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A comment on I’m a black man – What happened when I booked an Airbnb. Parent comment

Re:I’m a black man – What happened when I booked an Airbnb by adventured on Friday May 27, 2016 @03:52PM (#11788463)
Property owners sometimes interact physically with the guests. Given that fact, there are a lot of reasons why the property owners should be able to see pictures of the guests. Being able to visually identify that the person you're interacting with face to face is in fact your guest, is a critical safety measure.
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Re:I’m a black man – What happened when I booked an Airbnb by lbn on Friday May 27, 2016 @04:17PM (#11788652)
Why do they need to see the picture before booking? If they only want to know what the guests look like to recognise them in person when they arrive, Airbnb would only show the picture after booking.

If Airbnb required and stored pictures they could be used to identify them in case they trash the house.

I can't think of anything else the property owners would claim to use the profile pictures for.

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Re:I’m a black man – What happened when I booked an Airbnb by Millennium on Friday May 27, 2016 @04:30PM (#11788757)
Would showing the picture post-booking only really help, though?

I admit that I'm not familiar with the booking process on AirBNB, but I'd be really surprised to hear that a booking, once completed, can't be cancelled. Wouldn't the same people cancelling reservations now just cancel them post-booking instead?

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Re:I’m a black man – What happened when I booked an Airbnb by tobz on Friday May 27, 2016 @04:41PM (#11788833)
Consistently reneging on bookings, though, is a strong signal, coupled with reports of discrimination. It's much easier to brush off before hand.. "oh, our plans actually changed, so we can accommodate you.

(granted, this can still happen, legitimately, even in a post-booking display mode.. but post-booking cancellations could be a signal for flakiness and, overall, a reason to put hosts on notice that they need to shape up)

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Re:I’m a black man – What happened when I booked an Airbnb by lbn on Friday May 27, 2016 @04:39PM (#11788820)
It could be done just before they are about to arrive. There are many ways to make sure people are not discriminated on Airbnb and the time it would take to implement those changes would most likely cost less than the bad press they are getting.

Even if they don't care about people being discriminated against they could at least think about the loss of potential customers.

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Re:I’m a black man – What happened when I booked an Airbnb by kelnos on Friday May 27, 2016 @04:00PM (#11788519)
Wouldn't an ID check or similar on arrival be sufficient?
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