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Comment by lazyasciiart | Hacker News Reader

Cunningham’s July 2018 Medium post about his experience went viral — and soon afterward, Airbnb responded to apologize and reinstate his account. “You were removed after we received a report alleging inappropriate behavior in an Airbnb listing. Upon further review, we determined that removal was not required based on this report. We hope you give us another try and again, we apologize for any inconvenience,” a representative said in an email seen by MarketWatch.

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/party-houses-will-get-you-...

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Which shows why bans with no reason given (as is popular with many tech companies, citing that they don't want to tell abusers how they got caught) are so problematic for both sides: It will lead to the banned person speculating, usually incorrectly, and often publicly because a shitstorm on social media is the only remaining form of appeal.

citing that they don't want to tell abusers how they got caught

Oh they cite it, but it's all about cost savings. Customer service costs. By refusing to interact, a platform like airbnb saves into 7, likely 8 figures easily.

Abusers/scammers always, always know why they are banned. It doesn't help a bit to not-disclose. A google search will turn up the why of it too.

The real gain here is fiscal.

I'm beginning to think that the only response here is legislative. Make it illegal to cancel accounts without a full rendition as to why, and evidence to validate the same. Essentially, statements of "you broke the ToS" turn into "here's how you broke our ToS".

And most importantly, the ability to challenge the evidence.

To make it easy on small corps, maybe there should be a corp-size requirement. Lots of stuff (fiscal duties, for example) change over a certain size.

Ahh, the ole' "go viral to get support" route.

Very good course of action, assuming you can go viral.

Gotta love the "we apologize for any inconvenience"... Hey AirBnB how about you apologize for being giant f*kwits?

> f*kwits

What is the purpose of half-heartedly censoring the word "fuckwits", when it is immediately obvious to everyone what you are saying?

- HN doesn't ban users, or stop comments from being posted if they contain the word fuck.

- If you have moral objections to saying/writing fuck, then why even use it in the first place? Why not say something else?

- You are not sparing anyone else from the word, because we are all filling in the blanks automatically even if we don't want to.

So please tell me why you did it. I cannot think of a reason.

If going viral is the only way someone can make him/herself heard, then it's high time for a regulator to step in ...

When it makes the news that a corporate titan unjustly banned someone, it really stinks the the response is almost always just a one-off fix for the person in question, and never properly fixing the banning system to protect all of the people who aren't lucky enough to go viral when they're unjustly banned.

According to the same article, the guy never went back. Good for him, and I hope he stands firmly by his principle.

" But Cunningham, who believes the company only acted “because the story got so much attention,” says he hasn’t used his account since its reactivation. He believes the company sees its customers as “data points” rather than individuals. “If somebody is showing in their policies that they really don’t care about the individual, I think it’s just a really dangerous thing,” he said.

“He was removed by mistake,” the Airbnb spokesman told MarketWatch when asked about Cunningham’s case. “We reinstated his account and apologized to him for the inconvenience.” "

A heartfelt apology with some conciliatory gesture would be the absolute minimum after such injust horror story. But no. All rbnb did judging from this, is damage control of the viral story, and they even failed at that.

The whole "naked while the host came in" comment seemed to be more important than the writer realized

To intrude in the privacy of unclothed people, then later spin the story in such a way, reveals a quite sinister mind.

Their refusal to tell him why he was banned or give him an appeal process means this 'apology' was bullshit from the get go.

I'd rather stay at a best western than an airbnb 99% of the time, and policies like the above are part of it.

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