One main feature of the sharing economy is that it relies heavily on social media and the Internet. Since people are dealing with each other online rather than in person, it becomes imperative that our online profiles be reputable and approachable to build trust. In line with the old saying "don't trust whatever you see on the Internet", people are becoming more skepitcal toward the information that is being shown online. To maintain and even build trust, people would thus rely on reviews and recommendations that have been left by other users within the community.
People trust people, and people trust good reviews. Hence, having a reputable platform of quality reviews would correlate to having more revenue. In the example of renting out your home on Airbnb, or selling your preowned items on Amazon or eBay, the quality of reviews plays a significant role in the buyer decision-making process. It gives people a sense of comfort knowing that a product or service is legitimate and lives up to a certain standard. Thus, the more information you share, the more likely it is that people will trust you.
However, sharing too much information could potentially result in discrimination among different income and ethnic groups. To encourage people to be open within the shared economy, people are encouraged to upload pictures of themselves with basic information about them, and rate each other after every successful transaction. This creates a virtual personal connection and friendliness in the community. The sharing economy is supposed to encourage more people to connect with one another and bond over common ideas. But with recent studies on racial discrimination, such sharing economy countries are at risk.
Researches at MIT, Stanford and the University of Washington found that African American users often wait longer to get a ride on ride-hailing services such as Uber and Lyft. They are also far more likely than white Americans to get canceled on by drivers. African Americans not only face issues when it comes to transportation. They also have tougher times renting out rooms on Airbnb (white names have a 16% higher chance of booking on Airbnb than African American names) and selling goods on eBay. It is not only the pictures that create racial bias - people are also able to differentiate your race just by someone's name. An experiment was done in Seattle, where black-sounding names of people had to wait about 30% longer than someone of a white-sounding name. Through these studies, it can be seen that despite efforts being made to have a more inclusive society, some form of racial bias and stereotypical judgement still lingers in this day and age.
With such racial discrimination still very present in society today, these companies have adopted measures to curb the issue. Now, before accepting a trip, Uber drivers can only see a passenger's location and star rating. Airbnb has also experimented with reducing the visibility of photos on booking pages and relied more on the reviews of the home. Success of the new proposed solution is also hindered, since photos as well as real names are necessary in creating trust and safety on a platform where everyone are essentially strangers to each other. In Uber's new proposed strategy where the driver can only see the location and star rating of a user, it becomes impractical if the driver is not able to identify the user on a crowded street at location.
Under a new policy, Airbnb has since implemented better measures to prevent discrimination of any form. Once a host rejects a potential guest when the space has been booked by someone else, Airbnb will automatically block these dates out, disallowing someone else from seeing it as available. This would prevent hosts from denying a user based on their race, only to offer the same dates to someone of a more preferred race. The company also explicitly reminds hosts that they cannot decline guests based on their skin colour, ethnicity, nationality nor sexual orientation. Both users and guests are also required to agree to a clause stating that they would treat all members within the community equally with respect and without judgement or bias.
Such racial issues remain as a challenge to society. In order for society to progress, it is important to start changing our mindsets into becoming more accepting individuals and to welcome people who are 'different' from us, rather than shunning them away. In my next post, I will discuss the success of opening up homes to the less privileged and offering refugees a place to stay.
References:
https://medium.com/the-sharing-economy/why-you-should-expose-yourself-online-more-b47e6f7d32ef#.s1c4gmzdp
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/11/02/the-sharing-economy-has-a-serious-racism-problem-but-there-may-be-a-way-to-fix-it/
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/09/08/how-airbnb-plans-to-fix-its-racial-bias-problem/
http://www.citylab.com/housing/2016/05/brown-v-board-v-airbnb/483725/
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