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Comment by devdoomari | Hacker News Reader

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devdoomari

tldr: 1. Some months ago, a Korean woman was drug-raped by an airbnb host.

2. Airbnb did not block the host nor did it tell anyone about the host

3. The host tried to drug-rape his guests again

4. Japanese police found about 'white powder remains in the cup given by the host'

5. Airbnb's 1st reaction: he didn't intend to do it.

6. Airbnb's 2nd reaction: Japanese police said he's ok

7. Airbnb's 3rd reaction: We'll educate the host on the matters

8. Airbnb's 4th reaction: We'll do something about it (...but what?)

I chose HN because I saw some Airbnb founders/employees hanging around, and I'd expect them to solve these kind of issues. Maybe the Korean / Japanese Airbnb customer service is not doing their job/etc...?

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This is terrible for the users but hardly surprising.

I know it's not a popular opinion but some of the laws setup around service industries like hotels, taxis, etc, are for the protection of the user from potentially dangerous providers.

"Ripe for disruption" is just "lots of laws we can ignore"

> "Ripe for disruption" is just "lots of laws we can ignore"

On the whole, I think society probably benefits from this kind of edge testing. I certainly don't encourage it. And taking on federal or state laws is a different game (legal and moral liability-wise) from challenging municipal codes, particularly when people get hurt.

But Uber challenging the taxi industry forced everyone to take out the rulebook and reconsider what is and isn't truly necessary. Something similar is happening with hotels. One could argue, with Bitcoin et al, too.

Honestly, Bitcoin is proving to the world why we need financial regulation.

Is it? The way I see it, it's the consequence of financial regulations, and proves nothing - you can't really compare traditional currencies spanning hundreds of years with one that was there for just a decade.

Of course I can. In fact, comparing new products with ones that have existed for decades is sort of the DNA of Hacker News.

Well, yeah, of course you can, but the comparison is nonsense.

How so? What are the problems caused by btc?

Uber spent more money campaigning to prevent a law requiring background checks on drivers in one city than it would have cost to do background checks for all their drivers in the entire country.

These companies can try to claim it's about making things better all they want. It's clearly just about money to them. I learnt that the hard way trying to deal with AirBnB.

Tip: companies "doing the right thing" don't charge your credit card then require you to login with Facebook (which I don't have) or upload a video explaining why I want to rent a house.

I don't understand how Uber can be "just about money" if they spend more money campaigning against laws than it would cost to follow them? Sounds like it's more about not following laws than money?

I believe that falls under "spend money to make money", not to mention precedent. It was more money at the time - I can't imagine they have a particularly stable workforce and background checks for a revolving door workforce will get expensive, not to mention it means they have less potential drivers to make money from.

I think that's a slight oversimplification. Uber wasn't fighting doing background checks in Austin, they were fighting doing background checks the way the city of Austin wanted them to. But at a more meta-level, what they were really fighting was a precedent that would create a patchwork of local regulation on Uber that would make it harder for them to scale.

But yeah, it is ultimately about the money.

A self-imposed background check is essentially no background check.

The differences between Uber's and e.g. Taxi's is laughable, when you read accounts from actual Uber drivers like http://valleywag.gawker.com/uber-driver-heres-how-we-get-aro...

I don't think Airbnb's management is intentionally ignoring the law -- rather, it's just that AirBnb got too big to look at its toes... should definitely work on improving internal communications, and penalizing those customer service ppl responsible.

How would the laws around hotels have helped in this situation?

One question that immediately pops up in my mind: If he raped a guest - why didn't he get arrested?

I don't know the backgrounds and can't judge what happened here, but it seems to me first and foremost rape is something that you'd expect normal law enforcement to handle and not rely on a company to react on it.

the question in my mind is HOLY FUCK RAPE IS FUCKING AWFUL. act now to prevent the possibility of it happening again.

i'm sure folks here will say "but he's innocent until proven guilty. what about his airbnb income?" stop putting his concerns above the way more concerning impact of rape. stop putting his words above women's words. most women don't make shit up, just like most men don't kill women.

airbnb should absolutely do more. as we all should.

i hope she left a negative review.

Why is AirBnB responsible for this? Rape is a criminal matter. It should be handled by the police. It's the job of the police and criminal justice system to adjudicate matters like these, not private companies.

AirBnB didn't rape anyone, they just set up the platform that enabled the rape, and took a cut of the money the woman paid to rent a place in which she was raped.

Imagine a taxi company that hired a driver, did background checks, who then is arrested for raping a woman in a taxi. The taxi driver makes bail. Does the taxi company at that point say "Rape is a criminal matter, and it's up to the criminal justice system to adjudicate matters like this, not us" and put him back in a taxi? If they did so, and he raped a second woman, would you argue that the taxi company had absolutely no responsibility, and that it's still the job of the criminal justice system?

Really?

Which crimes should we expect companies to do this job?

I would imagine that allegations of murders would qualify, as would man slaughter. Clearly armed robbery or any form of crimes that involve bodily harm. Since we are dealing with a imaginary taxi driver, anyone alleged for scamming people seems reasonable that the taxi company end the employment in order to not enabling further crime.

But here come the question: Why would this system be preferred over the existing system of police custody? Is the taxi company more suited to evaluate the risk for further crimes?

"If they did so, and he raped a second woman, would you argue that the taxi company had absolutely no responsibility"

If the police let the person go and they raped a second victim, would you argue that the police had absolutely no responsibility?

> The taxi driver makes bail. Does the taxi company at that point say "Rape is a criminal matter, and it's up to the criminal justice system to adjudicate matters like this, not us" and put him back in a taxi?

When he's out on bail? No, i'd say then the taxi company probably ought to suspend him at least until his trial is over. But if he's acquitted? Or if the police say "no, he's ok"? Ya, they should absolutely put him back in a taxi.

Why is Airbnb responsible for the action of criminals? Shall they ban each and everyone who gets accused of something without proof? Don't we have to police and justice system to sort such things out?

Yes, why would they ever error on the side of caution with a host who has repeatedly been accused of rape?

Are you for real?

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