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Airbnb host caught on camera threatening to ‘smack’ guest in face (opendemocracy.net)
3 points by lambertsimnel on Jan 17, 2023 | hide | past | favorite | 2 comments


This really underlines the entire value proposition of hotels, motels, and other professional accomodation - you have a legal entity to hold accountable in case something goes wrong, and they have a reputation to uphold that economically discourages bad or malicious service.

The idea that it's somehow undesirable to check in a a hotel as opposed to shacking up in what is effectively a random property of unknown safety standards being ran by a person of unknown mental state with virtually no oversight or accountability is plainly unwise to anyone who spends more than a passing moment considering the risks.


seems weird to me that there is almost no location mentioned in the article - avon and something, which i presume is in the uk somewhere?

i feel like i understand the world pretty well, but there are lots of things i don't get yet - seemingly pretty basic things - like why services like Airbnb would be so anxious to continue to protect would-be abusers, killers, etc.

Ditto for all the social services like google, twitter, fakebook, etc.

OK - don't actively police your content, i get it, it costs money, and it's just a few (thousands of) rapes and murders and child trafficking victims and etc. - but if someone actually calls you and makes a report and all that, why not just ban the user at least temporarily?

like, as some type of fake precaution, or PR move, or _something_. maybe it sets a bad precedent somehow, legally? like if you pretend to care then it might look like you actually care, like you're actually paying attention, therefore you're taking some responsibility, therefore you're legally culpable, as least civilly if not criminally?

as far as the UK and/or cops in general -- i mean, i guess it just ping pongs back and forth between the US and UK, but lately it seems like the UK has the upper hand in terms of extreme misogyny in police departments -- protecting cop rapists for decades, participating in and/or protecting child sex trafficking rings, etc. etc. US cops consistently protect rapists, as far as i know, in almost every US state and really go out of their way to do so, by underfunding rape investigations, trashing and otherwise mishandling rape kits, intimidating and humiliating rape victims, on and on.

i get that misogyny is a national pastime for the entire cultures of at least the US and UK, not just the police departments, but it almost seems like a problem we should do something about.

like, ai is nice, but.... can it help dampen misogyny a bit? toxic masculinity? violence? terrorism? etc.?

oh - it's probably already being used to dial up all of that and more.




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