December 12, 2015
Information is supposed to be the antidote to distrust on the Internet. You’ll buy from an unknown retailer on Amazon because you can see the seller’s rating. You’ll get in a stranger’s car with Uber because you know up front the driver’s name and license plate. You’ll rent someone’s private home on Airbnb because the host has a public identity: Ann in Brooklyn who likes baking cakes and looks perfectly nice in her profile photo. The decline in online anonymity, though, may introduce its own problems. Researchers at the Harvard Business School studying Airbnb now warn that all this information makes it easier for us to discriminate….
Source: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/12/12/racial-bias-in-everything-airbnb-edition/
Menu