Airbnb comes down hard on a sketchy host, a Wall Street Journal story about big U.S. tech companies setting up shop in Canada continues to spur discussion, and Twitter shuts down 200,000 accounts believed to be part of a Chinese government sponsored campaign that’s against the protest movement in Honk Kong.
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Being misled is terrible. It’s even worse when you spend money on an Airbnb through a verified host, only to discover upon arrival that the floors are grimy and covered in broken mugs, and that the beds are chewed through thanks to mice. But that’s why Airbnb is taking serious action against one of its biggest Canadian hosts after a CBC investigation discovered one listing being posted under different names, all of them artificially boosting each others’ ratings and ultimately misleading guests about how pretty the unit was. But a lot of people on Twitter are pointing the finger at Airbnb because it didn’t warn travelers, who had already made reservations with the host, that the listing had been suspended for months, raising questions about the company’s ability to protect guests.
It’s a conversation tech leaders in Canada have had for some time, but it came up again in a recent Wall Street Journal article and LinkedIn is still buzzing about it. While some people deem the flurry of tech activity in North America’s fourth largest city with the fourth largest pool of tech workers – that’s Toronto by the way – some people see the invasion of big tech as a major problem. That Wall Street Journal’s article about Silicon Valley looking north has garnered a lot of attention, and many Canadians are pointing out how these incoming giants are overshadowing domestic brands and robbing Canada of its intellectual assets. However, on the flip side, many US executives are praising Toronto’s growing tech industry and encouraging peers to join it.
And lastly, thousands of Redditors are gravitating towards the news that Twitter is shutting down 200,000 accounts believed to be part of a Chinese government influence campaign against the pro-democracy protest movement in Hong Kong. But many commenters are saying that Twitter doesn’t deserve any pat on the back for this, considering how easy it is to create new accounts and because there could be many more accounts that Twitter has left alone.
That’s all the tech news that’s trending right now. Hashtag Trending is a part of the ITWC Podcast network. Add us to your Alexa Flash Briefing or your Google Home daily briefing.