AirBNB removes neo-Nazis' accounts after white supremacist forum leak
The company managed to procure 60 accounts on the lodging site that belonged to members of a neo-Nazi terrorism forum and remove them from the platform.
By TAMAR URIEL-BEERIAirbnb apartment (Illustrative)(photo credit: PIXABAY)AirBNB is removing neo-Nazis' accounts from the online marketplace for lodging and homestays after their identities were revealed through the leaked Iron March forum, whose members held extreme Right-wing, neo-Nazi and white supremacist positions, according to a report by Mako.AirBNB used the information released from the forum, which was created in 2011, to track down those neo-Nazis and remove them from its platform.The company managed to procure 60 accounts on the lodging site that belonged to members of the forum and remove them from the platform."This was a no-brainer," a company spokesperson told Gizmodo, a tech and science website. "When we see people on our platform pursuing behavior antithetical to our Community Commitment, we take action to prioritize the safety of our community."Through our trust and safety systems, we are continuously seeking to proactively identify those who could put our hosts and guests at risk," the spokesperson concluded. "Anyone sympathetic to neo-Nazi ideology and violent extremism has absolutely no place on AirBNB, and our community is a better place without them.”AirBNB already has strict rules in their mandatory "community commitment" which every host must sign, stating that the hosts will not discriminate against anyone due to race, religion, sex or sexual orientation. Nearly 1.2 million accounts were removed as a result of the rule being released in 2016 for refusing to sign the commitment, according to Mako.The Iron March forum was created by a Russian extremist named Alexander Mukhitdinov, according to Gizmodo. A team of neo-Nazi terrorists originally gathered on the platform, which was then linked to five different murders, as well as violence in Charlottesville and a Las Vegas bomb plot.AirBNB had planned on removing homes listed in the West Bank in Israeli settlements, but gone back on the decision after receiving harsh backlash.
