[wyager]

Are they planning to force people on the platform to host refugees (paid, obviously)? I can see several practical problems with that; taking people from their home to a place where they do not speak the language or know the local culture and just dropping them off in standard residential housing can't end well for anybody. This also can't help AirBnB's case when it comes to NIMBYism.

[nollbit]

Why would it be more of a problem with refugees than other, paying guests?

Afaik, most US citizens staying at Japanese AirBnB's (for example) do not speak Japanese nor know the local culture. Do you think that's a problem as well? When I stayed at an AirBnB in Italy I knew nothing about the local culture nor spoke the language, nobody thought that was an issue.

Or is this just, you know, racism?

[ordinary]

Tourists do not commonly suffer from PTSD and a host of other mental problems. There are real, valid reasons why you don't just dump them in a random suburb and let them fend for themselves.

Incidentally, insulting people is not conducive to healthy debate. Please consider whether calling your opponent (or their actions) racist will increase our ability to persuade them to change their position, or just make them entrench their position (even against more persuasive arguments).

[jabgrabdthrow]

> Why would it be more of a problem with refugees than other, paying guests?

How are war refugees different from tourists on vacation. Amazing. You just personally contributed to wearing out the word "racist" and growing the new right wing.

[wyager]

> Why would it be more of a problem with refugees than other, paying guests?

Most AirBnB guests are financially secure, have a vested interest in not damaging your property, and aren't likely to be scared/stressed/traumatized.

[ahoka]

Muslim is not a race.

[chandsie]

(I'm an employee) We have a disaster response program through which we solicit hosts to volunteer their homes for emergencies. More information here - https://www.airbnb.com/disaster-response (We're still working on figuring out the logistics of this event so it's not on that page.)

[cronjobber]

So AirBNB isn't providing any free housing. Seems you'll try to browbeat/hoodwinkle people who volunteered to offer "housing to displaced neighbors and relief workers" into providing free housing to people who are neither neighbors nor relief workers.

[chandsie]

Not true - there is no "browbeat/hoodwinkle"ing happening. You choose to volunteer your home for any of the causes. The team has been working overnight and still hammering away to create an easy way for people to volunteer their homes specifically for this issue.

[jlardinois]

Do Airbnb hosts usually get a say on who signs up to stay in their dwellings?

[CardenB]

Yes. You contact the hosts and then they have to approve you. Hosts review their guests after each stay for future hosts to look at.

[mynameisvlad]

Not 100% true, there are plenty of instant book properties on AirBnB which do not require any interaction between host and guest before the purchase.

[ivan_gammel]

It was the decision of hosts to list the properties for instant booking, so host controls who can stay anyway. In these cases it just does not matter for the host who are the guests.

[mynameisvlad]

Yes, that's true, and I never said it wasn't. I was just clarifying that, in some cases, you don't communicate with the host before you book.