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COMMColloquium

Racial Bias in Reviews and Ways to Combat It With Reviews on Airbnb

Chao Yu, Visiting Lecturer, Communication, Cornell University

2pm in 102 Mann

Reception to follow in the Hub

 

Platforms in the sharing economy are especially vulnerable due to greater dependence on mutual trust in sharing a ride, residence, or date with a stranger. These platforms rely on reviews to build trust, but how these peer evaluations are subject to racial bias and how these peer evaluations influence racial bias are only beginning to be explored. In this talk, Dr. Yu uses two big data studies to investigate racial bias and online reviews on Airbnb. In the first study, he investigates racial bias in review acquisition, an important platform-specific feature on sharing economy platforms. Particularly, the study reveals that minority hosts are at a disadvantage in the early stages of their business as it takes them longer than majority hosts to acquire reviews. In the second study, he draws on previous research on in-group preference and examines Airbnb guests’ preference for same-race hosts and same-race recommendations. This study demonstrates the possibility of algorithmically harness racial bias to combat racial bias. Dr. Yu concludes by discussing the impacts of new media platforms on social bias, and strategies to mitigate the bias on those platforms.

 

Dr. Chao Yu is a visiting lecturer in the Department of Communication at Cornell University. His research focuses on social impacts of new media. Specifically, he uses big data studies to uncover hidden patterns on new media platforms that can create inequalities or biases, as well as identifying policies and strategies to improve them. Overall, he has developed his research in multiple contexts, including online review sites, the sharing economy, and social media, that examine various topics such as social inequality, social status, human sociality, and climate change.

 

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