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I recently had a guest who left a bad review calling my building manager a ‘b_ _ _ h’ (written like this with the middle 3 letters blanked out). This guest caused $300 in damages (which was luckily covered by the host guarantee), had 3 guests staying (when he booked for 1 guest), and checked out 2 hours late.
My biggest issue is about the review and having the profanity on my listing page. I worry about the way this reflects on me as a host, the environment I create for my guests, and even the fact that Airbnb permits this kind of language and lack of professionalism and respect.
The Airbnb content policy says ‘The following content is never allowed on Airbnb:
Content that endorses or promotes illegal or harmful activity, or that is profane, vulgar, obscene, threatening, or harassing.’
I called Airbnb and they are refusing to remove it because they ‘cannot assume intent’ with this mystery blanked out word. I asked for examples of what would violate their content policy and the case manager told me that racial slurs and gendered slurs are violations. The word used in the review is clearly a gendered insult.
This was a frustrating and disheartening conversation with Airbnb. I have been a Superhost for over 3 years with 6 listings and it is really disappointing to learn that Airbnb supports this kind of language (as long as some letters are blanked out).
Yeah this is super disappointing but not surprising at all…You would think Airbnb would want to fall on the right side of an issue like this though since it could be pretty damaging for them (calling women bitches doesn’t really fly these days).
Maybe try tweeting these screenshots. Some people seem to get some help that way. Even if they put all symbols rather than deleting letters its clear that it’s meant to be insulting.
This just got worse. I posted this scenario on Reddit and someone gave me an example of how far this could be pushed if they really permit communication like this (as long as parts of the words are bleeped out). I sent this HYPOTHETICAL review to Airbnb to clarify their stance using this very appalling, derogatory, racist and discriminatory (on so many levels!!!) language with parts of the words bleeped out. Note that this language is not condoned by me or the op on Reddit. This was just created to send to Airbnb to see if they would allow a review like this
This was a really frustrating experience for the past 18 hours or so, and after numerous tweets, and Facebook messages, Airbnb still stood by their stance. However, once I said that their stance was violating ethical and legal boundaries, and supported discrimination, it seemed to trigger them to escalate the case to a higher up team.
I received an email from this higher up team and the review was removed within 20 minutes. What a relief!! I sent a lot of Tweets and FB messages and was not backing down so it is hard to say what exactly made them finally reevaluate this case.
I will be submitting feedback about needing to revise their policies when it comes to how they have chosen to plead ignorance when it comes to “not assuming” the meaning of a vile word that has some letters bleeped out.
I had a similar case but the vile words were in private feedback and it wasn’t removed because it wasn’t in the public section. Congrats on getting it removed.
This is a review waiting to be removed. If it’s acceptable to call a host’s associate this, can then it would be possible to call a guest the same. And that ain’t gonna happen…
Situations like this usually involve turning up the volume on social media, but personally I would advise Air of your own intent beforehand.
You should ask if it would have been okay if they called the Airbnb site and their staff a fu–ing wh–e? Seriously. How serious is this Airbnb at times?
They can’t assume what the missing letters are? That is so pretentious. If they had written “Me no speak the English. Dictionary no have b____h word”, I would give them some credibility. But the case manager wrote so articulately, it comes off as a kind of passive aggressive, in-your-face, suck on that, sort of response. In my experience, the more you chase up a legitimate issue like this with Airbnb, the harder they dig their heels in. Twitter and Facebook do seem like your best option. It’s a red flag that the company you are dealing with do the right thing only after you expose them publicly. I’d love to see a spate of documentaries or news items about this kind of thing. That would be the only hope of seeing some sort of shift in the way they respond to problems at that company. I’d be curious to hear what results you get if you do use social media to resolve this.
Sorry lisserboomer I missed a bunch of messages and just noticed that you posted a detailed description of your hard-earned success in getting this removed. Well done! It’s horrible that not only do you have to take it to social media but you have to figure out exactly how to craft the right words to get them to pretend it was escalated to a higher team whom critically evaluated your case and looked at things from a different perspective, granting your wish. Seriously? I sometimes wonder if they are only allowed a certain quota of removed reviews and so came up with that intensely ludicrous first decision to let the review stand. I also wonder if they have pre-written (lawyer reviewed) responses that they can select from when communicating with us. So the “case manager” comes off sounding educated and intelligent when in fact they have the reasoning capabilities of a chimp and are paid in line with this. Something rational has to explain this.
