Airbnb bans all users from Russia or Belarus, including those fleeing | Hacker News Reader

Airbnb bans all users from Russia or Belarus, including those fleeing

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13 pointscormacrelf9 comments

Context: a huge amount of Belarusian resistance, journalism & political opposition is done by people who have fled. Here’s a journalist who will be impacted: https://twitter.com/hannaliubakova/status/151128535502620672.... This move is surely well-intentioned but goes too far and will make it harder for the opposition to conduct its business overseas.

An equivalent would be a hotel refusing service to a government in exile, because of what the occupying power is doing in the homeland. There is indeed a government in exile for Belarus. I call on anyone who works for AirBnB to raise this with corporate management.

To be fair airbnb seems to just randomly ban people anyway given by the frequency of that post type here.

Update: don’t know if this post is how we got through to AirBnB, but they got in touch with Hanna Liubakova and clarified that it will only apply to people inside Belarus and Russia. I call this a win, but please anyone doing stuff like this, unclear and inconsistent comms and help pages are an awful way for asylum seekers to find out if they can stay somewhere tonight. https://twitter.com/hannaliubakova/status/151137302624746292...

Assuming the situation is as described, that would be illegal in many countries. Practically a textbook example of discrimination by nationality. Sadly refugees aren't usually in a position to be exercising their legal rights.

How many people fleeing use Airbnb, compared to regular russian tourists?

About 300 thousand Russians fled the country recently. There are almost no Russian tourists anywhere at the moment.

Sanctions aren’t just for those “at the moment”. Russians don’t go to western countries for holidays?

Currently there are no flights and frequently no way to get visas, also MasterCard and Visa cards are no more in Russia.

This is part of the reason people assumed the worst about the imprecise and inconsistent language in the public statements / FAQ pages. I think there is a remaining effect that people can’t book holidays within Russia or Belarus. But that was covered by the announcement they were ceasing operations there (ie no more listings in geo area, no need to check where customers are from). Basically terrible comms by a company whose product is an app and thinks of everything else as secondary. A lesson to tech companies everywhere, to grow up.

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