Airbnb is banning people trying to attend a white supremacist rally | Hacker News Reader

Airbnb is banning people trying to attend a white supremacist rally

techcrunch.com

34 pointsjanober55 comments

As a non-American, I find it quite worrying that American companies (specifically tech and SV ones) that operate globally are so eager to police politics on their platforms.

While I don't agree with White power rallies (which should go without saying), they have as much right to service as any other political group.

StackOverflow already took an "open-borders, anti-Trump, or get out mentality", so its not a stretch to say that any right leaning belief, or more acurately any non-extreme left belief will be under fire from more and more companies.

That is troubling indeed.

> StackOverflow already took an "open-borders, anti-Trump, or get out mentality", so its not a stretch to say that any right leaning belief, or more acurately any non-extreme left belief will be under fire from more and more companies.

This approach is burning bridges and giving up on any attempt to convince the other side. They'll still hold their views and they'll be forced into a bubble where their views are reinforced and are likely to become more extreme. Next election cycle could very well have people asking "how on earth did Trump get re-elected?" and the answer will be this style of attempted thought control.

Even worse, it's burning bridges with people in the middle and in many cases even the ones that are on your side.

People "in the middle" are not attending white power rallies.

But there are people in the middle that believe in the constitutional right to assembly and association.

Assemblies and associations with names like "Nazi uber" and "Hate van"? No thanks. Shut it down.

The constitution has very little to say about what assembly names are acceptable.

You know, that's a really hard one.

On the one hand I don't want a bunch of hateful thugs running about rallying actual hate normally. I just have to imagine if I were in a non western country and they had hate rallies against westerners, for example.

On the other hand, say in Venezuela or Cuba where politicians rally (or rallied) around hate for the US and US citizens, I mean, hateful as it is, should I want that suppressed forcefully?

Maybe more worrying is who gets classified, do they go by the Dept of Justice tally? Or do they make their own assessment?

Few in the middle believe these rights obligate a private company to host objectional material.

I wholeheartedly agree that it doesn't obligate them, but many in the middle recognize that allowing a culture of intolerance (on either side) to take root and spread is not in our long term best interest.

Sometimes slippery slopes are slippery.

You would be surprised how many people do not understand that the First Amendment applies to the government. A former manager, a seemingly rational person, once started to rant about pro-liberal censorship on Twitter (during the time that Yiannopoulos person was banned) and how that is a violation of his First Amendment rights. It took a few assertions on my part to finally get it through his head that that was not a valid argument on his part.

When the only speech that is relevant has been reduced to that which is published or broadcast with mass media; and when nearly all such venues are policed by supporters of the left, in a private context; then the Democratic party only needs to set the narrative in order to discredit or silence their opponents in relevant venues. This to me, is a tactic to circumvent the first amendment, and is very much done so by a major political party. Perhaps it is you who actually does not understand.

That is an unfair and polarizing take on my statement. It is also whataboutism. Newsmax, Fox, Breitbart, Limbaugh, Storm Front, etc. have more than enough outlets for the right wing to have their safe spaces. When Reddit was accused of setting the narrative to discredit their opponents in relevant venues, Voat provided a safe space for them to continue.

The Democratic party has not controlled the narrative for a long long time. I know people sometimes need a bogeyman to have something to rail against but this isn't it.

Again, First Amendment is to stop the US government from suppressing speech. If Voat had been shut down and the yellow bellies behind Breitbart arrested, you would have a case. But that hasn't happened. Instead the constant whining about 'fake news' by the current administration has been a far sinister and much more effective attempt at speech suppression by driving people into their various safe spaces.

Oh please, those outlets you've mentioned have been marginalized and made the butt of every joke since the 1990s, just about as long as they have existed. They are the original echo chambers. Saying that one is allowed to preach to the choir is a straw man.

If you want examples about these things happening, YouTube channels like this one have had their money taken away by Google due to being "offensive" when it is actually just not on the same side of the political fence. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DshdVX_MlSo

Again, my point with the First Amendment in my original comment stands, i.e. the government is not and has not been responsible for these alleged suppressions. You are making a point that you likely think is relevant to the overall thread and if so, please make it at the top level of the thread.

I strongly disagree that there is some vast left-wing/liberal conspiracy to suppress right-wing speech. I can concede that both sides do their part to ensure that the opposing side's viewpoint is suppressed, marginalized, and ridiculed (e.g. Fox News, Info Wars.) It pits people against each other for no good reason, causes deterioration in social well-being, and makes us unable to work together as a society. Maybe we can just agree that people are what they are and leave it at that.

> When the only speech that is relevant has been reduced to that which is published or broadcast with mass media; and when nearly all such venues are policed by supporters of the left, in a private context

The rise of the right and the general rightward shift over the past several decades has been largely driven by the right policing and pressuring the mass media (the Democratic Party shifting it's center of power from center-left to center-right in the 1990s helped); to the extent there is even a remotely defensible appearance that the right is not favored by the mass media it's because in theblast couple years the Republican Party has shot rightward faster than the media and public discourse has, outpacing the movement of the Overton Window.

Is someone depriving them of that right? All I see is a private company refusing to serve people that have broken an agreement they signed.

True, but they do get turned off when people and politicians who are seemingly "normal" people get branded an alt right neo Nazi (Jake Tapper was accused of this for challenging Linda Saraour). So, sure, the voter in Wisconsin who voted for Obama twice and pulled the lever for Trump this time isn't listening to Richard Spencer podcasts and larping at white power rallies - but as the Left continues to paint in broader strokes I see the likelihood of Trump winning again increasing.

> As a non-American, I find it quite worrying that American companies (specifically tech and SV ones) that operate globally are so eager to police politics on their platforms.

It's because of the most liberal free speech clause in American constitution. Because it is not govt's responsibility to police speech, when speech gets too unbearable to most people, the companies have to step in or else they risk their platforms disappear.

While I don't agree with White power rallies (which should go without saying), they have as much right to service as any other political group.

Equating White power groups with other groups is truly foolish. There is no debate about whether their views are beneficial or have any merit. They will not care about you if the situations were reversed.

"While I don't agree with White power rallies (which should go without saying), they have as much right to service as any other political group."

And AirBNB has the right to refuse service to anyone for any reason, outside the protected classes of race, gender, etc.

Political views aren't a protected class in the U.S. They can ban people for any old reason, and if there isn't any general backlash against banning white supremacists, there'll be no specific negative consequence to this action.

The leap from "white supremacists not allowed" to "any non-extreme left belief not allowed" does not make sense.

> While I don't agree with White power rallies (which should go without saying), they have as much right to service as any other political group.

So no right.

Except when we let bad actors use that exact same justification, then its ok for a christian baker to not make a cake for a gay wedding.

Gay isn't a political party or affiliation.

Gay marriage is a political position, they may not have been able to not serve someone because they were gay, but following the same reasoning as Airbnb here they should not have been compelled to make a gay wedding cake.

We have protections- some based on the constitution, some based on individual state and federal laws, others based on common law precedent- that prevent discrimination against certain classes of individuals. In most cases those classes cover things that people have no control over (being born black isn't a choice, and neither is being born gay).

Being a bigot (which is what white supremacists literally are, so this is not just some hyperbolic statement) is not a protected class. No one has to let the klan show up in uniform to their restaurant, or let people use their platform to promote hate speech.

To be clear the click bade headline here really is awful- no one got banned for going to the rally, they got banned for hosting parties in the AirBNB rentals themselves. They used AirBNB to set up their hate events, and AirBNB put a stop to it.

Awesome. The idea that companies are apolitical can't die fast enough. No person-to-person platform can reach scale and be apolitical.

You end up with companies like reddit and twitter who are too timid to make a stand about what their rules really are, and then waffle until they're forced to deal either with the PR nightmare of suddenly changing directions at scale, or the PR nightmare of allowing shitbags nobody wants to deal with to run rampant on the platform because they don't want to change directions at scale.

If you really want to support "anything goes" you have to be willing to be 2006 /b/. Turns out the legal, advertising, and financial implications of this decision are painful (even for 4chan).

If you're not willing to be /b/, you've default accepted that free speech is off the table. If that's the case, the best thing you can do is actually spend thought and effort on your principles, and on enforcing them swiftly and evenhandedly.

Speech is free on the internet, and it should be. Speech is not free on a single company's website, and it shouldn't be.

Curation is a very important form of product design, and curation of users (or lack thereof) is no exception.

Probably a dumb question but what does /b/ reference here?

It refers to the general conversation area in 4chan where most of the crazy there happened.

> No person-to-person platform can reach scale and be apolitical.

Companies that are too political can't scale at all, they put to many people off. Most overtly political business like feminist cafe's or LGBT bookshops die pretty quickly. In the tech world, if I could go back half a decade and know how political github would become I and many other people would have never signed up.

> The idea that companies are apolitical can't die fast enough.

Why do you want to make life more complicated? When I go get my morning coffee I don't want to know what the companies opinion on gay marriage is. When I go watch a movie I don't want to know what the makers opinions are on progressive taxation. When I buy a phone I don't want to know the manufacturers opinion on global warming.

> Companies that are too political can't scale at all

If being against white supremacy is "too political", then what you're really saying is that companies shouldn't be political at all—which is a reasonable viewpoint, but I think the phrasing "too political" is a bit misleading.

When I stay at an Airbnb I'd like to know that my host isn't a KKK member. I'm sure most of Airbnb's customer's feel this way. I'd say that Airbnb's services are much more personal (in a person-to-person way) than coffee, movies or phones.

> When I stay at an Airbnb I'd like to know that my host isn't a KKK member. I'm sure most of Airbnb's customer's feel this way.

I've got some bad news then: you don't know that. Unless the host has swastikas on their forehead or explicit tells people then neither Airbnb or it's customers know that. Every single time you book there is a chance you'll be staying in the home of a KKK member.

But as shown by recent hot topics, most people prefer to be blissfully unaware.

> I've got some bad news then: you don't know that.

Thanks for the snark, it really helps the discussion. Let me rephrase to include some nuance:

When I stay at an Airbnb I'd like to think that the company has some interest in the host not being an openly card-carrying KKK member, and would take reasonable action to remove those hosts from their services, as they seem to have done in this instance. I realise that this does not mean there is no chance that I'll be staying in the home of a KKK member, but thanks for the tip.

The epidemic problem with bay area companies mixing their leftist politics and business is very disconcerting. They are alienating the majority population of the country, and are acting in the same manner as groups they claim to loathe. It is pure hypocrisy.

Bay area companies enjoy diversity and inclusion, as long as it fits within their narrative.

They're alienating people like myself who are firmly on the left. The left used to care about socio-economics, but they've abandoned the white working class (and the working class of every minority) in favor of identity politics. The left used to care about everyone getting access to a decent education and healthcare instead of denigrating the poor as racist rednecks. The left used to be in favor of helping their neighbors and not opening borders.

Now people who are on the left and many of those that could be are left with no one to vote for.

Your imagined idea of the left is probably fine with you leaving if you are leaving because a group can't spread a message of death against black people. The high road against disagreeable speech is fine, but aligning yourself with groups that have killed based on race shouldn't allow you to have the benefit of the doubt.

I'm not disillusioned with the left because of this one incident, or any one incident. It's a trend I've noticed over the last few years. If I had to pick some single incidents then Brexit and the Trump election would stand out, the left now has utter contempt for the white working class.

From my perspective as a native Southerner, Silicon Valley seems like a groupthink cult/bubble. Just as much or even more so than the most rural areas around here. Add on the insane cost of living and it does lose a lot of appeal for certain outsiders.

Shouldn't this be a situation where the market decides, then?

AirBNB, developed in leftist SF: No white supremacists on our system.

AryanBNB, developed in northern Idaho: White supremacists welcome!

If people are really that turned off by AirBNB banning white supremacists, they'd flock to AryanBNB, wouldn't they?

For my part, I just don't think this slope is that slippery. I'd happily prohibit white supremacists from using any service I ever developed, or if I ever opened a retail shop, I'd happily ask them to leave (reserving the right to refuse service and all that).

But that's just me. Surely the white supremacists can develop short-term rental apps to cater to everyone, can't they? (They wouldn't prohibit any specific groups from using their services, I'm sure, ha ha.)

That reason isn't consistent with popular ideology. If it was valid, you could also make the same argument for AirBNB banning gays and say "well, gays can make their own GayBNB if they want. Let the market decide!" No. That wouldn't be fair for gays to be sidelined to the necessarily inferior minority service. Most customers won't use the GayBNB as a political gesture. Just as most Uber users didn't really switch to Lyft when they were angry at Uber because, well, they kind of liked the cheap and available rides.

The difference is that we've agreed for the most part that sexual orientation should be a protected class, and being a white supremacist should not be.

It's so blindingly obvious that I have no idea why you'd ever make that argument.

Nobody cares about sidelining white supremacists.

They are not alienating the majority of the population. Conservatives are in the minority and they're also extremely old, so not really part of their audience.

This could indicate the need for a company like Airbnb that proactively markets to people who think this way. Markets abhor a vacuum.

If companies become political, then they should expect competitors who will use politics as a market differentiator. They should also expect customers to differentiate between their options based on politics as well.

Holiday Inn: "Yes, we have availability. How many nights?"

Airbnb: fuck off.

To me, this is a perfect example of why hotels and motels will ALWAYS matter.

Are you really so naive as to think that most hotel chains just turn a blind eye to white supremacist groups? I bet you almost none of them would host a KKK conference in their premises.

And I bet the net return for them would still be positive for that.

I am naive for sure.

Would a hotel reservations agent google my name to find information? No.

Would an abb or home away person google me? Maybe - probably?

No reason individuals could book rooms independently in a hotel.

Banning people because of their beliefs and customs is the opposite of what they tell their users to do their Nondiscrimination Policy:

... to engage with each other respectfully, even when views may not reflect their beliefs or upbringings. Airbnb’s members bring to our community an incredible diversity of background experiences, beliefs, and customs.

Words like that sound hostile and hateful to me nowadays. They're so often used to ostracize people who are already widely hated.

Banning SOME of the people that were trying to attend the event.

What is actually going on here? The articles and comment go on like everyone is getting banned for any association to an event, and debating hypotheticals.

Who is getting banned and for what actual reasons? Any hosts? Some guests? Who, what, and the nuances of why are notoriously missing from this

Not a problem.

You aren't worried that Airbnb's net will catch innocent people? For example: Journalists covering the rally, or counter-protesters.

These people weren't hiding anything about their position on this matter. So no, not really.

Do you use AirBnB? How about I claim there is a rally in any city you want to stay, or complain to AB you are hosting ebil racists and get you blacklisted?

Is it just a claim though? It seems quite factual

Reply on news.ycombinator.com