Airbnb removes listing for '1830s slave cabin' after TikTok lawyer's viral video, says it will remove similar properties

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Airbnb removes listing for '1830s slave cabin' after TikTok lawyer's viral video, says it will remove similar properties
Airbnb apologized for allowing a listing on its platform that advertised an "1830s slave cabin."Airbnb
  • Airbnb apologized for allowing a listing on its platform that advertised an "1830s slave cabin."
  • The since-deleted listing was last week called out by a lawyer on TikTok.
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Airbnb on Monday apologized for allowing a listing on its platform that advertised an "1830s slave cabin" where enslaved people once lived. The company also stated to Insider that it would remove all listings that promoted themselves as having formerly housed enslaved people.

"Properties that formerly housed the enslaved have no place on Airbnb," a company spokesperson told Insider. "We apologize for any trauma or grief created by the presence of this listing, and others like it, and that we did not act sooner to address this issue."

The company updated its policies following days of online backlash after an entertainment lawyer posted a TikTok video on Friday that called the listing out, as The Washington Post reported.

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"How is this okay in somebody's mind to rent this out — a place where human beings were kept as slaves — rent this out as a bed and breakfast," said Wynton Yates, who has 41,000 followers on TikTok, in the video. Yates' initial video calling out the listing has been viewed 2.6 million times.

The since-deleted listing, shown in Yates' TikTok video, advertised the Greenville, Mississippi, property as the Panther Burn Cabin. It boasted of features like access to Netflix and HBO. In addition to advertising the property as former slave quarters, the listing also claimed the property had been used as a "tenant sharecroppers cabin" and a "medical office."

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As Yates noted in his TikTok video, the photos in the listing showed the cabin had been upgraded to feature running water, a claw-foot bathtub, and new light fixtures.

An Airbnb spokesperson confirmed to Insider on Tuesday that it had removed the listing and had updated its policies to forbid these types of properties.

In addition to removing the Mississippi listing, the company said it was "removing listings that are known to include former slave quarters in the United States" and said it's "working with experts to develop new policies that address other properties associated with slavery."

Airbnb did not answer Insider's inquiry on Tuesday about how many listings it has removed that fit that description. A report from Mic published on Friday found several listings advertising various slave quarters. All of the listings mentioned in the report have been removed by Tuesday.

Brad Hauser took ownership of the property in July and told The Washington Post it was "the previous owner's decision to market the building as the place where slaves once slept," a decision he told the outlet he "strongly opposed," according to the report.

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"I am not interested in making money off slavery," he said, according to The Post.

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