Dear CouchSurfing.com,

How are you doing? You’ve been acting in unexpected ways recently, and we need to talk.

The Case of Dino Maglio

A year-long international investigation carried out by the Investigative Reporting Project Italy, has revealed allegations that a Couchsurfing host named Dino Maglio drugged and quite likely sexually abused 14 of his Couchsurfing guests. The allegations come from Maglio’s own Couchsurfing guests.

Police raided Dino Maglio’s flat after a 16 year old Australian girl and her mother who had been his Couchsurfing guests reported him for sexual assault. He was released on bail and instructed not to access the Couchsurfing site again.

“But”, reported the Sidney Morning Herald:

“10 days after being arrested for the Australian girl’s rape, he had acquired a new mobile device and had created new accounts online. In late March 2014, prosecutor Falcone and his team raided the flat again. They found Maglio with two Couchsurfers, both young women, one an Argentinian and an Armenian, who appeared to have been drugged.”

The Alarming Aspect

The alarming aspect of this case isn’t that Couchsurfing makes sexual abuse possible. The risk of sexual abuse is hard, if not impossible, to eradicate from a social network that tries to make millions of people physically meet.

The alarming aspect of this case is that it reveals the fact that Couchsurfing makes it possible for any user to repeatedly sexually abuse other users. The same person on the same platform was able to sexually abuse 14 different people. Even after being caught by the police.

How did Dino Maglio get away with it for so long? By fooling you in a variety of ways. The drugs he used caused memory loss, so many victims were not able to precisely recall what had happened, and gave him the benefit of the doubt. Those who did recall would sometimes confront him via Facebook. In response he would threaten them with defamation charges, and some victims backed down. Others who did recall would leave him a negative reference on Couchsurfing.com, one victim reported him directly.

Your response at the time was to take down his Couchsurfing profile.

His response? Create a new one, and carry on.

Dino Maglio’s case reveals an enormous security issue on the website, affecting every single member of the community. It shows that Couchsurfing guests are much more vulnerable to sexual assault than we previously thought. It makes every seemingly good host a potential suspect.

An alarming response

Why didn’t you talk to the Couchsurfing community about the incident?

In the days following the reports, you merrily retweeted happy Couchsurfers’ tweets, and wrote a blog post about happy travellers in happy Australia.

I learned about Dino Maglio’s case thanks to an article in The Guardian, not you.

You did not release a statement to the Couchsurfing community to make this vulnerability known to everybody, and encourage users to exercise exta precautions while you fix it.

Instead, you issued a statement to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation News, declaring

“We would like the community to know safety is a top priority for us, and we’re constantly evolving our tools and processes to find and halt abusers of our system.”

Look, you have a website, a blog, a twitter account, and means to email every single on of us. The standard procedure to tell something to your community is… to talk to the community. Not to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. Basically, you prioritised Public Relations over community.

One of us even tweeted to you twice asking you about the incident. No reply.

“Share Your Life” is one of your values. “Couchsurfing is about sharing your life, your experiences, your journey, your home, your extra almonds or a majestic sunset.” It should also be about sharing your security issues.

But let’s get to the other part of your quote. The bit about your security tools and processes.

What exactly are you doing to prevent cases like Dino Maglio’s from happening?

These rapes happened in spite of his positive references or lack thereof. These rapes would have happened even if Dino Maglio underwent your “verification” process, paid you $15 to get verified, received a postcard at his address, and confirmed your SMS.

The security measures you have in place allowed Dino Maglio to drug and sexually abuse 14 different people – 14 different Couchsurfing guests.

Admittedly, Dino Maglio’s cunning moves were hard for you to detect. But I doubt that they are impossible for you to anticipate.

You claim that:

“we’re constantly evolving our tools and processes to find and halt abusers of our system.”

and that you have

“an intelligence service to track down and take down user profiles in such cases”

All very nice, but when the Espresso magazine, and then one of us, over Twitter, asked you what these tools, processes, and intelligence service are, you… Didn’t reply.

We call bullshit. We don’t think you’re actually planning to prevent cases like Dino Maglio from happening. Because we don’t believe you care enough about your users.

There is this little clause in the Terms of Use you make every single one of us agree to:

Please note that although we encourage you to report misconduct, we are not responsible or liable for our members’ actions, and we are not obligated to take any action.

Sure enough, it’s natural that you are not responsible for a rapist raping, the rapist is. But when rapists find a way to use your website to repeatedly rape people, you… aren’t obligated to take any action to prevent that from happening..?

So when we hear you tell this to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation:

“These horrific crimes hit close to home on a deeply personal level for everyone here at Couchsurfing. We’re reminded that these women could have been any of us, our friends, or family.”

we don’t buy it. Friends and family are people we do have obligations towards, not people we explicitly disclaim obligations from.

Here’s something else you said (also to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation):

“The safety of our community is of the utmost concern, which is why we have a dedicated trust and safety team that is available to help our users at any time during and after their travel.”

Really? At any time? Well, suppose I’m an unexperienced Couchsurfer, I’m at a very dodgy host’s house, I want to talk to someone from Couchsurfing.com to know what to expect from a host. There’s no phone number. I need to “Submit a request”, which is basically a glorified email to let you know that I’m having a potentially dangerous experience at the moment. Click here to submit your request. That’s how you manifest your “utmost concern” in dangerous situations.

It doesn’t look like you care enough to prevent cases like Dino Maglio’s from happening.

The Context

Dino Maglio’s case was pretty gruesome. Maybe it caught you totally by surprise, the press put you under pressure, you didn’t want your users to panic. Would the dire circumstances justify the clumsy response?

No, because your actions before Dino Maglio’s case tell a different story. Discontent has grown exponentially these last few months, and your response to it was, just like to Dino Maglio’s case, scarce, desultory, and disappointing.

You’ve substantially redesigned the front-end of the website. Even though barely any one of your users actually required it.

You’ve introduced ads all over your website. Even though you said “We will never advertise on Couchsurfing. Ever.” Some of the ads are for hotels.

You’ve “simplified our site by removing the vouching feature since references are the primary way to endorse other members.” Was that a good reason to remove a security measure?

You’re encouraging your users to “get Verified”, and advertise it as a way to “build trust”. But it consists of making a credit card payment, and receiving a postcard or an SMS.

The last issue is topical. You keep encouraging your users to “get Verified”, and thereby “build trust”. But it consists of making a credit card payment, and receiving a postcard or an SMS. It would not have prevented Dino Maglio from raping his Couchsurfing guests. You’re actively infusing a false sense of security through your community.

Discontent towards these issues and several more is epitomised by what people are posting on the New Couchsurfing discussion Group on Facebook.

Their complaints, criticisms, and comments go unanswered by you. Several hospitality exchange websites, your competitors, are now currently recruiting or being created on that Facebook group in response to your lack of response.

In other words, your lack of care. Your perfunctory response to Dino Maglio’s case shows that these are not isolated clumsy incidents, they’re all signs that you might not care anymore.

Conclusion

Maybe all this could be seen under a more generous light, after all, you’re originally the product of the efforts of a group of people, many of them working for free, who wanted to establish a nonprofit organisation devoted to furthering travelling and cultural exchange. Maybe this is how young idealistic websites act when they’re forced to become corporate. Growing pains. People made a fuss when you became for profit, but we stood by your side. We don’t forget that thanks to you, and your spirit, we met good people while travelling with you over the past years.

The Dino Maglio case was an opportunity for you to reassure the community about your good heart, and to show us you care. But instead your response was appalling. You didn’t speak to the community about a security issue that affects every member of it. You instead issued statements to media outlets in which you assured everyone of your regret, sorrow, and “evolution” of your security measures. When asked (by both the media and your users) about what that “evolution” consists of, you don’t answer.

Your behavior over these past months makes us seriously question your good heart. You haven’t shown commitment and accountability to the community. The way you’ve handled the present crisis so far is apaling.

Create Connection, Leave It Better Than You Found It, are still your values, right? And Transparency and Accountability are values dear to a “socially responsible, Certified B Corporation” like you, right?

So get your act together. What concrete steps are you taking to prevent cases like Dino Maglio’s from happening again?

Ariel

Carole

Solal

Milton