Airbnb Will Now Let Users Who’ve Experienced Sexual Assault Sue the Company

On Friday, Airbnb introduced that it’s updating its Terms of Service to drop sure authorized provisions for company and hosts utilizing its platform. In instances involving sexual assault or sexual harassment, Airbnb says, it should not drive customers to undergo the corporate’s arbitration course of—letting them sue the corporate straight.

In a blog post explaining the upcoming change, the corporate famous that these new Terms will codify insurance policies that Airbnb informally carried out two years in the past. Since January 2019, the weblog notes, the corporate hasn’t pressured arbitration on any of the “very few” sexual harassment instances raised by company or hosts.

Per Airbnb, these new phrases ought to be prepared by this fall. And till these new Terms go into impact, Airbnb says it “will continue not to enforce our arbitration provisions as it relates to these cases.”

“We believe that survivors should be able to bring claims in whatever forum is best for them,” the weblog goes on. “We encourage our industry peers within the travel and hospitality space to consider taking similar steps for their respective communities.”

Once these new insurance policies are set in stone, they need to be just like the insurance policies in place for Airbnb’s personal staff. Since 2018, the corporate’s gone on record saying that it might not require Airbnb staff to make use of arbitration in instances involving sexual harassment at work. The transfer got here across the similar time that different main tech gamers—like Facebook, Uber, and eBay—modified their very own insurance policies to nix pressured arbitration.

G/O Media could get a fee

Airbnb’s weblog goes on to say that incidents involving sexual assault are “extremely rare” on its platform, however once they crop up, the corporate takes them critically and has an inside security workforce particularly educated to work with victims. “This team has undergone training in trauma-informed methodology, and they prioritize supporting and empowering survivors in their healing process,” the weblog notes.

While this new replace is promising, it’s additionally one which doesn’t apply to all the various kinds of harassment, just like the racial discrimination some company have reported over and over again from their hosts.