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Comment by chandsie | Hacker News Reader

I'm an employee, so for what it's worth, this isn't something out of the blue. Airbnb has a disaster response program that gets activated all the time for natural disasters and other tragedies - https://www.airbnb.com/disaster-response

We're choosing to activate it in response to the executive order because it goes directly against our company mission to let people belong anywhere. I'm sure PR was part of the decision but if it helps people, I'd take it at face value.

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Stunt, then, as AirBNB isn't providing any free housing. You're just going to browbeat people who offered "housing to displaced neighbors and relief workers" to underwrite "your" provision of housing to people who are neither neighbors nor relief workers.

Let's be clear: if you are taking a public stand against the president of the United State who is known to be vindictive, you are taking a stand. ALL OF THEM. It is never just a stunt, because a stunt means there's no risk.

Umm... generally stunts are known for their risk...

>"It is never just a stunt, because a stunt means there's no risk."

I'm sorry I fail to see what risk has now been assumed by AirBnB by having a cofounder send out a Tweet.

You say that as if nothing important happens on twitter, but as we have seen recently, the president pays a lot of attention to twitter.

Its not a comment on the importance of Twitter. But rather composing a tweet requires no considerable effort. Its the same as when people change their FB profile pic and considerate it action.

An action that involved real effort would have been a twee that contained a link to the AirBnB's program to help alleviate the problems faced by refugees.

The President of the US is an odd example because that runs counter to your point I believe. Trump Tweets are the ultimate symbol of vacuousness, vanity and impulse.

You make biased judgement without knowing how the service actually works. If you had a look at the disaster response page of Airbnb, as just did I, you'd find that the UX flow is different. You select the disaster first and then offer your housing, which means the hosts are informed about their potential guests.

>You select the disaster first and then offer your housing, which means the hosts are informed about their potential guests.

Yes, you do. What is AirBnB's role besides providing the platform?

That's good itself because providing the platform is their core competence and they use it for public benefit. But if you think that it's not enough (for what?), they are also using their PR resources to spread the word and reach potential hosts who can participate.

Maybe someone should change the title of this post then, which, as I write this, is "Airbnb is providing free housing to refugees and anyone not allowed in the US."

Incorrect.

Volunteers are covered under AirBNB's $1 million host insurance. That's certainly not free.

Wow this is beautiful.

It's capitalism with a mission. A mission to let people belong. Anywhere.

Now I know why your company fights so hard to skirt regulation and taxation. Because it would impede that mission (to let people belong (anywhere.))

Looks like it will be something different from what you already have. Housing is necessary for those who are outside USA and cannot return home and for those who's being deported, which means it has worldwide scale, not limited geography as before, right?

Yes, a lot of people have been working overnight and still working hard on putting out a slightly different way to volunteer for this service. As you point out it obviously has different challenges and opportunities than a natural disaster. We're working with organizations on the ground helping folks already to identify where we can help most. There's also work to prevent the inevitable attempts at abusing this system. And finally there's also work being done to try to help folks in areas we might not have any or enough volunteer hosts.

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