Why are you talking about conservatives and liberals? As I mentioned, racism isn't political.

[Nanxing0]

@Sarah977 Racism is not political, but definining racism is quite political. As a matter of fact, the definition of "racism" is very subjective and arbitrary. For example there are lots of scholars and researchers that do research on racial disparities and if their research found racial difference in terms of performance (for example this paper that talks about racial difference in testosterone level https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4327897/), are you going to call them racists? One particular example is Richard Lynn, that many researchers are calling him racist because he has been trying to "prove" white supremacy by his publications. The argument lays in the line that researchers believe his data is not reliable, which in research field can also be attributed to different interpretations from different researchers.

I can find you many other examples, like this article https://www.theguardian.com/inequality/2018/jan/17/why-do-black-students-quit-university-more-often-... that talks about the more likelihood of black students to drop out of universities. I'm sure there would be some people willing to say the author is a racist by pointing out this fact.

Let's take a step back to talk about Michelle Malkin's case. Let's assume that everyone in the world believes she is a racist, that should have nothing to do with Airbnb -- she can still be a good guest. As a host you have all the rights to refuse her bookings, but there are other hosts who are willing to accept. The problem is similar to the censoring debate of social media like FB, Twitter. It is a known fact now that FB is sided with liberals while doing their best to censor posts from conservatives. Lots of people argue that FB is a private company so they can do whatever they want in terms of censoring. However those people never realized the fact that since FB is in a dominant position in social media field and have dramatic influence, they should be regulated by the non-bias rules and not be considered a regular private company any more. Airbnb is similar.

[Sarah977]

@Nanxing0  Richard Lynn? He's a blatant racist and white supremacist- he isn't known as such because of his questionable data but because of the repugnant views he espouses.

[Nanxing0]

@Sarah977 I'm not negating the fact that he's a racist, but if you take a deeper look you will find out that people allege him as a racist mainly because his data is questionable. If his data is indeed legit, the story might be different. If you look at the other paper I shared, the data actually suggests there's testosterone level difference between racial groups, and that's known to be directly related to athletic performance today. It's legit data and I don't see the researchers being called racists.

[Beverly100]

Please send me these direct quotes!  

I'm talking conservatives and liberals (Democrats) because that is the problem/issue, liberals call conservatives racist!  They are so crazed with hate for conservatives that if they can't defend their point they pull out the racist name calling.  If you know anything about American history it's the Democrat party that was for slavery, a Democrat killed Lincoln,  they started the KKK, they were against women's right to vote, they were against the civil rights movement in the 1960's.... it goes on and on!  

Not all Conservatives are racist, as much as the liberal media would like for you to believe this!

[Sarah977]

@Nanxing0  "Let's assume that everyone in the world believes she is a racist, that should have nothing to do with Airbnb -- she can still be a good guest."

Airbnb has a non-discrimination policy, so whether she would be a good guest or not is immaterial. Someone who has racist viewpoints does not belong on Airbnb. It is no different from removing a host from the platform if they are found to consistently decline Asians or blacks. Would  it matter if they are a "good host"?

[Nanxing0]

@Sarah977 This is completely different. If a host from the platform consistently declines Asians/blacks then it's a direct violation of the non-discrimination policy and should be removed for sure. However if someone is just expressing his/her own opinion somewhere else I don't see that as a violation at all -- he/she can still be a good host abiding by all the rules including the non-discrimination policy. Speaking about those do not qualify anyone as racist -- in academia we talk about racial disparities in income, education and opportunities and we try our best to help solve those issues all the time. 

[Sarah977]

@Nanxing0 "However if someone is just expressing his/her own opinion somewhere else I don't see that as a violation at all -- he/she can still be a good host abiding by all the rules including the non-discrimination policy."

Then you had better tell that to all the businesses, schools, and other entities that have fired people for the views they have expressed on social media, because they do not want people who espouse such views in their employ or representing their company, or having those views color the way they deal with customers, co-workers, students, etc, which they inevitably do.

There's no such thing as a part-time racist. 

Your question about the damage claims- you are trying to come up with examples which are irrelevant. If you only charged a certain race of guests when they caused damages and let all other races of guests get away with causing damage, obviously that would be racist. If several of your recent guests caused damages and just happened to be of the same race, obviously that isn't racism. I'd imagine there are hosts who have never had anything but white guests, or Asian guests, for instance, depending on their location and the nature of their listing, and how long they have been hosting, not because they practice discrimination. (Although I have hosted guests of different races, the majority of my bookings just happened to be white.). So any damage claims they filed would of course be from that race of guests. 

[Nanxing0]

@Sarah977 I'm not saying part-time racist. A racist is a racist there's no question about it. My point is that people talk about race a lot and there are certainly some with goodwill and some with bad will. A lot of times people talk about race out of goodwill and want to offer help you cannot call them racist. This has to be looked at in a case-to-case basis and further, people can have different idea on the same expression. -- You can consider Michelle Malkin a drophead racist but others might not think so. While I agree with you on this point, I do respect other's opinion as well.

There are businesses, schools and entities that fired people for their post on social media and I do think some of them are justifiable because some people are simply saying something with bad will, but really not all of them. That they did it does not make it legit. Even courts have mistrials. 

[Stephanie]

As many haven correctly pointed out, Airbnb upholds its Nondiscrimination policy which applies both to Hosts and Guests. You can review it here: Nondiscrimination policy.

Thanks,

Stephanie

@Sarah977 @Helen3 

[Paul8109]

Is it not racist to segregate a person bc of their belief? I believe in freedom of speech and am horrified that airbnb is doing this. Yes, I read the whole speech.

Paul Kubrich